Vignette 4: Not Like Him
It was the last month of Hermione's pregnancy when the man came to the door. Some instinct told her immediately it was from the Ministry of Magic, even before he pulled out his card and announced himself. She did not like him almost immediately. It was late at night, Harry was out teaching a night class assignment he'd been given as an assistant, and she didn't trust the man's face. She wanted her family left along from all the intrigue in that quarter. Her feelings about it became worse when he brought up Snape.
"What do you want with him?" she demanded. "He's been acquitted."
"I'd simply like to ask him a few questions, that's all," the man insisted.
"I don't see that to be necessary…"
"Mrs. Potter."
She turned and saw Snape had wheeled himself upstairs. How did he sense these things? His intuition could be freakishly uncanny.
"If you don't mind, I believe I can provide our visitor with what he wishes. If you'll…leave us alone together for a spell?"
She would live to regret doing as requested. She left them alone in the sitting room sure enough, but even in room, going over the list of things she would need for her upcoming hospital stay, she sensed the presence of magic in her house. It was a cruel kind. She rushed back out to the sitting room.
"What have you done to him?!" Hermione shrieked, seeing the blank look on his face, and the blood seeping through his sleeve, with drops splattered across his shirt and his cheek.
"Evidently, the brand still bleeds," the official stated lowly. "You can check it all you like; it won't come out of him, not even by cutting. It seems to be…bone deep, marrow deep…"
Snape winced but did not speak.
"How could you do that, how could you…?" Hermione's face was burning red, her voice spitting anger.
"You think he's so very innocent now, that everything he is changes because he's like a helpless old woman in a wheelchair, so very innocent…"
"He was cleared of the charges!" she shouted. "Stop torturing him!"
"Torture?" he growled. "Nothing like the torture my daughter went through in the last year, under the Dark Lord. She was only 13, and tortured to death. And he stood there and watched."
Hermione turned to Snape, and saw him swallow, his eyes pools of horror, barraged with images from the past. She knew it was true.
"He was a spy," she stated in a measured way. "You know that he did everything he could to stop what he could, but he couldn't stop everything…"
"He stood there and watched!" the man bellowed. "I saw his memories!"
"You invaded his mind?" Hermione gasped, shocked.
"I wanted to see it as he saw it," he ground out furious tears coming to his eyes.
"Get out, get out of my house!" she screamed. "You had no right to come here! I may be living as a muggle, but I am still a witch, and if you do not leave this instant, I'll hex you out! Now go, and never show your face here again!"
When he was finally gone, she set upon trying to clean and bandage his sliced arm. The man was right; the dark mark was still visible, even as the blood coalesced around the symbol of death. Snape himself looked as traumatized as he had before, his eyes staring out into nothing, his fist clenched.
Carefully, she thought it best to try and snap him out of it. "It wasn't your fault," she insisted. "It was according to Dumbledore's plan…"
"Damn Dumbledore's plan," he spat. "Any man…any real man…would have broken rank…would have sacrificed anything, everything…to stop a child's pain, when it was at that level…" He pressed a hand to his face. "I just stood there, like a statue with a heart of stone…I just watched them screaming…I would try not to think about it, or I would go mad…I counted funny images in my head, sheep and oddly shaped clouds, flower petals, colors of the rainbow…like you do, trying to get to sleep…" He shivered. "When I tried sleeping, all the images would get jumbled…the pretty things, all covered in blood, and crying children…begging me to help them…and I don't, I can't…and it burns so much, and I want it to stop…but I'm afraid that when it stops, I'll be numb to it, and be evil, like him…but…but I know I am already, and there's no going back…"
He gasped a little as Hermione's hand touched his face, halting his nerve-driven ramble. He gazed into her eyes, looking for condemnation and finding only mercy.
"Why…why do you treat evil kindly?" he choked. "Why…?"
"Evil men do not suffer like this," she whispered. "Evil men do not mourn over such things."
"But…but I didn't do anything…to stop it…his daughter died in my sight, and I didn't stop it…"
"Could you have done anything? Honestly?"
"I…I don't know…sometimes I think…I might have tried h-harder…" He shut his eyes. "I wish I knew what it was I should have done and didn't do. At least I would know something other than confusion…so much I didn't do…oh…even in the beginning, when I took the mark, I was always…looking away from what I didn't want to see…they said I had a weak stomach…a weak heart…that I wanted the power with none of the price…" He inhaled sharply. "I should have left after the first raid they took me on…and what they did…I didn't shed the blood, but…but I just watched…and later on, vomited…but I still…stayed…I didn't know…where else to go…"
"If you hadn't stayed, we most likely wouldn't all be here," she reminded him. "You saved all our lives, and many more. Me, Harry, our baby now…we're all in your debt."
"Yes, but that makes me...a useful tool, not any sort of…man…" He winced, and Hermione noticed blood was seeping through the brand again.
She took up the arm and tightened the bandage. "You're hurting yourself going over and over this," she sighed. "Oh…I could hex that man from the Ministry. You were doing so well…"
"He…he lost a child," Snape ground out.
"And it wasn't your fault," Hermione blurted. "It was a tragedy, but they have no right to keep pounding you for what couldn't have been helped!"
"But I am…one of them…" His voice was low, dark, and his eyes drifted to his bloody marked arm. "You don't…h-have to keep me," he whispered at last.
"Now none of that…"
"You're young, and so is Potter. You want your lives disrupted by Ministry people coming to…to see if it's still in my skin, to see if it still bleeds? You're going to have a child any week now. You want the dark mark in the same house as your child? You want to have to explain to your child…where the nasty cripple in the basement who scares little children came from, and what the mark means…?"
She laid a hand on his shoulder. "And when my baby's born," she stated, unfazed, "I'm going to make quite a fuss about putting you on the spot and making you hold him, and you're going to be complaining making wise cracks the whole time, and…" The look on his face nearly brought Hermione to tears. "And…and you'd best just make sure your arm heals up fast for that."
"Mrs. Potter…" Her name emerged from his throat like a crushed rasp.
"So…so," she hurried past her own thoughts, her own emotions. "What are your favorite flowers?"
"Snowdrops," he answered almost automatically, as if he were still under interrogation, and expecting some sort of punishment if he didn't give the correct answer. "They…bloom in winter sometimes. I…I used to like…roses…that's rather cliché…I…I never had a real garden…"
"Well, I was planning on trying for one this spring, if I'm not too warn out with baby care. We could have a rose bush."
"We…could?"
Good God, he sounded so confused, so lost….delirious even…terribly unfeigned…
"Yes, of course." She smiled at him softly. "What about a rainbow? What's your favorite color?"
"The color…between green and blue…or…blue and purple…I don't know…I always liked…in between colors…"
By now, if he were even vaguely himself, he would be decrying her as a prying nosy wench, asking a lot of infantile questions like a half-baked reporter from The Daily Prophet. But the broken shield was revealing the wounded mesh, and the soft, stained gauze trying to stop the bleeding.
So she asked again, "What…what are your favorite clouds?"
He closed his eyes. "Storm clouds," he whispered. "They are very dark…purplish gray, like bruises you try to hide…but they have a voice…and there is light flashing inside them…and rain is not always bad…they…they have always…followed me…" He clutched his chair arm. "I…I didn't want her to die, I…I didn't want any of them to die…it didn't pleasure me like it did…him…" His voice wobbled at the thought of Voldemort's ghoulish face watching his innocent victims die. "I'm not him…oh, please, please, I'm not him…"
"I know." She squeezed his hand. "We all know."
He gazed at her hand on his and exhaled shakily, almost in a mix between relief and resignation to the fact that he had just let someone hear the way his mind worked, sometimes, when he was trying very hard to keep himself was bleeding all over.
She bit her lip. "What…what's your favorite tea?"
"Peppermint," he mumbled, still answering as if under a self-imposed truth serum, his eyes fixated on her hand over his.
"Alright, I'll make some for us. Better put some chamomile honey in it too. I'll help you sleep."
"I'll…have nightmares…"
"No, no, you'll dream of nice things," she assured him gently. "I've got some raspberry tarts upstairs. Want some with the tea?"
He blinked, just staring out at her for a moment. "You'll make…a very good mother."
And Hermione found that those words touched her most of all, and a tear escaped her eye, looking rather like a jewel sparkling in the dark.
