Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, as always.
This is one of my favourite chapters, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)
12. The Faceless Army
He heard Granger crying under the room's red and white light. She probably thought he was asleep, and she had been right until a few seconds ago when her sobs trespassed his dream's unconsciousness and Snape had opened his eyes.
Granger, when she noticed the eyes fixed on her and her wet cheeks, turned her head in embarrassment and hid it between her arms and sheets, where she kept crying quietly, almost noiseless.
Snape would've liked to say something, but he had never been good with words apart from insulting or hurting someone else. He would have gotten Granger out if he had the power to do so. He was only able to look at her crying and tell himself it'd be fantastic to be Potter or Weasley for once, so he could stop the girl's shivers. But he was Snape and he couldn't erase someone's else pain.
The man's absent gaze was still on her; she trembled for a few seconds, for the static, deep eyes made her feel cold deep inside. She needed him despite being Granger, despite he was Snape, her despotic, arrogant professor. He was the only person close to her right now and she needed some hope, only one word, a gesture, a less remote gaze.
Were they going to die there? Was she going to disappear while those empty eyes watched?
She cried harder without hiding anymore, like complaining, wanting to throw to Snape's face the fact that she needed him desperately, that she needed anybody and that he was letting her sink alone. She was crying of anger too, against Ron, against Harry and her once-revered Professor McGonagall.
"Why the hell don't they come? Does nobody care about us?" the girl asked him with her voice shrilly by her cries, covering half of her face with the quilt. Her eyes were swollen and reddened.
"I want to get outta here! We have to leave!"
Snape started to think of an escape. He didn't have any chance of running away given the spell, but Granger could've gotten out if the Death Eaters weren't there. In the back of his mind, a spark ignited; maybe there was a way of saving her; if he distracted them, if he gave them what they were looking for and delayed them enough, she could run.
"Don't you have anything to say? You're glad we're dying here!"
His dark gaze gained a liveliness it didn't have seconds before.
It's better to die here with you than alone in the Shrieking Shack, so in fact, it doesn't bother me, Granger.
Granger's brows furrowed, horrified.
But I just realized it'd be a big waste if you died in this situation, when you could be saved.
"What?" the Gryffindor's voice sounded blurry and congested. Prince shot her a glance full of disdain at her crying, stammering condition.
Clean your face, Magdalena. I have a solution for you; of course, it could fail and that would mean you die, but you'll die anyway if we stay here, so it better be for something useful.
Snape explained what he'd planned: they'd weaken the room's protection so the Death Eaters could get inside; he'd be waiting with Hermione's wand and duel them to attract their attention. Meanwhile, Jean would go out through the front door, which was the paradoxically less monitored place by the enemy. Everything could fail, but at least the agony of waiting and starving would end the night they chose.
The Legilimens stopped and the man's voice extinguished inside Granger's head.
He had talked only about her, never explaining how he was going to escape, and Hermione understood what that meant.
"And you? How are you getting out?"
It's obvious I won't, Granger. Spells are preventing me from doing so.
The girl's direct and saddened expression touched him. Her face was pure eyes, raw and tangible emotion, water, streams, sparks.
"I had to protect you. That's why I came here."
Snape wouldn't have been able to say anything, even if he had the voice to do so.
"I can't leave you here."
That ungrateful Granger, wanting to magnify herself and save everyone alone, always having a brilliant idea that could fix everything. Poor Granger, so vain and stupid. Those were the thing the Legilimens told himself on the inside.
The girl shrunk on her quilts; in her eyes, her sadness spilt for abandoning him, in her swollen pupils one could see her disappointment and rage of having failed him.
"How can't there be another way… Why?"
And she hid her crazy hair, stained of embarrassment by her uselessness.
"How am I to leave you here?"
She knew the Death Eaters would kill him the night she left; she didn't dare to imagine the things they could do to him. And she also wondered if it wouldn't be better to both die together, instead leaving him behind.
Twisted sheets, frantic hands, a storm beginning far away, inside her, on their horizons.
Prince stood up, watching her.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Professor Snape."
She opened her still wet eyes, watching surprised as the man turned around and left.
She couldn't explain to herself why.
He thought about her all afternoon; at night he didn't want to face her wet face and stayed in the kitchen, watching the sun's retreat and the moon's arrival.
He didn't want to see Granger.
He couldn't stand Gryffindor's emotional explosions. He couldn't stand being reached by them.
A part of Granger's pain was his.
He knew Gryffindors were conceited fools who thought themselves capable of saving the world, and, in a way, she was crying for her diminished ego at seeing herself reduced to what she really was: a mere woman incapable of controlling every event that happened around her.
But he couldn't deny that some of those tears had to be for him too.
He despised her, mocked her in his mind for her conceited innocence and her stupidity, and he still doubled over and unravelled when he thought about those tears, falling all because of him, scattered around his feet.
He deeply despised Granger. The bloody know-it-all from Gryffindor, the haughty, perfect little girl that burned him with her cries, the insufferable big mouth that corroded him with each of her tears and complaints against herself.
Snape could see, with infinite surprise and disgust and an unknown shiver, that Granger really wanted to save him.
Granger met him in the morning. A curious event had happened the night before when the Death Eaters didn't attack them, just flew around the house, looking closely for some detail unknown to Granger and Snape; it could be reassuring, but both felt something bad was about to happen.
They didn't have much time. They didn't have any strength left; they twisted in hungry and drank gallons of water without manage to subdue it, and besides Riddle's followers were probably preparing themselves for the final attack.
Snape thought Granger had to leave that exact night, it could be her last chance to do so.
The former Prefect wasn't crying anymore, the traces of wariness and doubt had left her face. She looked at him without shame or fear.
"I made a decision, professor."
The man arched a brow, hiding his anxiety under a mask of scepticism.
"I'm staying. I'll never leave just for you to get tortured and killed while I run away, I wouldn't be able to live with that guilt. I'd rather stay here and just let things happen."
Don't be stupid, Granger! You're leaving tonight!
The girl sat on a chair in the kitchen calmly, ignoring the man's aggressive, threatening tone.
"No."
The Potion Master walked to her and put his hands on the table, trying to intimidate her as he had done with Potter, but things were different with her.
Do you realize what you're doing? The most logical thing is for you to escape if you have the chance, idiotic brat.
"I'm not leaving," the girl raised her head and spoke calmly, as if she was talking to her father about something irrelevant.
Snape wrinkled his nose, like a dog just about to attack.
You'll die here, Granger, if you don't leave.
The girl watched the unused teapot, suddenly melancholic, suddenly scared.
"I know."
She bowed her head like a lamb, healthy hand clutching her pants. Her hair stuck up like a gigantic, brown mane.
"I can't leave you here, I promised Harry—"
Although, deep down she was scared that her courage would fail her and she would end up running away at night in the muggle neighbourhood, watching behind her green bolts entering the house.
She doubted she'd still be capable of keeping her promise.
Then go to hell, idiot!
The man ripped the kitchen's air with his body, rushing to the door in a rush of violent temper and bestial gestures.
Egocentric to the point of dying for your ridiculous superiority delusions and your double standards! You'll understand your stupid decision when it's too late, foolish, proud Gryffindor!
Hermione sat for a long time, thinking about her parents, about Harry, about the Weasleys.
Maybe Snape was right and she should go back where she belonged.
Leaving him behind, behind, in the house's darkness, in a lonely death, in the violent vortex of white masks.
No.
She had to stay.
Night came and the time to meet and see each other faces under the red light. To see and truly met each other, for the first and probably last time.
Snape arrived first and waited in one of the cupboard's corners; it was so small his head brushed the roof. Curiosity tickled his feet, touched his stomach with invisible, erratic fingers. Would Granger come back and lock herself with him, showing a limitless amount of loyalty and stupidity?
He shivered a bit when he imagined her, standing up in front of him, facing the Death Eaters with her war face, with her arm in a sling and wand high in the air like a flag and a challenge. Defending him.
Only a Gryffindor would be capable of such a poetic, absurd death.
A very dark, small place inside him was a bit glad for not being abandoned, for keeping her company even if she had to pay such a high price. A part of him, outrageously selfish, wanted to keep her and take her away from Potter, keep her with him as they had taken Lily.
He still recognized that awful, warped part of his personality, and yet he would've helped her escape had she wanted to. With time and the punishment of losing Evans, he had learned to push down a great part of his ill intentions and selfish wishes.
He'd try to convince her one last time.
Granger entered the room and seemed a bit surprised to see him.
I think yesterday they examined every weak spot in the house and in our charms.
Hermione was looking at him while frowning; there was just determination in her eyes, and right then he knew he wasn't going to change her mind.
They're coming today, they must be close.
"Yes, they'll be here soon," she got her wand from under her pillow. "Who's going to keep it?"
Even if they're coming for me, they'll hardly ignore the chance of slicing up and eliminating a muggleborn friend of Harry Potter.
Hermione lowered her eyes.
They are getting in, Granger, and they are going to kill us. With only one wand and in these conditions, we're not going to win.
"You have more experience in combat, keep it," the long wand was like a bridge between them. Snape looked at the instrument without moving, without taking it, and then moved his eyes to Granger's.
What do you want to hear so you can leave? I'm not a pious man, Granger, and yet I know it's not worth it for you to lose your life here. Push aside all those fantasies they teach you in Gryffindor and save yourself!
Hermione kept the wand high between them.
"What I need to hear so I can leave is that they won't torture and kill you, but that'd be a lie, so take the wand, professor Snape, or I'll keep it."
The man never raised his hand and Granger kept the wand, still hoping something was going to save them, that things would be alright. She had seen many miracles, after all, and she waited for one more.
The first noises appeared in the walls, the starting screams, the following bolts. The walls moaned and wanted to bend under an enormous, blunt force from outside. Snape went out from the cupboard to the darkness interrupted by bolts. Hermione followed him, in the alternating confusion of light and dark pieces of rock falling dizzy from the rook.
She yelled her professor's name to the gaudy night, but her voice was only a lifeless thread unravelled in the ruckus. She recognized in one of the sudden sparks the long face and black hair, getting close to her. Something was pulling her, a body heat dragging her to the cupboard, where she was thrown. The door slammed shut with a final noise.
"Open up, professor! Open up!"
She didn't use her wand for fear of hurting the man that didn't let her go. She smashed it with her fists, kicked it. The door yielded a few centimetres, only to close back again. Over her head, she heard several footsteps, quick and forceful. The bolts were lightening up in the middle of the atmosphere, slipping through the tiny gap of light in the threshold to the cupboard. There was an explosion in some part of the house, close to the kitchen; she heard laughter, the footsteps didn't stop in the kitchen, there was dragging of furniture, windows breaking.
"Professor Snape!" she smashed her whole body against the mass that didn't let her escape, and for a moment she thought she'd make it, but the door closed again, pushing her back to a sudden fall between the twisted sheets.
The footsteps like a horde of horse, laughter, thunder, glass flying at great speed.
"Professor!"
A hoarse voice could be heard outside the cupboard. A voice that didn't belong to Snape.
She threw herself against the door and finally managed to make the door yield; she stumbled, avoiding falling again. And then she found a circle of people with a mask instead of a face, covered in black cloth. Jumping from the stairs, some still getting in through the windows or from the now destroyed kitchen door. Some had their wands in hand, like vipers showing their fangs. Snape's pale, vacant face turned towards her. His naked face exploded in Granger's pupils, his sharp, uncovered countenance, between the firelights and the army of rigid masks. The only human face between so many porcelain faces. At that moment he became a murmur without body, an unknown, ghost voice whispering something to her… when she looked at him every noise around her seemed to subdue, and she got the horrible understanding that it was her time to die.
N.T: Don't worry, we still have a long way to go.