"I can't believe I'm
Losing my time
By hating myself
Because I'm not spending it right
I'm done with the voices
Don't care about fear
And try to remind myself I am still here
I miss the excitement from when I was young
But every day is a new one
My life just begun"
"Open Blinds" – DROELOE
It felt as if all of her insides were being squeezed to her outer extremities. The pressure of a side-along apparition compounded by either inexpertise, the stranger's unwillingness to maintain his hanger-on, or simply the fact that it'd been since the end of the war that she'd had to endure such unpleasantness. In any case, both arrived at their destination in a kind of forward rolling cartwheel, arse over tit.
When they'd finally rolled into a painful skid, both of their skin abrading on the asphalt, Hermione was able to glance up at her captive from where she still had hold of him around the knees. His torso was torqued to the right, in an attempt to roll them over so he could crawl, though he couldn't quite manage, with the entirety of her weight on his trapped shins.
He was reaching above his head for something, straining and grunting as his fingers flexed to find whatever it was he sought. She realised then that he didn't have his wand—it must have flown out of his hand with the inertia of their joint tumble. She did have hers, however.
Before he had the presence of mind to summon it with wandless magic, she bodily manoeuvered up to straddle his chest and put him in a full body bind, before she glanced around.
Luckily there were no bystanders of any kind, the alley he'd apparated them to was more desolate and dirty than the one they'd come from, but she took the added precaution of warding them in with a notice-me-not charm.
By the end of it all, she was panting for air and beneath her he was straining to get out words through his clenched teeth, locked together as they were, his face reddening with the effort. An angry flush had spread from his cheeks to his ears.
She inspected his face closely, her wand trained underneath his chin, jabbing him in the throat. He managed a pathetic jerk of his head and neck, and weak though it was, she knew that he was willfully trying to break out of the body bind, and that given enough time, he was magically powerful enough to do so, even wandless.
The jerk revealed something else, however. Almost like the disillusionment charm in effect, his features didn't flow correctly with his movement, seeming to hesitate before they jumped back to cover what seemed to exist underneath. A glamour.
"Who are you," she muttered, not expecting any reply. She growled, sounding feral, though it wasn't as deep or full throated as the one Eileen had expressed earlier. She scooted up so her knees dug into each of his shoulders, pinning him to the ground in a way she hoped was painful. "Who are you to threaten me and my godson..."
His eyes widened the more he was able to study her in return, the colour retreating slowly from his face. His eyes darted over her features, the cold blue of the irises lagging similar to the way his entire face had earlier, the effect being an extremely eerie shadow. It appeared that his real eye colour was far darker.
Hermione gathered her courage around her. It was either this or to call the Aurors and have them handle the situation.
"Finite Incantatum."
In an instant, the false face dissolved.
In its place was revealed a face she'd never thought she'd see again: the snarling visage of her former Potions Master.
Her mouth opened and closed, fish like, of its own accord. She scrambled back, off the man's shoulders and chest, and rolled to the side, a mere foot away to the left.
Snape managed his way to his elbows, still in a reclined position on the ground beside her, having been released from the body-bind by her Finite. He slowly, deliberately, rolled his head on his shoulders, his neck emitting a series of painful-sounding cracks, before he trained his spider-black eyes on her, his jaw working silently.
Neither said a word for a long time. Merely observing each other in mute fascination. Him, with a look of frustrated consternation, an undercurrent of fear seeming to gird him from taking action. Hermione stared back in dazed amazement, though she was grateful that she'd finally had the presence of mind to close her gaping mouth.
Finally, Snape seemed to find his infamous voice, well before she did. "Well, Granger, what's your plan now? A patronus to the magical constabulary?"
Interestingly, he truly seemed curious, if not worried. He was taking no action against her, remaining reclined in the dirt, watching her like a cornered animal.
Hermione mouth worked silently as she frowned at him, drawing herself up to sit cross-legged, leaning against the dumpster behind her. Each thing she thought to say, she thought better of, and her hand made its way to cover her mouth and support her chin and head as she considered him, her elbow propped up on one of her knees.
Behind knitted brows she regarded him for a long moment. The deeper the silence grew the more sorrowful, and yet resolved he appeared to her. Finally, he broke their eye contact and stared down at his feet—as if saying goodbye to them and the rest of himself.
"I think we both know that if I called them 'round you'd be killed. Probably before you ever made it to a Ministry holding cell."
He seemed to deflate at her words, his shoulders sagging in and his chest collapsing with them.
"You're not even going to try to defend yourself?"
"Defend myself from what? From whom, Granger?" His voice was tired. Resigned.
Instead of answering his question, Hermione narrowed her eyes at him from her lopsided position. "I'm not sure I understand, Professor. Though you managed to somehow survive Nagini's attack, evade capture during Barnam Aethelfromm's purges for something like eight years, operated under the scrutiny of one of the darkest wizards known in recent history for almost twenty years as a double, or even at times triple, agent...you come around now, in a rather pitiful disguise, show up in a heavily restricted, entirely magical area and conduct yourself through the neighborhood looking for all the world like an obvious thief or criminal. What in the hell happened to you, sir? Where is your legendary judgement? Your discretion?"
Snape stared at her, jaw slightly slack, looking agog.
"I mean, maybe, maybe you're not even him. Maybe there's something deeper going on, and you are trying to resurrect the spectre of my old professor, because frankly, sir, I'm not buying it. I mean, for fuck's sake you were taken down by someone fifty pounds lighter than you and you're almost a foot taller! I felt paranoid as soon as I knew you were looking in my direction, yet you somehow lack the innate sense that you're being creeped up on by a bloody social worker of all things."
"Are you quite finished?"
Hermione nodded her head, her expression dark. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and for all the world it looked like she could have kept on going for quite a bit longer.
"Good. You'd better hope it is me, Granger, because anyone else and you might be in considerable danger." He said, finally pushing to his feet. He stooped to retrieve his wand from where it had flown and used it to clean the dirt off of his much-abused jeans.
"Is that so?" she asked, still sitting, not intimidated by his standing height.
"What do you think anyone would be doing, if they set out to try and be me?" His stance widened into one with which she was familiar: feet hip-width apart, arms crossed against a proud chest, and nose in the air, as if he was above it all.
She snorted at the sheer pretense and leaned back more comfortably against her dumpster, meeting his gaze from four feet down and showing absolutely no intention of moving or of standing when he stood.
"I'm not entirely sure, Sir. I'd expect them to be suicidal, though. And you did a bloody brilliant job of being caught. I'm not even in any sort of good practice anymore, I can't imagine what the Auror's would make of you. And you all but invited me to summon them. Tell me, do you have a death wish?"
This seemed to break Snape's bravado. He swallowed thickly and his shoulder's rounded, taking away an inch or two of his height, and almost all of his assumed confidence. His gaze sought the ground to his left instead of meeting her eyes in their righteous indignation.
"No." He swallowed again. His adam's apple bobbing in his thin throat. Over it, Hermione could make out a thick pad of scar tissue that must have been the result of Nagini's attack. It had been covered by his glamour. He took a step toward her.
It was rather unexpected, but as he approached, he offered her a hand up. "No, I don't have a death wish." He said again, sullen as a scolded child. "Come, Granger, and I'll tell you all about how I came to be such a washed up, useless shit stain."
Hermione blinked rapidly in surprise. His language was... far more vulgar than she remembered. Particularly in reference to himself. Yet, after a beat she accepted the hand, and with a slight tug, he had her levered to her feet, demonstrating that for all he seemed a defeated man, he wasn't as weak as all of his actions might have led her to believe.
"I'm still not sure you're him." She said firmly, once on her feet. Their hands were still grasped between them.
He gulped and cast around the alley, as if looking for a way out, before he gripped his wand tightly and met her steely gaze. "On my wand, I am who I appear to be. I am Severus Snape."
For the barest second their clasped hands glowed golden, verifying the truth of his statement.
Finally, the knut really did drop, and Hermione's face was almost comical. "You really are... you're really him... Gods, Professor, what the hell happened to you?"
He sneered and turned from her. "Don't fucking pity me, Granger. And don't call me Professor anymore. Or sir," he sneered, "or anything else of that variety of dross."
He took a few long-legged strides out of the alley, leading them to the beginning of a fire escape at a building that looked almost abandoned. Hermione followed hot on his heels, ascending after him to the entrance up the first flight of stairs.
"What am I to call you then?"
"Use your imagination." He snarked, unwarding the door with a complicated motion of his wand over the keyhole.
He ushered her inside the building.
For several moments after entering, Hermione found herself quite speechless. Not to mention shivering—though not from fear. The temperature inside was nearing freezing.
It seemed he'd been allowed the full use of the space. Ascending upwards in a broad spiral, each floor was nothing more than a landing with expanded metal mesh for floors, and a short steel staircase leading to the next landing, and so on. In the middle, the space was entirely empty, so that one could stare down from near the top, all the way to the ground floor.
She'd not known what she'd been expecting, but what she found certainly she couldn't have imagined had she been given months to dream it up.
It was filled, from floor to ceiling with enormous, tall, black boxes, lit up with thousands of lights arranged in an array, emitting a chirping chorus of beeps and the ever-present whirring of fans. Cables stretched from one to the other, connecting each one down the line, and if she leaned to the side to check the back, there were hundreds more cables, plugged into a rear-array of ports.
It was a giant, expansive, floor-to-ceiling server farm.
"Come, Granger. I don't have all day, and I'd rather not carry you upstairs."
"I'm sorry. It's not what I was expecting..."
He snorted softly from ahead of her. "And what were you expecting? Yet another dungeon? Perhaps a perfect recreation of Hogwarts'?"
She laughed softly, a step behind him on the stairs. "Well... honestly no, but I at least thought it'd be cauldrons."
He stopped abruptly, and she almost slammed into his back. "Ah..." His hand grip tightened on the rail. "I suppose there is that." And he continued on as if he'd not slowed to begin with.
As they ascended each tier, Hermione was able to glance around, still in awe at the scale of this strange, and unexpected, operation. She wasn't at all familiar with muggle computers, having only putzed around on one her parents owned while she had spent time with them. Even at University she'd done her best to avoid using them. She vaguely thought she could sense that this might have been an order of magnitude more involved, and she knew for a fact that muggle computing had evolved since she'd last touched one—now small enough to be brought and set up at cafes and just about anywhere muggles would frequent.
These were something else, however. She couldn't fathom what he was using them for.
Eventually, after the seventh tier of servers, there was a sudden shift in the atmosphere and lighting in the middle of a staircase, coinciding with a ceiling, or perhaps a floor, that wouldn't allow the person on it to gaze down the center of the stairwell. It was nearly a twenty-degree difference in temperature, feeling comfortable and probably hospitable for humans to enjoy spending any amount of time in without the use of heavy down coats.
They emerged into a sparsely furnished living space, something not dissimilar to her studio apartment, where a small kitchenette occupied one corner. On the opposite wall stood an over-large desk, where a multitude of muggle computer screens and smaller computer towers (and a precariously stacked pile of papers and notes) stood surrounded by a collection of mugs and aluminium cans. She thought she may have seen the remains of the morning's breakfast sitting on a plate by the mouse.
Posters covered the corner that the desk occupied, and shelves with what appeared to be miniature figurines, though Hermione didn't feel too terribly interested in any of them.
Through another door, to their immediate left appeared to be a dark bedroom, mostly empty but for a single-wide bed, strewn with messy sheets and a coverlet in disarray, and, finally, a utilitarian bathroom, the shower stall seeming as if it might have been too small for Snape to even fit inside comfortably.
These details she was only privy to because all of the doors stood open. The flat was a mild, though not alarming, mess.
In the meantime Snape had turned back to her, the tips of his ears, which protruded out past his hair, giving the only clue to how he was feeling. His head was cast downward so his hair, longer than she'd ever actually seen it, and more tangled to boot, shielded his face from view. His overlarge ears were colouring a reluctant red.
Though Hermione would never have thought she'd be able to read the notoriously buttoned-up man's mercurial moods in the past, it was clear to her now that he was feeling humiliated.
"Cozy," she said, carefully and at great length. "Same size as my flat." It was offered with a small smile. An olive branch she hoped he'd take.
The man snorted and turned, entering the kitchen, so Hermione took the opportunity to seat herself on one of the tall stools pulled up to the small island that separated the space from the rest of the room.
"I wasn't expecting company today." He snarled, but his back was to her, his shoulders tight with tension. He clearly still felt defensive.
Hermione swallowed nervously, feeling out of her element. It was her natural, and trained response, to try and put people, usually her clients, at ease. "It's no messier than my place—"
"Shut. Up. Granger." His hands were gripped tight on the edge of the countertop, his posture radiating irritation and shame.
Years ago she might have been cowed, but anymore? She dealt with ornery old people day in and day out. After her repertoire of ice-breaking commentary, she had learned it was best to meet people where they were. To try and even the playing field.
"Stop feeling embarrassed, Snape. I know you weren't planning for me to be here." He growled in response, but also, after a few seconds, relaxed, and continued whatever it was he had moved to do in the tiny eating area.
A minute later, and to her great surprise, a plate with a handful of biscuits was tossed in front of her onto the island.
"Help yourself. There's no tea left—ran out this morning."
She shrugged and grabbed a biscuit, "Thank you." Then lifting her eyebrow, she tried her luck: "Is there anything to drink?"
"Diet pop's in the fridge. Or water from the tap."
"Could I have a glass of water, please?"
Snape surprised her by nodding, face devoid of censure, but also of any other emotion. He fulfilled her request, reaching across the counter between them to set the glass down, and then pushed the door to the fridge open with his foot, grabbing a silver can for himself. After having secured his own beverage, he traveled around the island and sat next to her in the other stool, helping himself to his own biscuit. It seemed the man had a sweet tooth if the abandoned breakfast was any indication: it was some kind of flaky pastry coated in powdered sugar.
"So..." Hermione began, awkwardly, breaking both the silence and momentary peace of the moment. "No cauldrons at all?"
"What do you take me for, Granger? Of course, there are cauldrons."
She raised an eyebrow, looking around the studio once more. "Where?"
He snorted in derision, "You think I keep them out where just anyone could see them? They're upstairs. Ingredients? Upstairs. Books, upstairs." Snape spoke into his pop can, jerking his thumb upwards toward the next landing.
"Well, excuse me for supposing that you probably didn't have company over often." Hermione half snarled, taking a bite of what turned out to be a ginger snap.
An angry look passed over his face. For just a moment, Hermione thought she had reawakened her sleeping Professor from this strange, not-quite-inert but definitely suspicious passivity that had seemingly become his mien. But then he merely turned his eyes to the plate. "You don't know anything. You don't know me. You didn't then, and you don't now. So don't pretend to. I have people over frequently."
"Sorry, sir—" he glowered at her. "Snape. Sorry, Snape. I thought you were in hiding. Usually, people in hiding don't go hosting shindigs at their..." She struggled for an appropriate term and he seemed amused at her floundering, a rare quarter smile lifting up just the very corner of one side of his mouth.
"...bachelor pads..." she finished, lamely, gesturing around with an open palm at their surroundings.
He only shrugged. A casual, yet lopsided gesture that threw his broad frame into a state of asymmetry. "Most people on the run don't lead a whole new second life where close cooperation with their coworkers requires regular visitation." He sighed. "I could have lived like a rat, on what I could catch or steal. I prefer to work, Granger."
She nodded, feeling she could understand.
He looked at her shrewdly for a moment before heaving a heavy sigh. "I suppose you have questions. And from the toddler you left at my mother's house I'm assuming you don't have all the time in the world."
Hermione shook her head no. "I didn't want to rush... whatever this was. But no. I told your mother I'd be back soon... but I also told her I supposed you might be another resident. It's conceivable that it might take more than a few minutes to settle someone experiencing... difficulties back at home."
"So that's what you do now, is it? Wrangle invalids?"
She gave him a half-hearted glare, "I suppose invalid is less degrading than 'loony,' so... in a word, yes. I'm a community liaison for the Wizarding Outreach to the Elderly Department."
"Making my mother one of these... invalids."
"Erm... well... she's not mentally unfit. Not like some of my clients." Hermione shared, uncomfortably. "Is she why you were skulking around? You were doing a piss poor job of playing it cool, Snape."
"War has consequences, Granger."
"Yes, but I still don't understand—the you from eight years ago never would have been caught dead being so damned obvious. I'm still not sure what you were thinking."
Snape rubbed a tired hand over his pale face, pulling at his bottom eyelids as if scrubbing sand out of them. "I'm not who I was then."
"I get that people change..."
"It's a bit more than just... letting myself go. The things that happened. The injuries I sustained... they changed me as much as surviving through the aftermath did." He finally took a bite of the biscuit that had been resting in his hand, untouched, and chewed thoughtfully.
"What do you think it does to a person's nervous system to have undiluted snake venom from a magical hybrid breed coursing through their veins? Nagini bit me in the neck, not the leg like Arthur Weasley got. It touched every inch of my blood stream. No muscle was left undamaged—"
"Sir..." Hermione began, her eyes shining with sympathy.
"Stop that, Granger!" He snarled, though he didn't look at her. "Let me fucking finish. I was lucky enough that you three buggered off. I was lucky enough that I'd dosed myself with antivenin before the fact. Hell, I was lucky enough that I was able to apparate myself to a muggle hospital before passing out the second time—and I still might have died. I was in a coma for weeks. When I woke up... I had to relearn how to walk. I couldn't talk for four months. And only then because I smuggled additional potions into the regimen they had me on. I was only able to start taking the required dosages when they had finally released me from hospital."
"It's your nervous system, isn't it?" she asked, taking a sip from her glass.
"Yes. I used to be blessed with extraordinary sight, smell, the ability to perceive sounds... all dulled now. I have difficulty with wandless magic where before it was an especial talent of mine. And my critical thinking... it's generally still quite good, but..." he sighed. "Perhaps Albus had a point when he said I'd been sorted too early... I behave sometimes like a goddamned Gryffindor. It used to be a bigger problem in my youth but..." He seemed to be struggling with either words or his explanation.
"...Your impulse control is impacted." Hermione said, considering him carefully. As if he were a client whom she was screening for Luenfeldters.
He only nodded, the gesture defeated. "Not always severely, no, but... if I want something enough... feel desperately about anything—it's hard to stop myself. I only found where my mother was this morning. I barely thought about what I was doing... I just wanted to see her." His face was grim with desolation. "Usually, I could route such inane impulses with Occlumency, but..."
"You lost that too?"
"Not as such, no. I can still employ it on occasion. But it is not without consequences. Severe consequences. Migraines. Night Terrors. And that's if I'm lucky. I tried to use it almost as much as I did while spying during my recovery, to try and shift my focus from the pain in my neck... and it led to a psychotic break. I was sectioned for a week in the psychiatric ward when I came in for one of my appointments spouting off about the Dark Lord. It was lucky that the doctors thought it was just another consequence of the neurological damage—I didn't get any lasting diagnoses that would impact my progress in the muggle world. But I'm quite unwilling to suffer through that again.
"I'm not the man I was. I cannot be." He huffed a deep sigh through his nose and then suddenly turned to her. "Now that I have satisfied your curiosity," he sneered, "perhaps you will be so kind as to do the same."
Hermione shrugged, and tried not to exude the pity for the man she was feeling, knowing it wouldn't be well met. It seemed best not to comment on his story whatsoever. "What do you want to know?"
"My mother. Is she well?" the anxiety in his face was shattering. His eyes sorrowful but also surprisingly expectant.
Hermione hesitated. She didn't know how much she should reveal, given the privileges of privacy between herself and her client, but she also felt compelled to share what she knew. And really... it wasn't so very much. Wasn't so terribly consequential... "Eileen's doing fairly well. I know you haven't seen her since you joined the Death Eaters. She misses you terribly. She's certainly still mourning." Finally, at seeing the look of tremulous hope on his face, she told him almost all she thought she knew. It wouldn't hurt... she didn't think Eileen would hate her for it anyway.
"She only came to us a month and a half ago. She found me at my office, told me that her muggle housing had been taken from her after thirty years due to an administrative error,"
Snape growled, his eyes downcast and flashing and his hand clenching around the can, causing it to crumple slightly in his fist.
"I know. It's awful. I was able to set her up with full time housing, once she was willing to admit to me who she really was. She doesn't use her magic anymore—"
"I know. She gave me her wand years ago. She's effectively opted into being a squib."
"Yeah," Hermione said with regret. "And even if she were to pick it up again I'm not sure she could use one... but she has me. And I had Harry come by to help ward her house. We gave her a few options to protect herself should any of your old crowd come to knock. She has a line to the Aurory just in case, and she doesn't seem lonely. I've many clients whom I don't think ever leave their homes—Eileen's not like that. I know she goes down to the recreational centre and plays gobstones with some other women a couple times a week," she chuckled. "Apparently, she cleans house."
Snape smiled that small, strange quarter smile again, his eyes trained at the pop can in his hand where it rested on the island.
"She's told me that she's found a knitting group in Waldweirness. Complains every time I come by that they're clique-y but if you ask me, she'll make it to the top of the food chain and be holding court sooner rather than later. She's told me more about the gossip from Waldweirness than I'd ever thought to know as just their community liaison."
"You sound like you spend a lot of time with her."
She paused... feeling for the first time self-conscious about it. "I like your mother a lot. I can't speak for her, though she likely finds me at least somewhat annoying... but she tolerates me."
Hermione felt all but exposed. She wasn't about to admit to Snape that she sought out his mother for company, particularly that she visited the witch more than was strictly necessary. She refused to mention that at least twice a week she'd heft a Chudley-Cannons-orange box of treats with her to the woman's abode and share tea with her while gossiping about the goings on in Waldweirness-on-Thames, nor that Eileen Snape was the only person in the whole of her rounds... not to mention in the whole of Hermione's life... with whom she spent any amount of voluntary time.
Hell. She hadn't really considered the implications of it herself.
"And the child? Yours?"
That earned an earnest laugh, so unexpected was it. "No!" she said between giggles, "No, that's Harry and Ginny's oldest—James."
"Fucking of course they would."
That earned absolute guffaws. She could barely breathe through her laughter.
"Dear Merlin, woman! I fail to see what's so funny about Potter being unoriginal—"
"That's just it, Snape!" she wheezed, still chortling, "You don't know the name of his second son!"
He blanched, looking mildly ill. "What, pray tell, would that little monster's moniker be?"
"Albus..." and she wheezed again, barely able to say it, "Sev—! Albus—hahaha—Severus!"
Snape's face had taken on a deathly pallor, and then, seconds later he blushed to the roots of his hair, and again, curiously, the tips of his enormous ears. Whether from embarrassment or fury, she couldn't be sure. "You're joking... Fuck! Tell me you're joking, Granger!"
She laughed even more uproariously, leaning back and nearly tipping her stool backwards, before he gripped her below the knee and jerked her back to safety with a sharp tug on her shin.
He let go again as quickly as he could, as if touching her were enough to set fire to his hand, but the area where it had made contact with her, even through her jeans, felt curiously warm. Like it was more alive than the rest of her at that moment. Still, it took several moments for her to quiet her hooting.
When she finally managed to wipe away her mirthful tears, and examine the man across from her, he appeared sullen. The can was now a pancake of silver metal that he must have crushed all the way in his irritation. "Don't be such a grump, Snape. He meant it well."
Snape only curled his lip in a sneer, but the rest of his face wasn't in it. He seemed curiously defeated.
"I probably have to get back to Waldweirness anyway. Your mum only agreed to take James for a bit while I dropped off groceries to the other residents—"
"Then that's the way of it? Wrangling invalids and grocery delivery?"
Ah. This was the Snape she was most familiar with. The nasty, petty one. The one who had mocked her teeth in fourth year. The one who had infamously pushed Harry's vial of potion off the desk to fail him for the class. The one who had threatened to poison Neville's toad.
He may not have been above any of that, still. But she was. And he couldn't make her stoop to his level.
"It is, yeah. And if you want to be a bitch to me over it you'll find plenty of allies. I'm sure you and Minerva," he winced visibly at her name, "my parents, Gin and Harry will be in great company. You can all throw a party to mock me together over my failures. Don't bother to invite me though. There are people who need me—they won't eat otherwise." She said, though by the end of it, it had definitely come out more snide than she'd intended. Oh well.
"Christ, Granger! Don't be so goddamn self-righteous—I wasn't judging you."
Hermione found herself gaping like a fish, floundering for words and finding none.
He looked grim for a moment. "Being normal isn't shameful. I'm just surprised, is all. I'd never thought you'd lower yourself to take a job that wasn't rewarded richly in awards, praise, and public commendations over your achievements."
"Then you don't appear to have known me very well either."
"No, it would appear not."
She slumped and rested her elbows on the counter. What was another few minutes? Perhaps her client needed her for just a bit longer... perhaps... well... she'd come up with an excuse later.
"What have you been doing? You seem to find pride in your work."
He quarter-smiled, taking another biscuit. "Perhaps for the first time."
"Well?" He only smirked at her. "What do I have to do to get a straight answer from you? Raise my hand in the air?" She did it, waving it around like she had once as a first year.
"Oh Merlin, no. Don't do that—" he growled, snatching her wrist and bringing it back down to her side while she chuckled softly. "Besides, when did that ever work out well for you in my classroom?"
She shrugged. "Worth a try. What are those, on the first few floors?"
"Servers."
She must have looked bewildered, because finally he took pity on her, smirking all the while.
"Giant computers, Granger."
"Well, yes, I got that, but..."
"There's a muggle game, on the internet. Named Galdrvale. It started up some ten years ago. That's before the end of the war, you'll note. Well—I wasn't involved at that point." His eyes were far away as he thought back.
"While I was in hospital—in the psychiatric ward, no less—I had a chance meeting with one of the developers. I doubt you'll ever meet him so there's no harm in telling you he was there for a suicide attempt. But when he first happened across me, I was still... well... I was raving. Perhaps it wouldn't have come across as the ravings of a lunatic to a wizard, but to the muggles? I seemed out of my head, talking about magic, the school, the war... but he was impressed. When I'd finally detoxed from the Occlumency I started to calm down—though those cretins thought I was responding well to their damn sedatives. Don't get me started on the hell those were."
His fingers were tapping the countertop in an agitated tempo, clearly feeling ashamed. "We were sectioned together for the week, and he wanted to hear more stories."
"Why had he tried to kill himself?" Hermione asked, her head resting in her palm.
"Their game was failing. As I understand such things, perhaps only in retrospect after having been involved for this long, it was playable from a game dynamic point-of-view... but the story was piss poor.
"Boring, uninspired. 'Hackneyed,' the critics had said. They were in debt up to their eyeballs and he was looking for a way out. But he liked my stories about the wizarding world, and his friend, the co-developer and financier, was willing to take one more turn on it... so I developed a new main quest line for them. It's not one-to-one with the wizarding world, but... it was far better than their own.
"We had no way of knowing that it would turn into the success it would. In the first year alone, the game went from a few thousand dedicated players to over a million. The subscription fees were enough to pay back the entirety of the loan and also allowed for them to pay me a small amount.
"Since then, it's only gotten better." He shrugged, as if it were of no consequence, but Hermione could see the pride in his eyes. "It doesn't look it from the studio, but I do quite well for myself, Granger." It was sneered. Clearly, he was still feeling sore over her perceived judgement of his abode. "I own the whole damn building. Those servers are worth millions of pounds and host the entire game, worldwide. Nerdy tossers the world over would give their left nut to be sitting where you are now." He smirked.
"No one knows I'm the writer. I demanded that I remain anonymous—and they were happy to let me. And happy to let me take responsibility for the servers. Once I had educated myself on how to maintain them of course... that took a while. Computers are funny things, Granger, but the coding for their mechanisms? They are not so very different from using runes or arithmancy to invent new potions or spells. There is an inherent sense to them. I've found the entire enterprise quite to my liking."
Hermione felt nearly speechless, but fought anyway to find something to say. In the end, it was lame, and probably inadequate, but indeed sincerely meant. "I'm glad for you... it sounds meaningful."
He smirked. "It is meaning enough for me."
"Don't know what to say
To wake up from the ruse
But I'll take control
Over what I will
Choose
to live by, strong intention,
I'll try
To host my intervention
Choose to live by, strong intention, I'll try
And try again, try again, try again, try again, try again"
"Open Blinds" (reprise) – DROELOE