Chapter 38: A Murderer By The Name Of Snape
{A/N: For the Guests who read my work and compare it to the canon... know how this scene goes, it is one of my favorites in HBP and I will not be lectured on it not being the same...this is AU fan-fiction meaning, I can write it how I damn well please...that having been said everyone else...Enjoy-S.S.}
{Yes, I know but it must be done...repost...}
My Thanks To All My Readers And Reviewers...Enjoy-S.S.
{"I want a normal life...Just like a newborn child...I am a lover-hater...I am an instigator...You are an oversight...Don't try to compromise...I learn to love to hate it...I am not integrated...Just call my name...You'll be okay...Your scream is burning through my veins...Sooner or later...You're gonna hate it...Go ahead and throw your life away...Driving me under...Leaving me out there...Go ahead and throw your life away..."} Sooner Or Later, Breaking Benjamin
The Grounds, Hogwarts...
His heart had been pounding in his ebony clad chest. The image of the shock and horror plastered on both Draco and Potter's young Innocent faces had been nothing compared to the emotions threatening to come to the surface as Snape grabbed Draco by the collar and pulled him down the steps of the tower and toward the grounds. With each breath his heart continued to pound as the blood flowed in his icy veins. He had nearly escaped the scene without seeing her. He had not even known how Potter had manage to catch up to them and even more so he had not known how She managed to make her way to Potter.
"SNAPE!" shouted the emotionally distraught Harry not even sure he knew what he was doing anymore as he continued to follow Snape. "HE TRUSTED YOU!"
Snape was no fool. He knew the double meaning behind Potter's words even if Potter hadn't. The Potions Master knew he had to get as far away from the boy as possible but it seemed he could not get away fast enough.
"HE TRUSTED YOU!" shouted Harry still following mindlessly.
Contrary to popular belief it wasn't his basic Gryffindor traits that had taken hold of him. It was the shock and pain of someone he knew his whole life betraying him...betraying her.
Snape had not wanted to look into those emerald green eyes that he knew would be filled with unbridled hatred. They were like hers. So much like hers that he could not be anywhere near the boy.
"Sectumsempra!" shouted Harry waving his wand his intent to kill had been evident.
"NO!" shouted Snape turning to Bellatrix, who had blocked the intended curse and layed Potter on his back. "He belongs...to The Dark Lord!"
Bellatrix simply shrugged and made her escape along with Draco and the others.
Only Snape stood alone with Harry Potter who had tried yet again to curse him.
It angered Snape to no end that Potter of all people had his old potions journal, no doubt another carefully structured attempted of assistance by Dumbledore considering Snape kept the journal locked up in his quarters where no one could ever find it.
"You dare use my spells against me Potter?" hissed Snape in barely controlled rage.
Harry Potter looked up at The Potions Master as he loomed above him, his emerald green eyes seeming to mirror the seething rage behind the obsidian eyes that glared back at him.
"Yes, I am The Half-Blood Prince." said Snape with his pale lips curled in disgust at Harry's wayward attempt to end his life with a spell he, himself crafted.
As Snape glared down at the green-eyed wizard and kicked away his wand, he had not see nor noted when Hermione Granger made her way over toward her fallen friend. He had not heard the enraged spell that had been sent his way in a bid to stop his perceived assault.
"EXPELLIAMUS!" shouted Hermione wielding her wand with no qualms about injuring a professor. Especially if said professor, happened to be her murderous Potions Professor husband.
Snape went flying across the field in mix of shock and panic. He had not expected HER of all people to be there and least of all this quickly. She continued to follow him across the field passing Harry with only a quick glance to see that he had been alright. When it was noted that he'd live she continued to advance upon her husband as rage seemed to seep out of her every pore.
"YOU MURDERING BASTARD!" she shouted filled to the brim with hate and venom as he knew she would be. As well she should have been.
Snape looked up at Hermione from his place across the field and scrambled to his feet. The hurt in her eyes was tearing him apart on the inside but he kept his composure. He had a job to do, an assignment of sorts and now it mattered more than ever that he complete his task.
"I LOVED YOU." she said hurt beyond words. "I loved you and you betrayed me...you betrayed Dumbledore and everything we fought for."
Snape simply looked on not saying a word as her apparent hate poured from her in heart-retching tears.
"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" she asked enraged at his gall to keep silent. "Anything at all?"
Snape remained silent as she continued to lash out at him. She had been fishing for a reason, any reason to justify why he had committed such and atrocity and in her inquisitional line of thinking she found none...her brash goading had been her only attempt to answer the questions that plagued her young and confused mind seemingly to no end.
He knew this was coming but still, he felt lower than the worms that inhabit the soil beneath his feet. He could feel the force of her hate as if it had been magnified a thousandfold and was aimed solely at him. He had cared for her. It is his direct sense of caring for her that allowed him to do the unthinkable.
"I loved you." she said again the hurt out-weighing the hatred as she looked at him. Her amber eyes glossy with unfallen tears.
Her words sharper than any dagger pierced his very being. Then he heard the word that enraged him and snapped him back into reality. A word that reminded him that he was indeed a death eater and was by no means affected by this Gryffindor brow-beating exchange.
"Are you that much of a coward that you would attack an old man?" asked Hermione unintentionally goading her husband.
In an instant, Snape advanced on her. Seething as he reached out faster than she could blink and wrapped his pale fingers around her throat. The murderous look upon his face had not been enough to scare her into submission. She was a Gryffindor after all and very heartbroken.
"Do it." she said as the tears trickled down her cheeks, a stark contrast to the rage burning behind her amber eyes clarifying her hate. "Go on death eater kill me...I am nothing more than a Mudblood to you anyway."
Snape snarled as his rage continued to boil over.
He tightened his grip on her throat as he slammed her onto the ground, his pale ebony clad form over her's before she could utter a sound. The tears continued to flow as she recalled the last time his body had been pressed against hers in this form. The night at her parents house and the subsequent morning after. She had told him she loved him then.
"Stupid girl." said Snape angrily. "DO NOT TEMPT ME...FOR YOU SEE I AM VERY MUCH THE DEATH EATER FROM YOUR VERY NIGHTMARES...IF I SO DESIRED I WOULD SNAP YOUR PRETTY LITTLE NECK WITH MINIMAL EFFORT."
He tightened his grip for emphasis.
Hermione only glared at him defiantly.
"I hate you!" she managed despite the pain and increased tears, though they had been more from rage than sadness.
"Good." he replied, his voice as cold as she had ever heard it. "Then you and I still have something in common, Mrs. Snape."
"Granger." said Hermione still defiant her amber eyes hardened by her rage as she glared at him.
Snape smirked at this. Another attempt to hurt him on her part. He had not asked for their union. He had simply been fine going on as he had...it was she that needed him to shield her from the wave of death eaters that sought her hand...only in her quest to save herself from certain doom she had forgotten that he too had been of this lot. A fact that she no doubt believe had come back to bite her with no remorse.
"Back to Granger so soon?" he asked seemingly amused at her blatant announcement of not wanting anything more to do with him. "One wonders how truly deep one's love can be for someone if it can so easily be switched off at the drop of a...Headmaster's corpse."
The sadistic glint behind his obsidian eyes made her sick to her stomach as she continued to glare at him. She felt the release of his tightened grasp along her throat but had been unpleasantly surprised when he maneuvered so that he was between her blue jean clad thighs. Her body responded as it always had despite her rage at him. Her breathing ragged at the sensation of his touch.
"Go back to your little friends Miss Granger...pretend that my cock being squeezed by your tight little cunt meant nothing to you and play the morally superior witch." said hissed Snape still with his eyes glinting in a truly malicious fashion. "But deep down you will always know just how much you would beg for me to take you...remember just how well this murdering death eater's cock made you scream in the darkness of the dungeons."
"I hate you, Severus." said Hermione feeling him press further into her slender body.
"It's a shame our little interlude has come to an end." he said through rather husky breath. "I did so love fucking you Miss Granger...I suppose I can managed though given there is no shortage of witch trim in my near future...and of course you will do well in my absence, seeing as you now have a choice between idiot Potter and moronic Weasley to warm your bed."
"Don't insult my friends...murdering bastard." said Hermione angry.
Snape laughed at this. She still had quite the fiery attitude even given her weakened position. He would miss that about her, even if she hadn't known it.
"I hope Voldemort kills you." she said with all the venom she could muster.
Snape instead of being taken aback by this or having a witty comeback as she expected, Severus Snape simply leaned close to her with his pale lips an inch way from her soft pink ones.
"So do I." he replied in a cold too with a glimpse of something she could not register behind his obsidian eyes.
He put on a false smirk and kissed her passionately. Hermione had enough of her senses to bite him hard enough to draw blood. Snape pulled back still with the false smirk that she couldn't see through.
"Bye vixen...I admire your strength..it may serve you well in the coming days." he said rather tactfully. "I must go, I have a party to get to...dinner in my honor for the slaying of Dumbledore."
Before she could scramble to her feet he had disapparated with a crack of thunder.
Hermione had been furious that he had escaped. Her intention was to hold him until the surviving members of the order got to him but she had failed. Cutting her losses she made her way over to an unconscious Harry and woke him. He got to his feet as they surveyed Hogwarts grounds with renewed purpose.
The battle lines had been drawn.
It was clear now for all to see that Severus Snape was the enemy.
A reality that seemed to tear his young wife apart at the seams though she had not showed it. She was determined to right the great wrong he had committed, even if it meant killing the murderous Slytherin git herself.
Elsewhere...
Severus Snape crashed to the ground after his exhaustive flight from Hogwarts. He had not expected to be this weak given the toll his warring emotions had taken on him. His stomach had been in knots and his hands trembled. The images of Albus Dumbledore's demise replayed in his mind as well as the various confrontations with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Granger. He supposed he ought to think of her as Granger now. She had said as much during their heated exchange.
"F-Forgive me...Hermione." he said scrambling to his feet and attempting to compose himself.
He had not been lying to the bushy haired witch when he told her he was expected back at Malfoy Manor. There had been no doubt in his mind that the despot Voldemort wanted to throw him a feast in his honor, but more importantly the Malfoys wanted to thank him for protecting their son. Try as he might to compose himself entirely, he couldn't help the wayward tears that had fallen down his sallow pale cheeks. He thought of Hermione and immediately the loss of that young witch's love made him feel like the most lonely wizard in the world.
Snape gathered himself once more and gritted past the pain, as he was accustomed to doing in darker times like this.
"This had better been worth it Albus." he muttered biting back his rage at the thought of the old fool.
In an instant he was gone again apparating to Malfoy Manor.
Hogwarts Castle Grounds...
Hermione Granger barely gathered herself in the wake of her murderous husband's departure. She had still been numb about the Headmaster's death and watched as Harry glared at her with fury behind his emerald green eyes. The irate Gryffindor wizard made his way over toward Hermione his rage evident in his tone as he opened his mouth.
"WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT SNAPE!?" he shouted. "WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT MURDERING GIT BASTARD?!"
Hermione sighed and looked down at her feet.
"For years I have been saying that we couldn't trust him." Harry went on. "I knew we couldn't trust him and you were always defending him...then...then you went and married him...YOU MARRIED HIM HERMIONE!"
"I know that Harry." said the bushy haired witch gripping her wand as her amber eyes narrowed at her friend.
Harry's chest had been rising and falling from his rapid but furious breaths.
"He...killed Dumbledore." said the green eyed wizard sadly. "Dumbledore trusted him...he asked for him...he had asked for the stupid git and then..."
Harry's knees buckled as tears streamed down his dirt covered pale cheeks.
"He killed him...he killled..." he trailed off as the sobs drowned out his words.
"I know Harry." said Hermione as tears streamed down her own cheeks. "I-I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...I didn't know...I..."
Harry wiped his face noting that Hermione had been the only other one to challenge Snape after what he had done. He had heard a little of their exchange and felt a bit sad for his friend. Snape had been her husband after all and now he was a murderer. It had not been all her fault that she fell into the same trap Dumbledore had and trusted that murdering git bastard Snape.
"N-No...I'm...I'm sorry Hermione." said Harry sadly. "I-I can't imagine what this is doing to you..."
Hermione wiped her tears and gripped her wand firmly.
"It's nothing that can't be fixed once I kill that murdering git." she muttered angrily.
Harry got to his feet noting the fury behind Hermione's amber eyes for the first time. If he had any doubts about where her loyalties lie in this up-coming war, they were erased in that instant. She clearly had been no ally of the death eater git Severus Snape.