It's What's Inside That Counts
Chapter 28
Hermione had her usual Saturday lunch date with Ginny in Hogsmeade. She brought the letters with poetry for her to see and told her about the music in the front yard episode. Ginny looked at Hermione curiously when she read one.
"Hope is a thing with feathers?" she asked. What does that mean exactly? "What are you gonna do?"
"Give him a taste of his own medicine," Hermione said.
The rest of the weekend, she searched through poetry to properly convey her own feelings of confusion, anger and heart ache. She sent him the first letter a week to the day he sent his first. She thought the poem was a bit over the top, but so was music in her front yard at midnight. Severus' delight at receiving a letter from her soon turned to concern when he read the poem from Hermione.
"He is stark mad, whoever says, that he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays, but that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear that I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say I saw a flask of powder burn a day?
Ah, what a trifle is a heart, if once into love's hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part to other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
they come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks to die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.
If 'twere not so, what did become of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room, but from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know mine would have taught thine heart to show
more pity unto me ; but Love, alas!
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.
Yet nothing can to nothing fall, nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all those pieces still, though they
be not unite; and now, as broken glasses show a hundred lesser faces,
so my rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more." 1
"Shite," he said and carefully put the letter down as if it would burn him. If there was ever a poem that said "I hate myself for loving you" this was it. The next day, another arrived. It was a brief missive, but spoke volumes.
"The hottest love has the coldest end." 2
----
The third day, he sighed and opened the letter. What would she sling at him this day? "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love." 3
What???? Was she drunk when she sent that one? At least she was showing some emotion and opening up to him, but she must have really dug deep to find the stuff she was sending. She's sending me something at least, which means she's thinking! he thought.
The fourth day, the missive wasn't as bitter but was a bit melancholy.
"I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken- and I'd rather remember as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken pieces as long as I lived." 4
By the seventh day, Severus wasn't sure how much more he could take. Hermione had no intention of standing in the front yard of Spinner's End with a CD player, so she sent him a CD instead. Knowing Hermione's varied musical tastes and what he had read over the week, there was no telling what he's be listening to. He sighed and inserted the CD into the player.
"There were nights when the wind was so cold,
that my body froze in bed if I listened to it right
outside the window-
There were days when the sun was so cruel
That all the tears turned to dust
and I just knew my eyes were drying up forever
I finished crying in the instant that you left
and I can't remember where or when or how
and I banished every memory you and I
had ever made-
But when you touch me like this
and you hold me like that
I just have to admit, that it's all
coming back to me now-
When I touch you like this,
and I hold you like that, it's so hard to believe
but it's all coming back to me now
There were moments of gold
and there were flashes of light
There were things I'd never do again
But then they'd always seemed right
There were nights of endless pleasure
It was more than any laws allow
If I kiss you like this and if you whisper like that
It was lost long ago, but it's all coming back to me
If you want me like this, And if you need me like that
It was dead long ago, but it's all coming back to me
It's so hard to resist, and it's all coming back to me
I can barely recall, but it's all coming back to me now-
Then were those empty threats and hollow lies
And whenever you tried to hurt me
I just hurt you even worse and so much deeper
There were hours that just went on for days
When alone at last we we'd count up all the chances
that were lost to us forever-
But you were history with the slamming of the door
And I made myself so strong again somehow
And I never wasted any of my time on you since then
But if I touch you like this, and if you kiss me like that
It was so long ago, but it's all coming back to me now
If you touch me like this, and if I kiss you like that
It was gone with the wind
But it's all coming back to me now-
There were moments of gold
and there were flashes of light
There were things I'd never do again
But then they'd always seemed right
There were nights of endless pleasure
It was more than any laws allow
If you forgive me all this
And I forgive you all that
We forgive and forget, it's all coming back to me now
When you see me like this
and when I see you like that
We see just what we want to see
All coming back to me, the flesh and the fantasies
I can barely recall but it's all coming back to me now.." 5
When the song concluded, Hermione's voice was heard from the CD.
"Seven p.m. Friday at The Three Broomsticks, not one second later."
He looked at the calender- it was Wednesday. He let his head fall to the table with a thud.
May 3
On Friday, he arrived an hour early and prepared a booth in the corner of the pub as far away from the other patrons as possible. He put a vase with lilies on the table and had a pot of of her favorite tea waiting for her arrival. Two minutes before seven, Severus' heart about thumped from his chest when she walked in. She scanned the pub and found his face. She quickly strolled to the table, aware that many pairs of eyes around the pub were watching. When she arrived at the table, Severus stood and waited for her to sit.
When she did, he said, "I took the liberty of ordering tea and biscuits."
She smelled cranberry tea and cinnamon biscuits, her favorite teatime treat.
"Thank you," she said.
Severus noticed they were being watched, so he cast a privacy charm to guard against prying ears and eyes.
"How are you?" he asked.
"Fine," she replied.
"And your home?" he asked. It was a safe question; no matter her mood, she always like to talk about the farm.
"Good. Two lambs were born last week, the kittens are almost grown and Hannah..well, she's just Hannah," she said with a grin about her full grown puppy.
"I hope your career is still continuing successfully," he said.
"Oh...I resigned," she said and took a sip of tea.
That was a surprise. "Why?"
She held up her prosthetic hand then slipped it back under the table.
"You don't have to hide it from me, from anyone," he said softly.
"I know, everyone keeps telling me that," she said. "But they don't have to learn to deal with it. I had to get a new stove because of it."
What a curious comment! "Pardon?" he asked.
"With the prosthesis, I can grip things well enough, but the fluid motion of a natural hand is just not there, I mean...I can't play my piano," she said with a shaking voice and slumped shoulders. She shook her head and sat up straight again. "I tried to cast a charm in the kitchen last week with it," she said, shaking the prosthesis, "and the spell got away from me, hence destroying my stove, so now I'm learning to use the other hand."
"I see," he said. "More tea?"
"Yes please," she said, pouring a bit of potion into the hot cup of cranberry tea.
"Are you ill?" he asked.
"No, I have a headache from this afternoon's therapy," she said.
"Why don't you tell me about it?" he said.
"Tell you about what?" she asked.
"About therapy," he said.
"Why would you want to know about that? Why do you care?" she asked.
"I care because I care about you, whether you believe it or not," he said casually.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"Because your last letter indicated seven pm, here," he said. "And because a very smart witch once told me that we are exactly where we're meant to be."
"Well, that allegedly very smart witch could have been wrong about a lot of things," she said.
"Not about this," he said, sipping his tea. "Allow me to say that I have been the one entirely in the wrong."
"Severus, I already told you that I forgive you, what else do you want?"
"You."
His breath was taken away when her tearful eyes bored into his and he jumped in his seat when she suddenly apparated from the booth. He heard a soft thump from below the table and looked under. In her emotional state, she splinched and left her prosthesis behind. He examined it for a moment and apparated to Granger Farm, hoping she went there. Seconds later, he appeared on her front lawn to find her sitting on the ground, crying and mumbling. She jumped up, saw the prosthesis he was holding and rushed to him, snatching it from him. She haphazardly reattached it to her arm and glared at him, eyes blazing and began her tirade.
"You want me, huh? Fine thing for you to realize now!" she shouted. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVED YOU!! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU HURT ME?? I BEGGED YOU!!! YOU CALLED ME A WHORE!!" she screamed and started pounding on his chest and loudly recounted the confusion, anger and pain he had caused her. "YOU LEFT WITH SUCH HATE!!"
Her hitting his chest didn't hurt, but when her prosthesis slipped off again, she stopped and stepped back, chest heaving and tears falling from her tirade. He picked up the hand, kissed it and gave it back to her. Then he did something she would have never believed him capable of doing, ever.
He dropped to his knees.
"Hermione, I've only begged once before in my life and that was to Albus, to beg his forgiveness for a moment of insanity in the midst of youthful, angry ignorance. I now beg you to see that I love you, that I would move the earth and stars to be with you. There's nothing I won't do just to be with you."
"Severus, please get off your knees, I'm not worth it," she said softly.
"You are mistaken sweet, you are worth it and of so much more, just give me a chance to prove it, I beg you," he pleaded.
The moment was broken by a bark and sight of Hannah bounding toward them.
The next morning, Hermione watched Hannah quickly scarf down the contents of her doggie bowl while she leisurely ate a sticky bun. She thought back to last night and sighed. She and Severus had come to an understanding of sorts and she slept better than she had in a long time.
"You always eat as if I never feed you," she quipped to the dog.
The doorbell sounded and Hannah gave a short bark. Hermione rose and went to the front door. There stood Severus with an attaché case.
"I'm here for a friendly breakfast, as you requested," he said with a bow.
"All I have are sticky buns," she said. "It's been awhile since I went to the market."
"Sticky buns are fine," he said.
She stepped aside and he stepped over the threshold. "I procured these for you. If you don't care for them, I'll take them back." He took some booklets from the case and gave them to her. They were entitled Piano Music for the Left Hand, Concertos for One Hand, Album of Classics for the One Handed.
She looked at them and whispered, "I don't know what to say."
"Say that you'll try and play them. You have a gift, it would be a shame to let it fall by the wayside," he said earnestly.
She forgot about sticky buns and sat down at her piano.
Poetry/song Credits
1 John Donne
2 Socrates
3 Charles M. Schulz
4 Margaret Mitchell
5 Celine Dion