Disclaimer:
This is a present for forthy, since it was her comment that inspired it. I have no claim or ownership of any of the characters herein, and I only hope that I have not bent them all fantastically out of character.
Part Two: In which our heroine begins to discover the truth.
Obsession was not a word that Hermione dwelled on lightly for she had seen what it could do to other wizards and witches, her friend Harry Potter a prime example of this. His need and obsession to discover the truth- whatever that was- drove him to extremes that were at times dangerous for himself and those around him. What was worse was the idea that had grown in her that she must have known all along who her love Tobias was and yet had remained somehow blinded to it.
Perhaps what had been said to her about being a bit too literal and narrow-minded in her brilliance was also true. That hurt her a bit since it played into her insecurities quite nicely, though the person that had said it meant to try and help her she supposed. But it would explain how she could have overlooked something important over the years. She had started by scanning faces of all the Seventh years that she had known despite the seeming dead end this must after all be. She'd known them all so long, even the ones that despised her and bullied her like Draco, and none of them seemed to possess the combination of features that would create the profile and face she had touched but never seen illuminated.
It wasn't as if she hadn't had the idea to use her wand the next time she was visited but something held her back every time. That something was fear that should she improperly reveal him that he would vanish, or at least that was what she told herself. The truth was that Hermione was scared that he would be angry with her about it, since he was so reticent with details about himself. She also could not discount his words of warning that he was in dire danger and he feared she was as well just by his being with her.
The Gryffindor part of her had risen to this challenge. If she knew him revealed she would still love him and somehow she would save him. It was easier to let go of the fear by using her obsession as a tool and calling it research as well. When the search of faces failed as she knew it must she set about trying small enchantments to see if any of them perhaps hid their faces with a disguise spell or a very potent Polyjuice Potion even though again she had doubts about this method. After all that much Polyjuice would not be easy to come by and there would always be a risk of discovery.
Hermione still could not shake the nagging idea that she did already know Tobias, as fantastical as this sounded even to herself. She thought after her slew of enchantment tests failed that perhaps she could finally after all these years reveal her secret list to Harry or Ginny and enlist their aid, yet when she had started to approach Ginny on the subject her laughter and words had proven to be a harsh reminder of why she kept this secret. Ginny hadn't meant to hurt Hermione's feelings; despite her bit of a gulf still with Ron she considered them friends. But that was exactly what had happened even though Hermione herself wasn't sure just why she felt hurt.
Perhaps it was more that Ginny laughed at the idea of trying to find someone that in her estimation sounded as if he were no more handsome than the current Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Severus Snape. Hermione had paled and stammered at that comment and then waved off further questions on why she had wanted to know if Ginny had perhaps ever seen a boy of school age with the features she had felt with her fingertips so often. After the initial shock it had put Hermione in a bit of a snit too. To think that Ginny would revile her gentle Tobias that way, sight unseen!
To be fair though Hermione let herself grumble out her anger in private and decided that for Ginny it had been just a bit of a lark and nothing more. Surely if she met Tobias in the flesh and holding hands with Hermione she wouldn't care a whit if he were handsome or plain as long as her friend was happy! Her hurt feelings were thrust aside and Ginny forgiven while Hermione moved on to a new experiment. If Ginny had reacted badly surely Harry would as well and she could just hear the sharp comments he'd make if he thought she was searching for a young Snape. He absolutely hated him after all and doubtless would be just as thoughtlessly cruel if he thought Hermione might like someone who could resemble him.
Though it had opened up an interesting line of thought in her while she had been engaged in her current practice of closing her eyes in her classes just to listen carefully to all the boys speak. What if he was related somehow to the Professor? Surely the Prince family had many cousins whether they used the Prince surname or not. Several Pureblood families had after all died out in the male line while their blood carried on in the female so it was not so great a leap of logic to suppose this might be true.
But if he were her age and related to Snape, then why wasn't he openly a part of the Hogwarts student body? She felt sure that he was as magical as any wizard, the proof was there in his visits to her however infrequent they had become now. A slight smile had appeared while she thought about him, head slightly down and her eyes still closed. Perhaps he attended school elsewhere because Professor Snape knew that deep down Tobias would never be a Slytherin like he was? Perhaps that was it! Perhaps he was elsewhere because he was a good person – though that did not explain his uncanny knowledge of what went on at Hogwarts did it?
A sigh escaped her lips as she had become so lulled in her own thoughts and the voice of Professor Snape as he instructed the class on certain tell-tale clues of someone that might have knowledge of the Dark Arts that she missed the sudden pause of his deep and almost sonorous voice until he rapped lightly upon her desk to gain her attention. She startled even though she had not been asleep in the slightest and it made some of the students that disliked her to snicker behind their hands though that stopped with the almost cold look that the Professor shot at them from his narrowed eyes before he turned them back on Hermione.
She squirmed a bit at his total attention much to her embarrassment, nervous suddenly as a First Year as she looked up into his face. As she did so she gasped just a bit which took the Professor aback. Hermione had been in his classes for years, she was not some stranger witch to remark on his looks, so perhaps he truly had startled her as badly as her jump in the seat indicated. Had she really been so enraptured by what she was thinking of that she had forgotten where she was? Her suddenly blush and aversion of gaze made that seem highly likely. A smirk seemed to lace his words then as he gave her a detention for inattention in class, after all that was the most unlikely offense that Hermione of all people could ever commit.
He did not notice how her brown eyes had locked to his form as he turned and walked back up to the head of the class with a near dramatic swish of his robes nor did he seem to notice a sudden dawning apprehension that settled on her face before Hermione schooled it back to a studious expression more normal to her features. It seemed that perhaps Hermione did owe Ginny a bit of apology because in that brief moment that she had locked her gaze with his another revelation had hit the witch with the force of a Quidditch bludger. If perhaps Professor Snape were her own age, he might very well indeed resemble Tobias!
The theory gained weight and solidity as she thought of even the Professor's voice. Of all the male voices she had been tuning in his did hold some similarity no matter how slight it might be. But the differences there might just be what came with age and maturity. So perhaps the theory that they were related was not so far-fetched after all and Hermione had been close to the truth and never even known it! But how was it that her Tobias knew what happened day to day at Hogwarts? Was it a sophisticated sort of scrying spell? She pondered this while keeping her eyes forward to better seem to be listening to the lesson and not just the voice that gave it and Hermione noted something she had never noticed before.
Professor Snape's shadow was not quite in synch with the Professor's movements, and sometimes it was off a significant amount! Her lips parted and she knew she must have for a brief instant resembled a gasping fish though she was saved the indignity of a gasp this time. She forcibly shut her mouth despite her sudden near violent need to rise from the chair she sat in and go up to examine this new development when there was a knock on the door to the classroom. A sigh seemed to escape the Professor before he turned to answer it as if he should have just known he would be interrupted. After all a day in which Hermione Granger was not paying rabid attention to classwork was bound to be an off day all around for anyone.
Professor McGonagall was outside and Professor Snape stepped out into the hall to speak with her but had failed to totally close the door. Hermione was at this point so tuned to his voice that she could still hear him over the murmur of the other students who were glad of the Professor's absence no matter how brief. She had also gone a bit pale because while the Professor was out in the hallway his shadow had stayed on their side of the door! It was amazing and she burned with the want for knowledge of how he had done it. It would certainly explain how the Professor always seemed to know what was going on in his class without casting any sort of visible spell.
But it was not Snape's words that caused her to let out a startled low sound, it was Professor McGonagall who spoke those verbal daggers that made Hermione pale and ultimately slump in a faint at her desk. She had to have heard it before and simply never cared to remember it, it simply was not possible that she had gone to Hogwarts for seven years and never heard the full name of Professor Snape, wasn't it?
"Severus Tobias Snape don't you take that tone with me!"
His snide rejoinder suddenly died on his lips as something abruptly filled the Professor with alarm and he whirled in place to slam the door to his classroom back open and lunge inside just as the students erupted with cries of Hermione! Hermione collapsed! She had slid out from her seat to the floor none to gently it seemed as well, sprawled in a rather inelegant heap as other students rose to either assist her or jeer at her. He never noted how in the moments before he bent to lift her his shadow had rushed forward to engulf her protectively in such a fashion as it seemed to cling to her as he strode back out into the hallway with a curt hiss to Professor McGonagall to watch his class since she was so fond of interruptions.
He did not pause to examine the urge that led him to take the girl straight to Madame Pomfrey himself rather than delegate it as he well could have. The kindly woman had apparently stepped out of the clinic for something and with a frown he waved off the help of her assistant so that he could lay Hermione out on a pallet himself. The girl had a slight discoloration on her forehead that most likely had come from the desk top but he doubted that was what had caused her fainting spell though he couldn't have said exactly why he felt that way. He gazed at her a long moment before turning to sweep a curtain closed around where she lay and he left instructions with the assistant that she should be left alone to rest until Madame Pomfrey herself could examine her.
He didn't notice that as he swept out of the clinic with a slightly pensive scowl on his face that he cast not a length of shadow behind him. Not from the light that struck his form while he strode back down the hallway, nor even when he passed an open window which let more natural light bathe him a mere moment. But really who could blame the Professor for not noticing such a small detail, who after all honestly pays much attention to their own shadow? It was much like a reflection in a mirror, you never really thought about it unless you deliberately sought it out.
He sent Professor McGonagall back on her way with his reply to the Headmaster, and if his reply were a bit surlier than the norm even she was inclined to overlook it due to the circumstance. Minerva McGonagall favored Hermione Granger immensely and was worried about the young witch despite how close she was to being of age and graduation so it seemed natural to her that Snape would favor such an intelligent student over some of the more dunderheaded ones in his classes. As he sorted out the class for the final few minutes of it Professor Snape had the disquieting notion that there was far more to what had happened than he was aware of and that it would be wise on his part to find out just what if he could. The question was if he could get a Gryffindor like Hermione to trust him enough to talk candidly about it.
It seemed like she had been dreaming so when her eyes finally fluttered open Hermione thought that perhaps the day was over and this must be her own room, cool and dark even though the pallet she lay on was not as comfortable as her bed. This feeling of night was reinforced by a low and urgent voice in her ear and the warmth of love spread in her chest when she registered his words. It must be night for here was her beloved Tobias who scooped her up against his lean chest and pressed his lips to her cheek before resting his own against hers.
"Hermione you scared me to death! Why did you pass out like that? I'm taking a terrible risk being here now but I couldn't just leave you alone. Pomfrey will be here soon, I don't know how long I have, but I'll stay until then."
Pomfrey? Was she in the clinic – oh she supposed now she must be, he did say she'd passed out after all. She paled again as it all struck her at once, Professor McGonagall's voice ringing in her ears. Severus Tobias Snape. It was simply impossible unless her theory that her Tobias was a relative of Snape's was a true one and he happened to be named after him or something. That could make sense! She felt his arms tighten around her as she'd paled and he rocked her slowly, and she realized he'd begged her to tell him what was wrong.
"Tobias. Tobias you've never told me what your full name is and I think I know why."
He froze, wrapped around her as he was and she thought she heard an almost undetectable keening sound coming from his throat until she slipped her arms around him and this time the comfort would come from her to him. She let her clever hands stroke down his back and she nestled trustingly to his chest as she always had.
"You think I care that you're related to Professor Snape, don't you? Well, I don't Tobias! You can't pick your family any more than the rest of us."
He shuddered in her arms and she could feel wetness against her cheek where he'd moved his own against hers again. His voice was almost jagged though still tender with her and she sensed his sadness and a sudden fear of loss rose up inside of her. Had she made a mistake with her declaration?
"Hermione, my own Hermione. You think I'm related to Professor Snape."
There was a noise outside where she lay that signaled the return of Madame Pomfrey and in a panic Hermione's arms tightened around Tobias' shadowy form. The risk he must have taken to be here loomed up inside her then because it was daytime and he was holding her and he'd never ever done that before. She felt his lips on her cheek, her forehead and finally her mouth and there was a bittersweet feel to his affection that made her heart beat faster. Before she could speak she begged him with all her heart, her words soft and designed to plunge into his own like swift little arrows.
"I know you have to leave, but please if you love me, see me tonight. I've never asked you to before … but I need to know I haven't just lost you."
That she cared enough to beg him seemed to astound him and his gentle touch was there, stroking her hair back from where the bruise was slowly appearing on her pale skin. She saw him nod slowly, his shadowy profile as it always was and then he dipped to kiss her a final time. She barely had enough presence of mind to lie back down as her curtain began to draw back and for the first time she saw how he simply melted away like a shadow does when the light is too bright. That thought pierced her and she began to think of how Professor Snape's own shadow had behaved so oddly just moments before her collapse only to be sidetracked by the bustle and well meaning care of Madame Pomfrey.
She felt now more than ever that she was on the verge of a great discovery, that she truly had all the pieces of the puzzle laid out before her if she could just see the pattern. She prayed that tonight he would indeed come to her side and answer her questions because she had also begun to have an inkling that he was not only related to Professor Snape but perhaps magically bound or cursed as well! The how and why of this escaped her for the moment but as sure as she was Hermione Granger she would not let this mystery go until she had resolved it once and for all. Too much was at stake here for her to give up now.