Disclaimer: All rights belong to Rowling and Gato Azul.

15. The Shadow Man

The only thing I can tell you, Hermione, is to be friendly, don't push him, he can't think you're faking it.

He lost something, that's true, but it doesn't matter that you know what it was, we can't give it back. Just try to be his friend; I don't think it will be easy, but to be honest, from the three of us, I think you're the one he hates the least.

Take care.

Waiting for your response, Harry J. Potter.

Why are you following me? Sometimes I turn around and you're there, always watching me without me realizing it, as if you were waiting for something, as if you were looking for something inside me. What do you pretend to do, Granger?

You can't find anything in a person like me, but you don't give up. You surprise me by showing up everywhere, telling me about anything that comes to your mind. At the beginning you asked me about Potion's preparation methods, then you asked about occlumency and defence; with time your excuses ran out, and you ended up talking to me about teeth and political parties.

What absurd theme will you bring me today?

It seems you're losing respect for me, you come close without fear, looking at me directly as you didn't dare before, you once even touched me, putting your hand on my shoulder while chatting about something about the trials. Your touch's warmth penetrated the fabric, you were half smiling. There was like a clot at that point where we brushed. You and me, who were nothing alike.

No, Granger. You and I are nothing alike.

Your talkative attitude annoys me. In another situation, I'd have shut your never-closing mouth, but I'd rather hear your constant, shrilly voice than my inner monologue.

I'd rather listen to you talking about muggle buildings and London's weather. I have been thinking less since you started harassing me with your eternal presence.

And what if they find me guilty, Granger? What are you going to do? What will happen to all the words and hours you've spent on me? Will you forget about them?

I hope to forget these days if they find me guilty. You're useless to me, you don't inspire me to raise my head and mock everyone while they execute me, because I know you'll be one of them and I don't know if I could laugh at your face like a hyena. Before this, maybe, but not now, as I've heard you talking about cavities and gum's diseases and camping trips to the woods and dances inside camping tents.

My world is not part of your world; you wouldn't understand a sardonic smile, the exchange of vengeful gazes, the pleasure of destroying something. You think you know everything, but there are many things you don't understand.

Maybe it's better that way.

There you are in the threshold, carrying that bloody book again. You come here to disturb me, you think you're so interesting? Conceited Granger, know-it-all, big mouth.

Again your hand is on my shoulder and your eyes doubt.

"Would you like to read with me for a while?"

No, Granger, I wouldn't want to, but I'll do it anyway. There's nothing beside you and your storybook waiting for me.

Harry, tell me we're going to win, we have to win. He's not going to step into Azkaban, he won't. We're not going to allow it, even if we lose the trial. You have a plan, right? I'm starting to create one, even if this limbo goes on, if I keep going on like this, without any goal, it doesn't matter. He's not going to prison, he has your wand and mine's and Ron's, right?

Would it be the four of us, then? Like fugitives?

I hope it doesn't end up like that. You can ask me for help about the defence; I know you can figure it out on your own, but just in case, I'm here.

Harry, please don't leave any holes or opportunities for misinterpretations, make it blunt, so they can't condemn him. Now I believe you, Harry. I know he is and has been with you all this time, like on our first year, when we thought he wanted to kill you and instead he was protecting you.

Loves you, your best friend Hermione J. Granger.

The grieving man was standing next to the kitchen's window, drinking water and looking through it. Hermione watched him in silence; he hadn't noticed her yet and she could study him without fear for a few moments. He was recovering his normal weight, none of his scars still bleed, and Hermione wondered if he was scared about the trials. Sometimes she heard him walk all over the place, anxiously.

He didn't have anything to fear. They once managed to release Sirius, and they'd release him too.

She would've found hard to believe that one day she and Harry would be defending the dungeon's bat with the same passion they'd have used to defend Remus or Sirius. She recalled her two friends; she saw their faces from afar, their way of smiling, Lupin's sad air, Sirius' bold eyes. She was still unable to avoid feeling unhappy when she thought about them, and about Fred.

She rubbed her eyes, avoiding tears. Snape had turned around at some point and was watching her fight against tears.

"I'm sorry. I was thinking about Remus and Sirius."

The half-blood lifted his chin slightly; the mere fact of hearing their names seemed to offend him.

Hermione didn't say anything else; if there was something that bothered her about Snape was the fact he kept on hating the Marauders even dead, that he was so resentful and unable to forgive them, even though they had already paid with their lives any mistake they might have committed.

"I know you never liked them."

I wouldn't say it in such a subtle way.

"I know you hate them, but they died fighting for the same cause than you. Let the past stay in the past."

Snape looked at the floor with tense mutism and fierce eyes, almost sharp.

You better keep quiet, Granger, and stop talking about things you don't know about.

Hermione tightened her lips and left; she didn't want to fight him and, had she stayed, she would have done it. That aspect was irreconcilable between them. He would never forgive Remus nor Sirius and she would never stop remembering them with a hurtful, melancholic start.

"Professor Snape."

You were waiting for me outside my room; you seemed slightly anxious and your eyes swept my whole face. I don't like to be looked at like that, Granger.

"Could I see…? Would you allow me to examine your…?"

You pointed at my forehead, without daring to name my face's mark.

"Your scar?"

I told you I wasn't going to be your guinea pig and you breathed deeply, raising your eyebrows, outraged. I realized you had started to brush your hair, now you carried it in a long braid. I preferred it tangled and hanging loose, that way you seem less prim, less pretentious.

Because that's what you are, a conceited, pretentious brat.

"I'm not going to experiment, I know very well what I can and cannot do and I think if you let me, I could partially wipe the scar."

I protested that it was made with dark magic and couldn't be healed. You looked around the room, thoughtful and obfuscated.

"I know, but I have a theory and—"

"And you said you weren't going to ex—periment."

"It won't hurt, please. We don't lose anything by trying."

The face Snape made when I told him we wouldn't lose anything by trying left me even more doubtful; his mouth stretched in such a way, it seemed he was mocking me on the inside.

"Please, sit."

He didn't listen to me, just stood still. He had raised his brow, making me feel like a bug under a microscope.

"Please."

Snape smiled. It wasn't a reassuring gesture; his smile was never a good sign.

If you kneel, I may do it.

"I'm not going to kneel, Professor Snape. I may be able to remove that from your face, please."

I have tried to follow Harry's advice and treat him with easiness, as if he wasn't who he was, as if I didn't fear him at all. I don't know whether I truly fear him, but he inhibits me; his gestures pull me back to my first year at Hogwarts when he humiliated me in front of the whole class. I feel like I'm there again and I can't remove my anxiety. He can't hurt me now, but I can't stop feeling suspicion, I haven't managed to erase it.

I have to be brave. If I want to help him, I have to forget his taunts.

I finally sat down. I wanted to challenge you, you seemed determined and reached me. You pointed your wand above my eyes.

You have grown up. Everyone has grown up and I got old. When did I lose my youth? My life went on quickly, I did so many stupid things and this is the only thing I really got, a house arrest and an annoying companion.

Never Lily.

Although sometimes you remind me of her, although now over your face I can almost sense hers.

I'll never stop asking myself why, why was I so stupid? Why did I exchange her for a place with the Death Eaters? Everything is my fault.

Your big eyes were there, watching mine without focusing on what your wand was doing up there on my forehead.

"We will find a way to erase it, you won't have to bear it anymore."

I had the feeling you were talking about Lily, although I knew it wasn't like that.

You, the wise Gryffindor, could erase her? Do you know how? I gave up on that a long time ago.

In general, I'd say he looks better, Harry. He's eating, without much appetite that's true, but he's eating something. When he's in the mood he lets me try and heal his forehead's mark. How could I allow them to do something like that to him? If I had called my Patronus before he wouldn't bear that mark. Harry, I don't want to imagine how he feels when he sees it in the mirror; he doesn't take off the bandages from his head unless I go to heal him. The cuts don't bleed anymore, nor are they infected, but he doesn't remove the bandages and I feel so guilty about that.

He can't go on his way wearing that on his face. Now there are three of us: my arm says I'm a mudblood, your hand says you're a liar and his forehead say he's a traitor. There must be a way to heal this; given that I have so much free time I'll research, maybe I'll get him to help me, right?

Hermione J. Granger.

Hermione was unusually busy; she had gone out to buy a dozen of books and read eagerly, underlining thing and writing things down now and then.

Snape left to the kitchen, seizing the fact that the girl seemed to have forgotten his presence. When he got there he found the Ministry's owl standing on the window; it opened its wings slightly when it noticed the human and flew to the table.

It carried several letters attached to its leg, almost every one of them for Granger, except one written by Minerva for him. He casted it aside and dedicated himself to poke the girl's mail. A Slytherin never abandoned a chance to seize information he could use later to blackmail someone. In his letter, Potter gave her details about the trial, while Ginevra Weasley seemed unable to put her mind in anything besides Potter. He left Weasley's letter to the end; he wanted to amuse himself with others' idiocy. But he couldn't finish it: the redhead started with Quidditch's stupidities and joke spells he'd learnt in his brother's shop, but then the words shifted to intimate, corny phrases; Weasley awkwardly found tons of adjectives to address Granger. He was grimly surprised, for the redhead knew how to talk to women; he mentioned Granger's voice, he said it hung on him for a long time, talking about something like a ball of light that had perforated his chest and about future's certainties.

Snape had scarce knowledge about romanticism, and even then he could see the clear, strong intentions of Weasley to drag Granger to those domains.

He stopped reading, suddenly filled with an annoying itch. It always happened to him when he found couples kissing between the castle's pillars or hidden under tree's shadows. A shot of rage always came through him that lasted for a moment and then dampened in his throat, leaving him with a scab of resentment. He hated seeing others loving each other, he turned his head to avoid looking at them and despised them, as if they were felons or scandalous exhibitionists.

Possessed by an inner, illogical fire, he cut the letter by half. When he saw what he had done, far away from being anguished, he kept on tearing the letter until no phrase stood together. With perverse satisfaction, he burnt the small pieces on the stove and threw the ashes down the sink.

The Weasley git could send another thousand letters; no one would miss the one he had just disposed of.

That afternoon he didn't want to talk to Granger; the distance she had managed to shorten opened a bit again, like a wound between them.

The most unsurmountable distance is time itself. How many light years are you away from me? How many impassable hours stand between your memory and my present? Our bond is undone, I'm separated from you irretrievably this time, like a piece of you that yearns for yourself.

That's what I am, a piece of you, a fragment of your eternal, green gaze.

Without you, no context determines me.

I would have to eradicate you from my memory to live, but you understand I can't do that, that I don't want to, I'd rather die in your never-ending absence.

I'm not going to let you go, I'll go blind if I do, I'd be lost.

You are the measure of all things.

Snape looked out the window; through the curtain he could barely distinguish the winter dusk's sullen light. Granger got close with a book in hand; she had managed to reach him once using books and was planning on doing it again. And yet, the man's gaze of absolute resentment made her hesitate.

"Goodnight, Professor. Would you like to read something with me?"

"No."

"The other day you seemed to have a good time."

"Piss off," his gaze was still fixed out the window.

Granger's eyes went astray, looking everywhere, without deciding if she should leave or try again.

"How have your scars been? And the bite, did it close? You haven't let me see it," she made several questions while coming closer until she stood next to the sofa. She put the book on the table; no one answered her. "Professor Snape?"

"Do you just don't understand I want you to leave?"

"I didn't come here to bother you, I just wanted to keep you some company. Even I almost can't stand this confinement, without talking to anyone…"

Black eyes narrowed with hate; Snape's mouth curved in a dark gesture.

"I'm not here to entertain you."

"I know."

Hermione studied him attentively; she could sense something was not right, the Potion Master was exuding a hostile, tense aura that she hadn't perceived in a long time, and she didn't know why it had resurfaced.

The man suddenly turned his head, watching her directly. Hermione flinched unconsciously, as if someone had tried to strike her.

I don't like when you look at me like that, Granger. I'm not a specimen to be analysed, and especially not by a moron like you. Piss off.

"Why are you angry with me? I don't even know how I offended you."

"Piss… off."

Hermione took her book from the table, frowning. She wanted to express her outrage with her gaze, but Snape was looking again out the window.

"You shouldn't treat people like that."

A growl came from the crouching lump on the sofa.

Granger stood next to him for a few more minutes, thinking about everything, without knowing what to say, how to act. Even when feeling so offended, she couldn't stop worrying about the man. She wondered, with relentless curiosity, what had Snape lost, and why was Harry hiding it?