TW* This behemoth of a chapter contains ambiguities that some readers might find problematic or distressing. Read at your own risk. PM me if you want details/clarification.
A/N 1: I'm posting this early because my little family and I are headed on a long-haul, extended trip starting this week. I might be slow answering reviews and PMs, but keep 'em coming! I hope to resume updating again by mid-December, or sooner if possible.
Chapter 37
The gibbous moon rose higher, casting the forest floor in shadows. The blood on Hermione's hands looked black, and she glanced uneasily at Snape before she dropped Carrow's wrist. The Death Eater was alive and would recover, although Hermione was certain he would be in a terrible state the following day.
"Do you think I make it a habit to kill people by accident?" Snape's voice was quiet, accusing.
"No," Hermione answered, modulating her own voice, "I thought you might have done it on purpose, actually. That magical whip… I think you collapsed one or both of his lungs." She peered at Snape's face through the gloom. "You were watching, weren't you... before? You heard what he said…?"
He took a deep breath and plunged a hand into his robes. Hermione heard the clinking of glass before he withdrew two tiny identical vials of potion. He approached her, holding out the vials.
"I require two hairs from you, Granger."
His voice brooked no argument, but Hermione frowned at him. Absurdly, she thought of the Polyjuice Potion she'd made from Snape's own stolen stores during her second year.
"What for?"
"A memory potion of my own invention. If you would prefer the Carrows to remember your part in this evening and punish you for it later, then by all means decline my request."
Hermione stood up, and Snape closed the distance between them, bending his head so that their eyes met, even in the dark.
"Are you all right?"
It was barely a whisper, and yet it warmed Hermione, who only then realised that she shivered where she stood. She nodded, and Snape raised a stark white hand and ran his fingers along a tendril of her hair, which had quite escaped its long plait during the duel. A sharp tug, and the dark man stepped away, already tucking the hairs into the vials of potion.
"Get back to the castle, Granger," he said without looking at her. "We can discuss your monstrous stupidity this evening another time. See to your people…" he knelt down and began to administer the potion to Alecto, "I'll attend to mine."
Hermione hurried back to the castle, checking the Map periodically as she navigated the forest, the grounds, and the corridors. Every DA dot she saw seemed to have returned either to the Room of Requirement or to their respective Common Rooms, but she couldn't help checking and re-checking that everyone was safe. At last, after circumventing a few junior DEs patrolling the hallways, Hermione stepped into DA Headquarters – and was immediately engulfed in a hug.
"You're all right, Hermione! Thank the gods and little fishes."
"Yes, I'm fine." Her smile for Neville fell away once she saw his face. "Oh, Neville."
"It looks worse than it is," he said jauntily, dismissing a severely bruised cheek and a bleeding lip. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder before adding, "Even Madam Pomfrey says so."
Hermione peered at the other end of Headquarters, where the Healer was stooped over a student on a narrow bed.
"How did she –"
"The Room did it, not too long ago, actually. Just opened up a passage into the hospital wing, and Pomfrey came running to help us. No one's hurt too badly, mostly just spell damage, a few bloody noses. The Carrows weren't really able to focus on anyone in particular and… well, the junior DEs got a bit distracted..." he trailed off, flushing, just as another shout echoed through the room.
"Hermione!" Ginny came running from the brain chain. She grabbed Hermione in a bear hug, rocking her from side to side. "Neville says you duelled Carrow!"
"You should really have left Carrow to Hagrid," Neville said in an undertone, "I was handling the Junior DEs."
"I saw it all on the Map, Neville." Hermione gave Ginny an extra squeeze before letting go. "I'm glad you got the junior DEs to leave the rest of your team alone, but I know you were surrounded at one point. So I sent Hagrid in to defuse the situation with Grawp."
"Yeah, and it did work, and without hurting anyone… But, Hermione, Hagrid told us that you had to go against Carrow alone. That wasn't part of the plan and… I'm not worth that."
"You're worth twelve times that."
Neville's smile brightened.
"Hermione handled that Death Eating son-of-a-hag anyway, didn't you, 'Mione?" Ginny quipped.
Hermione thought of the knife she'd held over Alecto Carrow's face, of Snape stepping out of the shadowy trees.
"Yes," she asserted, "and the Carrows will be out of commission for a while after tonight. And… they won't remember any of what I did to them."
"That's our fearless leader!" Neville said, wincing when his smile stretched the bruised corner of his mouth. "Crabbe and Goyle will remember everything that happened to them tonight but…" his face positively glowed with mischief, "I reckon that's a good thing."
"And how did things go for you?" Hermione asked Ginny.
"Like a wand through pudding. Half a dozen junior DEs went for the decoy brooms, and they got about fifty feet up before the brooms started bucking. It was hilarious. Then we just went once around the castle and up to the Owlery. Honestly, I wish I'd seen a bit more fighting."
"You did plenty, believe me," Hermione said earnestly. "Both of you did. I tracked everyone's movements – Team One was already here before the Carrows even took the field. That wouldn't have happened if we hadn't all stuck to our parameters. I'm so proud of you two."
Hermione spent the better part of an hour debriefing her lieutenants, checking in with Professor McGonagall, and helping Madam Pomfrey to patch up the last of Neville's fighters. Despite the risks and trials of the night, morale was up, the DA's position had improved, they'd gained valuable intelligence, and the Carrows were temporarily neutralized – all in one fell swoop. Best of all, the person most at risk at any point had been Hermione herself.
Just as it should be, she thought to herself as she finally retired to her small bedroom.
But you didn't tell them, the confident voice of her Mind's Eye intoned as she peeled off her clothes to shrug into her nightgown. You didn't tell them how you actually won the duel…
Hermione was about to shrug off that thought when something else occurred to her. She reached for the robes she'd just discarded, fishing the Map out of the inner sleeve pocket. She scanned the parchment, once, twice.
"He's gone," she muttered to herself.
"Ahem," said a sharp voice, as if in answer.
Her heart in her throat, Hermione turned to face the empty painting on the far wall.
"Come in, Professor Black."
The little man stepped into the frame and gave her a deliberate looking-over.
"You seem to have escaped tonight unscathed," he bit out, regarding her beadily.
"By your scathing tone, you take issue with that."
"I do take issue when idiotic, childish histrionics take precedence over the well-being of the excellent person I serve."
Hermione felt a flush of guilt rising from her chest to stain her cheeks.
"Where is he?"
"A particularly stupid question, Miss Granger."
With Voldemort – he must have been summoned to account for what happened. But wait – she snatched up the Map again, checking the Slytherin dormitories before scanning the rest of the castle and grounds – Malfoy is gone too. They've both gone to answer for tonight…
Hermione turned back to the portrait, ready to demand answers, but she held her questions when she saw that Phineas's countenance had fallen; he didn't look sharp or clever or cunning. Instead, he looked slumped and stooped and defeated. "Phineas…" she began, the worry and guilt in her chest giving way to the hollow feeling that often accompanied a huge, immeasurable mistake, "what can I do?"
"We have no choice but to wait. I can tell you that Severus left the castle of his own accord – he was not summoned. And so I hope that he has devised some way to pre-empt castigation and to… keep the matter in hand."
Vague hope arose in her, but she squashed it down at once, thinking of the memory Malfoy had shown her before the disastrous scene in the Great Hall – Bellatrix and her desire to take over at Hogwarts…
"Well… I'll just wait for him to come back."
She stood up and made as if to approach the mahogany door.
"No!" the little man said, pushing at the edge of the frame in his agitation. "We do not know if Severus will be unaccompanied when he comes back. No, Miss Granger, you must remain here. I will alert you to his return, and then you can..." he trailed off, shrugging miserably.
Hermione nodded at the little man and settled herself down onto her bed. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep, but she could do a much-needed chakra meditation; her duel with Carrow had drained not just her energy, but her magic significantly, and her Mind's Eye clearly needed tending. And so, despite the anxiety still suffusing her, Hermione sat cross-legged, and performed the slow ritual of lighting each of her chakras in turn, from her red root chakra at the base of her spine, to the glowing violet chakra at her crown. Her breathing slowed, and the evening's emotional turmoil – from triumph, pleasure and joy, to fear, guilt and worry – slowed down, leaving her feeling open but guarded, safe but alert.
"Ahem," Phineas said again, after quite some time had passed. "He returned... a few minutes ago, in fact. Alone," he added, before she could ask.
Hermione tried to retain her calm, but found it difficult. She opened her eyes and saw that the portrait had composed himself once more.
"How is he?" she asked.
"I… I am not sure if it is advisable for you to go to him tonight, after all, Hermione."
Something in Phineas's tone sparked her worry once more.
"What's happened, Phineas?" She stood up and walked until she was just inches from the painted man. "Tell me – please."
"I do not know, Hermione, but…" the portrait faltered, taking a deep breath, "but this is the worst I have seen him in well over a year. I think…" his voice, usually snide, slid into a confiding tone, "I think you might be the only person in the world who can bring him to the point he has reached this evening. And," he continued when she opened her mouth to answer, "you are therefore the only person who might be capable of bringing him back. But, as I said, he is not in a state to see anyone. And I believe he might do something he would regret should you approach him."
Hermione stepped back and took a deep breath. She took a long minute to go over everything that had happened to Snape over the course of the past year: killing Dumbledore, acting as Headmaster while trying to rein in the monstrous Carrows, and satisfying the demands Voldemort continually imposed upon him. Add to that the fact that everyone in the wizarding world believed him to be no better than a murdering turn cloak, and Hermione could see how a night like tonight – designed specifically to destabilize Hogwarts – would correspondingly destabilize Severus.
And then he had to go and report to Voldemort himself…
She turned back to the portrait.
"I'll go to him. I'll… I will try to explain myself and I'll… try to help him."
He nodded hesitantly, and Hermione approached the mahogany door.
"Just – " Phineas said, as she turned the knob, "do be careful, Granger."
"I can handle him, Phineas."
She'd stepped through the door before the little man could issue a rejoinder, and found herself in Snape's quiet sitting room. The drapes were drawn, and a low fire burned in the grate at the far side of the room.
"Snape?" she called softly. She cleared her throat. "Severus?"
She walked slowly across the room, keeping her wand to hand. She opened the first door to an empty, immaculate laboratory. The second revealed that his bedroom was vacant as well. And so Hermione braced herself and walked through the third door, down the corridor, and then up the winding stairs to the opulent office she had come to despise.
She emerged in the recesses of the circular room, back beyond the desk, where a number of spindly tables usually stood to display their puffing, tinkling instruments. But Hermione didn't step into the perfect office; instead, she stepped into a dishevelled, chaotic mess of glass, broken instruments, and smashed furniture.
"Severus?" she called, half wishing to turn back.
Phineas's dire words echoed in her mind, and so Hermione stepped forward through the wreckage, careful not to tread on the broken glass with her bare feet. She looked around again and spotted Snape: he knelt in the centre of the chaos, in the eye of the tempest he'd summoned to lay the office low. His head was in his hands, his white shirt torn at the shoulder, and the overturned desk in front of him had been reduced to a pile of splinters. Hermione looked up with the vague hope of seeing Phineas Nigellus in his painting, but the portraits had all been torn down, and Hermione had to turn another slow circle before she saw them; the paintings had been thrown so violently into a wall that they lay in a pile of canvas, broken glass, and shattered mouldings.
Hermione took a deep breath and crossed the room. She nudged aside the remains of the desk and sat down, cross-legged, before the dark man. He paid her no attention, but drew back with a snarl when she reached out to him.
"Severus," she said in the calmest voice she could manage. "I'm here."
"Obviously," the dark man replied, meeting her eyes with his blank stare. "The clock tolls midnight and the nightgown-clad Princess of Gryffindor appears." She felt herself blush, but he went on without pausing to note her reaction, "What do you want, Granger?"
"I wanted to check that you're all right… now that you've… now that you're back."
His face remained expressionless, but he cocked his head to the side, his empty eyes refusing to release her own.
"Do I not appear to be all right?" he asked, sweeping a hand down at himself. "Do I pass whatever preposterous, interfering inspection this is?"
Hermione shuddered at his voice; the words were sarcastic, but the timbre of his voice was entirely flat. Matched to his blank eyes, the effect was unsettling.
"Did…" she pressed on, "did You-Know-Who… hurt you?"
Snape regarded her with that same cool detachment for so long that Hermione squirmed.
"My dealings with the Dark Lord are none of your concern," he said, a poisonous inflection twisting his words. "But no, Granger. He didn't hurt me."
A wave of relief cascaded down her back as her shoulders relaxed – oh thank God, thank God, thank GOD – played on a loop in her mind, but Hermione cast that babbling part of herself aside. She smoothed her nightgown over her lap, tucking it carefully under her thighs, with what she hoped looked like unconcern.
"Well, if you are indeed all right, then I feel like we need to catch up, you and I." She injected her next words with a hint of impudence, hoping to catch him slightly off-guard. "You said earlier that you wanted to discuss… what was it? Ah yes, my monstrous stupidity this evening. I thought we might as well start there, and then we can move on to how you watched my duel with Carrow instead of interceding. And maybe we can wrap up with the extremely interesting matter of what the hell you've done to this office."
Hermione hoped that her brusque mixture of sarcasm and cheek would jog him out of this destructive state, but Severus – always so adept at turning situations on their heads – surprised her entirely by offering her a small, savage smile. He shifted, bringing his legs around and crossing them at the ankle so that he mirrored Hermione. She noticed that his change in position had moved him several feet closer, so that they sat almost knee-to-knee. Snape poised his elbows on his thighs and met her eyes, the blank intensity of his gaze tying her stomach in knots.
"We'll start in the middle, I think," he said, "with my supposed lack of intercession. Did you expect me to interrupt a duel between a competent witch and her opponent?"
"You heard," Hermione retorted, leaning forward, the better to accuse him, "you heard what Carrow said… what he was going to do to me, and you did nothing –"
"Correct," Snape interrupted crisply, and Hermione saw some of the blankness leave his eyes. "I did nothing. Instead, I watched a witch demonstrate her considerable powers to their fullest extent. I watched a young woman stand under threat of torture and worse by one who has already caused her misery and pain. Instead of intruding, I watched Hermione Granger win a duel using not her books nor her verbatim quotations nor her bullshit Gryffindor courage. I stood by and witnessed Hermione Granger defeat a seasoned duellist by using her wits."
It felt like he'd slapped her, and that savage smile widened into a smirk.
"If I had things so under control," she demanded, unable to keep her voice from climbing, "then why did you bother at all?"
"Because I would not have you carve up your own soul alongside Alecto Carrow's face." The smirk turned into a grin, the expression mismatching his cool, calculating eyes. "Amycus would have called your bluff, Granger. He doesn't know you, and so he would have acted as he always does – bowling forward like the overgrown ox he is. But…" His voice grew low, melodious, poisonous… "I know you. And I know you would have made good on your little promise."
Hermione felt his words resound with truth. She would have done it… and she might not even have regretted it. And yet she couldn't allow the dark man to win whatever this confrontation was, not when his face was going blank again now that he'd said his piece. Not when he had already receded into the void he'd inhabited when she'd found him here tonight. His demeanour reminded her forcibly of the night when she had insisted on seeing him after a revel, and how difficult he had been then as well. He'd had a terrible night that time, too, had experienced horrors she couldn't fathom…
And tonight he's just as mercurial, and I'm just as close to either revelation or disaster as I was that time.
"So…" she took a deep breath, trying to ignore the way his eyes seemed to look right through her, "why did you demolish Professor Dumbledore's office?" She gestured at the disarray surrounding them, trying to ignore a prickling suspicion that bowling ahead with this conversation with this man on this night might be a mistake. "Why tear all of this apart?"
He gave a careless shrug.
"Call it a pastime."
"You've done this before?"
Severus leaned back, placing his hands on the gritty carpet so that his lean torso stretched, cat-like, across the floor. He let out a long sigh, and Hermione marvelled at his sudden indolence.
"Oh, yessss," the dark man hissed, a sibilant whisper.
He let his head fall back, his neck stretched out, sinewy and white, and Hermione watched as his black hair trailed, tinkling, through broken glass. He inhaled deeply, and the moment of silence stretched between them, interrupted by a few occasional whirs and puffs from the broken instruments all around them. She tried not to feel unsettled by his deliberately unsettling manner.
"Why?" the question was small, her voice smaller still.
Snape's reclined head shot to attention and – a shark scenting blood – he sat up, long limbs moving in swift, perfect precision. He didn't resume his mirrored posture of her; his black eyes flashed with a feral light, and he leaned forward instead, closing the space between them, placing his hands on the ground on either side of Hermione's hips, enclosing her neatly between the floor and his body. She let go a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. He was – suddenly – close enough to kiss.
"Why?" she breathed again, the weight of the question leaving her like a sigh.
He looked down at her, his eyes darting all over her face.
He does know me, just like he said, the calm voice within her whispered, he knows me, and he wants me to know something about him tonight.
Snape's eyes lingered on her mouth, and Hermione quickly released the lower lip she'd been biting.
"Because sometimes walking isn't enough," he said at last.
"So to…" she searched her memory for the word he'd used, all those months before, when they'd first discussed this, "so to regenerate, you destroy what's left of Dumbledore."
The black eyes tracing her features were suddenly as flat and blank as she'd ever seen them.
"Were he here," the dark man pronounced, leaning even closer so that his chest pressed, warm and enveloping, against hers as he spoke the words directly into her ear, "I'd destroy him too." He pulled back, eyes a-glitter. "Again, I mean."
Hermione swallowed, and his stare moved from her mouth, down to her throat, and back to her eyes.
"Because he…" she couldn't say it. She had to swallow one more time before she could give Severus the words, the information he'd hidden from her so assiduously for so long, but which she had uncovered, one layer at a time. There was nothing else she could say that might disarm him, that might bring him back to himself, that might force him to be truthful with her at last. She braced herself to give him the words, and they left her in a torrent she couldn't hold back. "Because Dumbledore ordered you to kill him. And then he left you here without answers. And so you wanted me to give you those answers, to make sure that you could complete your mission. You didn't want to… you had to. You are and always have been a loyal member of the Order of the Phoenix."
It was meant to be a triumph, this moment when she pieced him together at last, when she aligned the jagged edges to witness the whole, and yet Hermione felt nothing but confusion and dread as the dark man stared down at her.
"Do you want a round of applause?" His mouth curled into a sneer. "Or perhaps an Oustanding? But nooo… a Muggle gold star would suit you best."
"All of the above, please and thank you."
Her quip came out in a voice heavy with sarcasm, but she could feel the mismatch of her own features as Snape continued to regard her. She did not have enough confidence within this situation to be sarcastic – she knew it, and so did he.
He tilted his head to the side, almost curiously.
"And what of my actions, Granger? What of the man I have proved to be?"
His words came out as a warm breath against her mouth, and Hermione found herself distracted by his nearness, by the way each of his inhalations, each motion of his chest so close to hers, sent a tiny, sharp thrill down her spine. He smelled of woodsmoke and herbs, and something acrid she didn't care to name.
"I…" her answer deserted her, her mind drawing a perfect blank as those glittering eyes latched onto hers, seeming to draw her in.
"I have committed transgression after transgression," he continued, and Hermione caught her breath when she felt one of his hands trace idly up her arm, the fingertips causing her skin to break into gooseflesh, "I have poisoned and murdered… I have cursed and maimed…I have done things that would make you weep."
"But you didn't – you couldn't –"
"And do you think this…" he leaned in, ever so close now, brushing his lips against hers as he spoke, "is enough to exonerate me?"
The warm hand travelled up her arm to push at her shoulder, his other hand found her waist, and Hermione felt herself leaning back as he guided her smoothly, inexorably down to the gritty carpet. Debris and glass bit into her back, and her breath stuttered between her lips.
"Do you believe–" he pressed himself to her, his heart thumping against her ribs, "that you can offer me absolution alongside yourself?"
Hermione felt lightheaded with the heat of his body over hers, with his arousal pressed hard and hot and sudden against her thigh. Any doubts she might have had about his state of mind seemed to vanish as the dark man began kissing her, slowly, his mouth undeniably sweet. Their conversation flew from her mind, everything overridden completely by his nearness, his mouth, his sharp hips pressing exquisitely against her thighs.
She would never – never-in-a-million-years-ever – know what emboldened her to do it. Whatever volatility had animated Severus that night seemed to arise within her, and Hermione wriggled beneath him, parting her legs so that he settled between her thighs, his length pushing, insistent and throbbing, against her centre. His breathing turned ragged, and Hermione felt her own breath panting out in answer as all thought departed in the wake of sensation. Snape's head dropped to her shoulder and, so gently she might have imagined it if not for the heat pulsing through her, he rocked against her.
"Hermione," his voice like tearing velvet, right in her ear, whispering her name – my name, on those lips – she tilted her pelvis up in answer, seeking out more of that throbbing heat. The dark man's moan was wild and harsh, his voice pleading when next he spoke: "Hermione… tell me to stop – "
She turned her head and caught his lips in her own, twisting against him so that his next moan filled her mouth. He thrust his tongue against hers, stirring more of that heatas his hips rolled and one of his hands roamed restlessly up her belly to ghost, so gently she could barely feel it, over her breasts. He pulled back a little to look at her questioningly again, but she pressed her palms to his back, urging him on. She heard herself moan into his hair as his hands explored her – gently, confidently.
"Tell me," he pleaded, but his hand was already descending, was even now pulling at the hem of her nightdress, exposing her knees, her thighs. "Tell me to stop."
Instead, she grasped his white linen shirt and tugged until it came free so that she could slip her hands under it, running her fingernails along the knobs of his spine, testing the texture of his skin with her nails, feeling his dark, deep magic coming off of him in waves. Severus shuddered above her and dove down to claim her lips once more, his tongue exploring her mouth possessively, before he moved down to her neck, running his teeth along the sensitive skin of her throat, planting an open-mouthed kiss on the hollow of her collarbone, before reaching the edge of her nightdress. He thrust against her once more and growled in response when a wanton sound escaped her.
"And have you…" his voice was hoarse in a way that made her squirm, "have you forgotten what I told you, Hermione?" His hand slid up her bare thigh. "Remember… I knew what I did then…" He shifted his weight, and she mewled when his fingers fluttered over her knickers, seeking out the warm wetness there. "And I know what I do now."
His fingers were poised at the edge of her underwear, her head thrown back in invitation as the dark man bent to her neck once more, when his words caught up with Hermione and she did as he instructed, as she always had. She remembered.
An echo of a long-ago conversation replayed in her mind, the moment that had started her investigation into his motives, on a dark night when they'd shared tea and a garden-in-miniature:
"I want to know…" she'd said as the darkness pressed in around them both. "The things you say and the things you do… they don't…"
"Do not misinterpret where my interests lie, Granger," he'd replied harshly. "Our world is entirely different now, and you would do well to remember that I was one of those who made it so. I knew what I did then. And I know what I do now."
"That doesn't – that isn't to say that you couldn't reconsider your –"
And he'd leaned forward, almost closing the space between them, so that shadows crept up his face, obscuring his eyes.
"Do not suggest such things to me, girl. Don't even – "
Hermione reeled, pulling away from another plundering kiss as the memory overlaid the present and the dark man became clearer than ever before.
"You – " she stopped herself for a moment and swallowed hard, trying to collect her thoughts. Snape raised his head and regarded her, leaning up onto his elbows, giving her some space to catch her breath.
"You compare this," she gestured awkwardly between their two chests, "with… with…" she couldn't even say it.
"This," his glance darted pointedly at the destruction entombing them before moving back to her, "is what I do. THIS," he mimicked her abbreviated motion between the two of them, "is what I am. Dumbledore didn't escape it, nor did his office… nor will you."
She looked into those eyes, searching for something, anything of the man she'd encountered so many times before. He remained Occluded – completely and utterly – his eyes a blank, cold depth, despite his warm body pressed so intimately to hers. His head plunged once more and she felt his lips hovering over her pulse point, but Hermione pushed at his chest, terrible cold filling her to the bone.
The dark man sat up and away from her so quickly that she suddenly felt freezing in the dismantled office.
"It's not," she answered, fumbling at her nightgown, snatching it back down over her thighs. "And what happens between us personally has nothing to do with my coming here tonight. It has nothing to do with why I trust you, and why I…"
Hermione felt herself shaking. Snape regarded her, slowly raising one eyebrow. He stood and with quick, deliberate movements, tucked his white shirt back into his black trousers. She clambered to her feet as well, and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself.
"What happens between us has everything to do with it, Granger," he said. His cold voice held an ironic edge so cruel it might cut her. "I told you at Christmas: I knew what I did before. I know what I do now. Why I do it is immaterial. It is indefensible. Inexcusable. Entirely unconscionable." The dark man's eyes moved languidly down her body. "Yet I do it… with relish."
"It doesn't matter, it has nothing to do with –"
He stepped forward abruptly and gripped her shoulders, those pitiless black pits glaring into her defenseless eyes.
"Do you not understand what I am trying to tell you, girl?" He shook her, once. "It is time you learned, Hermione, that not everyone in this world operates solely in the light or the dark. That action does not reflect allegiance." He released her, and she had to fight not to stumble. "And that some of us are damned beyond any measure of your saccharine faith."
Severus stalked to the other side of the room, his movements stiff and brittle. His abominable words hung in the air, surrounding her.
Hermione stood in the wreckage, watching the glint of his eyes as he watched her, even as he pretended to ignore her. She raised her chin in challenge, and called upon her formidable Mind's Eye, which processed for a long moment before she felt at least moderately composed once more.
She wanted to slap him, and curse him. And hug him.
"You are damned, Severus," her words were slow, her voice calm. She saw his mouth open, saw shock light his eyes, but Hermione continued, "but not because of how I feel about you. Clean this up," she gestured at the office, then at the dark man himself, "and yourself as well. You're useless to me in this state."
She turned her back on him without waiting to see the effect of her words, and left the same way she'd come.
A/N 2: One step forward...