Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Rowling and Gato Azul.
11. The Smoky Voice
The room's light under the cupboard was made of bright, reddish dots, like fire fireflies, which travelled slowly around an invisible point in the air. Granger looked at them intently, wondering what kind of spell was that. The tiny room was full of a warmth the rest of the house lacked, and the carpet was simple and soft. She knew that outside her little world under the cupboard the hexes and bolts had already started their war dance, but the noises barely entered their atmosphere of silence and warmness.
The red fireflies spun in well-defined orbits, like lazy electrons.
"What charm is that, Professor Snape? I hadn't seen it before."
The lump laying down next to her made a dry, harsh noise. He turned around, entangled in many sheets, and looked at her with implicit mocking in his eyes.
Something the wise Gryffindor doesn't know. It won't be me who rescue you from that inglorious ignorance, Granger.
He turned, leaving her again only with his back's view.
Outside, someone was fighting again against the kitchen door, like the nights before. And yet Hermione felt a bit more protected; they were in the middle of the house, a bit lower than the floor's level, in the safest place of the building. The floating light and the carpet's kind touch reminded her of home and her parents. She had the impression, maybe false but intense, that nobody could violate the little room's piece.
Snape curled casually, inhaling long and peacefully. Hermione didn't know him well enough, but she would have dared to say he was in a good mood.
She encountered the man during their walks around the house; she found him sipping water and looking through the window facing the yard, with the manner of those looking through time, backwards or forwards, never the image they had in front of them; always the depths of an intimate, distant mystery. His head rose to the clouded sky of the kitchen like a mountain sage, or like a lost castaway.
Or simply like a lonely, reclusive man who looked for himself in big skies.
She liked to spy on him when he meditated in front of the window. It was like seeing a part of him unknown to others.
Many times she wondered about what he was thinking while watching cloud's movements, but never dared to speak. It was Snape himself who broke those moments, with his deep voice, which Hermione hadn't heard for so long.
"I know you're there."
Granger jumped a bit, entrenched behind the wall. The man's head turned slowly towards her.
You don't have anything else to do, Granger, besides standing there like an idiot?
"I'm not an idiot, professor Snape," she told him seriously, looking at the floor and her bare feet. The man waited impatiently for the girl to raise her head to use Legilimency again, but she kept on looking at her feet, inert, with an attitude similar of a scolded child with a grave face.
"Lea—ve me… alo—ne," but his voice failed when it left his mouth.
Hermione raised her head.
"I'm not an idiot, but you're right, I don't have anything else to do. Although I think you don't either. There's nothing to do, no one to talk to besides you, and I thought, we could try to talk, about anything."
Are you sure you want to share a nice conversation with me? Dumbledore's murderer?
He raised his brows in a dramatic gesture of surprise.
"The reasons why you did it would be a good topic to start with," she answered without flinching, despite his towering scowl and tight lips.
Just get out of my view, pretentious brat. I don't have to explain anything to you.
Hermione remained for a moment in her place, the only change in her was a slumped corner of her mouth. Snape had turned around, giving her his back, clearly implying he was to ignore her from that moment on.
"I don't want to fight with you, I just want to talk for a while, I haven't spoken to anyone in weeks."
The man didn't move nor made any noise. She knew he didn't want to hear her, she wasn't going to get any response, but nothing could stop her from talking to him, she'd let the words travel to him. It was always more humane to communicate with others, rather than to the mirror or the wall. Even if that other was Snape.
She told him what had happened the night Dumbledore was killed, she told him about Harry's reaction, the raised wands, the mortuary lights and the despair. The half-blood hadn't tried to leave, he was still standing in front of the window, like a dull sculpture. Hermione supposed he was listening to her, after all.
Then she told him about the details of their Horrocrux's hunt, the heaviness of carrying the locket, the grey thoughts lightening in their minds because of it, the fight with Ronald…
"We thought we'd never find anything, that maybe it'd be better to abandon the search and hide, at least I thought that," she shrugged, caressing her sling and raising her eyes to Snape's back, static.
"Harry said he saw a deer made of light and that she guided him to the sword; that night Ron came back with us and they were happy, finally someone was helping us, but I never knew who was that someone, I guess Harry's mother. It's incredible," she added, more to herself than the man who had turned his head a bit, like he wanted to look at her but couldn't
Her big, honest eyes met the Potion Master's hidden gaze. During her long monologue she'd felt many times it was stupid to talk to someone who closed their ears, that it'd be better to just leave, but she remained with the hope of sparking his interest and she had finally made it, her words reached him, her talk hadn't been in vain, finally.
Why are you telling me this, Granger? You know what I did.
"Precisely because of that. Have you ever thought about someone else?" her words were chiding, but her expression was softened, and her voice sounded kind. Snape was confused for a moment. He was tired of accepting guilt that it wasn't even necessary to keep carrying anymore; he hadn't killed Albus by his own will and didn't have any reason to keep covering the old man and enduring the rebuffs of everyone around him. He had helped them in the lake, although they weren't wrong in a way when they said it had been Lily; she was the reason, he always acted on her name.
But not anymore; that long life in the Shrieking Shack, in Azkaban and now in that half-destroyed house didn't have anything to do with Lily, besides the fact he was Snape and was irrevocably infected of love for her. Nevertheless, there wasn't anything else to do to vent his storms of desperate adoration, the echoes of Lily's past had died down and he was lonelier and emptier than ever before.
There was nothing else to do for Lily, there wasn't any case in living for her anymore.
In short, there wasn't any case in living, or hiding things, or shutting up, or pretending. He could've told Granger everything: that he was the deer, that he loved Evans, that he wasn't a traitor. But he felt some pleasure when keeping quiet, when leaving everyone sinking on swampy doubt, confining them to unrest, resentment and confusion. When denying himself. To deny by sheer pride to bow before the Gryffindors and receive their claps and compassion and their bloody, hypocritical tears that wouldn't diminish any of his pains, nor his guilts. And that wouldn't placate the hatred and melancholy which were eating him alive daily.
Granger was still waiting behind his inner hurricane.
"What do you think about this, professor Snape?"
The man looked at her in silence, with owl's eyes, sharp and piercing.
But he never used Legilimency nor separated his lips; he watched her directly for an eternal minute, as if he could see many things besides her, but didn't answer and turned his back again.
"What is it that you don't want me to know? If you're guilty, why are you hiding? You weren't scared of killing Dumbledore in front of Harry, but you can't do something as simple as telling me? And if you're innocent, why do you keep quiet? Why don't you scream it so we leave you alone?"
The man turned around with parsimonious slowness. He didn't look so towering, dressed as a muggle. Not with that brown t-shirt that showed his thin, empty body.
What's the difference? I don't care what you think of me; the trial will go on and none of your opinions will sway the registrar.
"How can you be so sure of that?" the witch spat, ego bruised.
Isn't it obvious, Granger? If you had any relevance in this, they wouldn't lock you here without sending food so you ended up dying with me, would they?
The girl frowned, pensive and sulking.
Then why would I talk to you? If I tell you I'm guilty you'll yell at me and slap me.
Granger flushed slightly, remembering her hand smashed against Snape's cheek.
If I tell you I'm innocent, what could you give me? Your tears? Your ridiculous words of support? Or do I have to reveal my motives just to satisfy your pathological curiosity and overfeed pride? See your own stupidity, Granger.
Hermione bowed her head slowly; it was hard to swallow that, maybe for once, she couldn't do anything useful. And that Snape had good reasons for not wanting to speak to her.
Granger left without saying anything else, eyes lost and empty. Snape savoured the duality of satisfaction and bitterness his victory had given him. And he also wondered if it wouldn't be better to have the girl with wet cheeks in front of him, if her gaze full of admiration and respect wouldn't have been better. He'd have liked to humiliate her that way and rub in her face that she and her friends were alive only because he hid the sword.
But no. The only degraded person would be precisely him, because he didn't know if he'd be capable of enduring those piety gushes that he had yearned and despised at the same time since childhood.
Maybe he would have ended up kneeling in front of Granger, like a pious or redeemed man. He imagined her giving him mercy with her wounded arm and her messy hair.
No, never from that insufferable brat. He'd rather have a Dementor's kiss than a pity one from her.
Hermione heard man's quiet footsteps deep in the night, felt his body lay down close by, somewhere in the room. The firelights had faded away long and she had been dozing off. After their failed conversation she hadn't tried to talk to him for several days, thinking about the things the half-blood had spoken over and over again. She knew Snape had been right in a way, but after thinking about it for a long time she realized there was something left to say.
And she was planning to open up that night.
With eagerness, she peeped as the Potion Master took his shoes off and extended a sheet over himself.
"Goodnight, Professor Snape."
The Legilimens arched a brow, feeling surprised she still dared to address him.
"Did you eat anything?"
Afraid I'm not following your rationing dictatorship?
"I'm afraid you're not eating anything at all," the man grimaced, wrinkling his nose like a dog showing its fangs.
"I want to answer your question."
I don't remember having asked you anything, Granger.
He sat up, supporting himself on his skinny elbows. His hair was ruffled after rubbing his head against the pillow; Hermione drowned the smile stinging her lips. Snape seemed serious and solemn, but his irreverent strand of hair betrayed him.
"You asked what would you gain by talking to me."
You don't have to answer every question you hear, Granger. When are you going to get it?
He rolled his eyes, annoyed by a sudden thought.
I hope you don't plan on answering that too.
The wounded girl watched him from her nest of quilts, caressing her sling without noticing.
"I want to know because maybe if you were forced to… to do what you did, then I'm mistreating you. I need to know, professor; I can't be the same with one or another. I slapped you without knowing anything, and what if you're innocent? I don't want you to tell me just because of me; I want you to tell me so I can treat you fairly."
You have been thinking, Granger. I don't care how you treat me.
Hermione watched him stunned and speechless, without moving.
Does your ego make you think I care what you may say to me? That when you insult me I can't sleep at night? Don't be absurd.
He threw himself on the sheets and turned around gracelessly. Granger spent a long time musing before she was able to sleep and told herself that trying to get the truth out of Snape was only for the insane or idealists. Or maybe it was that everything was so obvious, it'd have been an insult to say it directly. Something in Snape's attitude gave him an aura of a martyr, of paying for things he shouldn't. His eyes were dull, as if covered by a wall of dirt; there was something dull in his gaze, which was once vitriolic, as if nothing else mattered, as if nothing else were enough.
It was precisely his eyes, his tired old man's gaze, that made her doubt. That startled her.
They had multiplied the food so many times it wasn't possible to keep doing so, the real thing had worn down and they wouldn't be able to multiply a bread which was the result of a bread that was also the product of another multiplication.
Granger calculated that the rations they'd left would last for a week if they just ate two crackers and drank a cup of coffee once a day, and she was left speechless, watching how little they had, wondering desperately and with a touch of ire: where were Harry, Ron, McGonagall? The names kept parading her mind, and none gave her any comfort.
Snape ate his two crackers slowly, breaking them with his bony, long fingers. Hermione watched him prepare himself a colourless coffee with a resignation that sometimes bothered her; she couldn't be so calm in the face of hunger, and every day her rage against Harry and Ron grew. Although, after thinking about it and cheering herself, she told herself there must've been something preventing them from helping, that maybe the Ministry hadn't said anything and they lived in peaceful ignorance, thinking everything was fine.
Thinking about that calmed her anger, but increased her anguish.
Ron,
I need you, why can't you hear me? Why don't you suspect something is wrong? Why don't you suspect, you or Harry or McGonagall, or even Luna that always thinks she sees things that aren't real? Why doesn't she feel what's happening?
There's almost nothing left to eat. What's going to happen when everything is gone? When this pack of cracker stop separating us from the future and we'd be confined, without anything to eat. What are we going to do, Ron?
We were like that once, us and Harry. But we could go out to the woods and look for mushrooms and plants. But in this house, Ron, what are we going to find in this house?
Sometimes I think we're going to end up hunting rats.
I wish I could hear from you, see the blue and green sparks of your eyes, listen to your jokes. I wish you could suspect I'm here, Ron, waiting for you.
I love you, miss you and need you, H J Granger.
She pushed the door to the little room under the stairs. The reddish, dim star was still on, floating in the middle of the room. She distinguished a frame drew between the sheets. Snape had gone to sleep before her, a very unusual act from his part. Hermione sat carefully, without making any noise. The Potion Master was weirdly laying face up; he always took care of turning his back on her or hiding his face, annoyed by the idea of being watched while asleep. But that day, weariness had gotten him without warning.
Granger's stomach started a revolution, crying for food; at least she could comfort herself on the fact that she hadn't eaten her ration yet and she could fool her hunger with her two crackers. She pulled them out of the small package that was over an improvised shelf and watched them, knowing that by eating them, one more day of hope died. Less food, less time, fewer chances of being rescued.
She cracked the biscuit by half, to delay the eating and deceive her stomach. Snape shifted, breathing heavily and putting his pale hand somewhere over his belly, going back to his stillness again. Hermione could hear his professor's stomach growling, even while he was asleep.
She looked at her cracker again, with airs of weakness, remembering the old times when she'd sit on the table in the Great Hall and there were many plates to choose, cakes, turkey, beverages; she could almost feel the tasty smell of buns under her nose.
The Prince turned lazily, entangling his legs with the sheets. Hermione could see his malnourished body, his noticeable ribs and an unnatural paleness invading his whole skin.
He had probably felt sick and that was why he went to sleep before her, even against his habits.
She watched her crackers again, and then her professor's sad, thin frame. And she decided, just for that night, she didn't have the strength to be suspicious or reticent. Just for that night, she would believe in him, she would stop doubting him and give herself to their little shared world under the stairs.
Actually, it was she who refused to be convinced that Snape was innocent. Harry had told her, Dumbledore too in his own way, the own Occlumens had shown the truth implicitly. But she didn't want to believe it.
She didn't accept Dumbledore could've been the manipulative wizard he'd have to be to force the half-blood to make a choice like that. She didn't want to imagine that all that mix of secrets had been moving behind his eyes and she wouldn't have been able to see it.
But it was enough of fooling herself and denying it. Snape had been saved by Dumbledore, he'd told her Harry was right, he was protecting her… a Death Eater wouldn't have that kind of bonds with others. And she couldn't nor shouldn't keep ignoring that fact.
The tired, impoverished man dozing off on the floor wasn't the murderous traitor everyone pointed at, he was her professor and her guardian, or at least Harry's.
Granger let herself be eaten by guilt, by absolute confusion, by the feeling of not knowing the world, of not having any certainty. And it was overwhelming, but it also somehow relieved her. Snape had taken a piece of her faith away and now he was giving it back.
The man under the sheets, the bitter dungeon bat, was giving her back her faith. And without knowing it.
The food had run out two days ago; they'd been filling their stomachs ever since with water and a dubious tea Hermione made with a tree's leaves that extended its branches to the window in one of the rooms upstairs.
They slept a lot. When there had been food they walked around the house, each one on a different path and they only saw each other faces when they went to hide under the stairs. But since the ration started to become smaller and scarce, they tried to recover their strength sleeping and found themselves together in the cupboard most of the day, Snape musing and Hermione reading her storybooks.
She turned the pages and read the worn-out words of Snow White, Pinocchio, Beauty and Beast. She looked at the drawings, which had once excited her, now with overwhelming boredom. Near her Snape tried to stand up, but slid down against the wall, close to falling, dizzy, and just looked at the wall. He didn't seem to want and try again.
Hermione's wound immobilized her arm, but affected her health much less. She could see the man's strength and endurance were diminished by Nagini's bite and saw him languish by malnourishment, without being able to do anything.
Nonetheless, given her nature, Hermione had saved one of her rations, if the time came when she couldn't stand the hunger anymore. Originally, she had hidden it for herself, but Snape's sallow face and limp legs managed to worry her enough to give up her crackers, despite her stomach's growls.
"Here, professor. I saved them for a desperate moment."
The Potion Master supported his nape against the wall and watched her, eyes fixed and disdainful. He was grimacing.
Saint Granger, protector of the helpless.
She put the crackers in a napkin at the man's feet.
"They're there and they're yours. You decide if you eat them or let them go waste."
Hours passed by where the half-blood didn't seem to want to eat them, but by night Hermione heard, half sinking in her dreams, how the crackers cracked as they were bitten; she opened one eye and looked between the sheets, discovering the Potion Master breaking the cracker he had left with his white, bony hands, with an air of humility or modesty, signatures of a simple man, of a type of man she thought Snape wasn't. He ate very slowly, taking small pieces; his giant nose sharpened his features; his lost, thoughtful gaze, sinking in the room's darkness. It made him look older, maybe wiser than he'd seemed to her before.
When he finished, he shook the crumbs from his lap, with that same thin, hardened and somehow beautiful hands. He laid down on the stall made of quilts and sheets, with the slowness of an old giant, of weak old age, as if nothing hurried him in the world anymore, as if life didn't expect anything from him.
Granger kept on watching the laying figure for a while, hearing the exhalations and the soft, harmonious trips of the half-blood's breathing.
"Thank you, Granger."
The voice, confined for so long, vibrated for a few seconds in the room, like a light turning on in the middle of the air, like bright smoke.
Hermione smiled, gladly surprised, feeling her stomach's hole filling up a bit. As if her starving abstinence had been worth it just a bit.