The next morning, the sun shone with glaring brightness, lighting up all the growing things with vivid colours and warmth. Nature itself seemed to be relishing in the last bits of summer, soaking up the light and rejoicing in the flocks of vagrant birds, crossing the sky in triangles and lines.
And, of course, it only added to Severus's profound misery to find that even his own little world outside was so unsympathetic of his ordeal. A couple of geese had stopped at the small pond in his garden on their way south, and now were filling his back garden with merry clatter and clacking.
Severus swore and wished he could stomach the thought of food right now, otherwise, he'd quite happily use a couple of fireballs? and the remains of the dill in the kitchen herb bed to cook himself a hearty meal.
One Miss Hermione Granger had got unbelievably lucky the day before: Snape's own state of shock had prevented her untimely death or at least a crippling injury, of that Severus was sure. He hadn't slept a wink, and at a certain point during the night, he'd realized that his haunting not-quite-nightmares, those visions that coalesced into nothing but mawkish abstractions, had a reason. And the reason was that something, some part of him, was missing. It was called upon by a force he didn't care to ponder deeper when one blasted Miss Hermione Granger turned the Stone.
Too many whys and hows were swirling in his head at the moment, but in the wee hours of the morning, a single one had started dominating. Why had she done this? Who had given her the right to play with him so? Even presuming he was dead, who was she to decide between others' lives and deaths? Each time Severus posed one of these questions to himself, he became so outraged that it resulted in imminent death for another piece of his meagre cutlery. When he was left with the option of eating from a cauldron or taking his anger out on its source, he left the house.
And this was how one unfortunate Miss Hermione Granger came to find one very distraught Severus Snape on her doorstep at seven in the morning.
The minute she opened the door, Snape was ready to admit that he was about to contemplate the Unforgivables. Technically and statistically, he was dead. And who would charge a dead man with anything? However, as soon as he'd looked at her face, the wind was let out of his sails almost entirely. She looked like she'd been dragged through all the atrocities of hell and backwards by her hair, and still, somehow, managed to maintain a strange reserved dignity of one who acknowledged all the wrongs they'd done and then some.
Severus cringed: if there was anyone who knew a thing or five about guilt, that someone would be him, and 'guilt' was all but burned onto Granger's forehead with a white-hot wand tip. He realized that he wanted her to start grovelling and begging for his forgiveness or give a fantastically idiotic reason for what she'd done, something like having been infatuated with him since she was twelve and unable to let go. He'd be repulsed, and his anger would flare right up again. He already knew she'd do none of these things.
"I thought you'd come, Professor," she said simply, and stepped aside to let him in.
He strode inside a ridiculously welcoming little place. There was nothing girly in it: no flowery taffeta armchairs or opulent curtains, no senseless items many women seem to have an urge to hoard. Yet, it did carry a definitely feminine touch. Severus couldn't tell exactly why he thought so. One thing he could tell for sure was that he suddenly felt calm and at home.
Miss Granger stood aside, watching him look over her house warily. Severus hoped she wouldn't gather her wits about her enough to offer him a seat and tea. The house had already had a strange, livening effect on him, and he supposed if he sat in that leather chair, obviously intended for guests, he'd lose all his anger completely.
"I gather you're here to give me quite an earful, sir," Granger said suddenly with a slight challenge in her voice.
"Yes, I am. Just taken aback a bit that you're not yet dissolving into soggy heaps of teary apologizing," he replied with snark.
"You're lucky, then, I did my soggy heaping and dissolving during the night."
"A litany of arguments and oh-so-important and totally justified reasons as to why someone who supposedly rests in peace should be raised from the dead?"
"Sorry, Professor. Done that quite a while ago, for my own self. But if you want a repeat—"
"Yes, I do want a godsdamned repeat," Snape barked, finally getting a kick-in from his fury. "I do want to know why and how someone's sense of self-importance can reach such mythical proportions that raising the dead becomes a viable course of action."
"It's almost nice to see your best teaching persona emerge without a single change to it," Granger snapped, any trace of guilt gone from her eyes. "I didn't try and call on you because I thought I'd fancy turning the stone and summoning my old teacher on a whim."
"Are you actually telling me you had a good reason for doing just that?" Snape asked disdainfully.
"No," she answered and straightened up. "No, I'm not saying anything about good reasons. Or, to be more honest, I could probably make up a small pile by now, but I... think you deserve better."
"How very Gryffindor of you, Miss Granger, to cover your miserable lack of fantasy with brutal honesty. And yet, there's a why behind every action, and I want to know yours. I feel like I deserve it, specifically because the aftermath is causing me major pains in the posterior. If you know the Peverell brothers' story, you should have kept in mind what happened to the initial owner of the stone."
"Yes, yes... Um... Why don't we sit?"
Severus was actually glad to take the offered seat. His joints were never fond of lengthy conversations had on foot, and now he was actually sure that the anger, necessary to maintain the needed tone of dialogue, would remain.
"Sir, what I'm about to tell you may sound shocking and very... cynical," Miss Granger said, once they had sat down: he, in a leather armchair, and she on a small couch.
"You are talking to a Death Eater, here, Miss Granger," Snape replied, not bothering to add 'former'. "Don't make your idiocy more prominent by thinking I don't know shocking or cynical."
"Of course," she said primly. "Then I'll just go ahead with it."
She coughed and took a deep breath, and for a moment Snape had a niggling thought that Miss Granger must have been put on a high stool one time too many during her childhood. He rolled his eyes, but held back a comment. Whatever she was about to say, she definitely felt that he was going to be scandalized.
"I did it purely out of scientific interest, sir," she blurted out. "You see, when I found the Stone... I wasn't going to summon any spirits. I wasn't even sure, what it was. I even had it checked out by a Muggle jeweller. But then I started reading into it, weaselled a few facts out of Xeno Lovegood, and got a few books on Necromancy. I even talked to a few ghosts. Although, Necromancy seems like a largely speculative field of science, I... You just seemed like the best one to call upon. Dumbledore is a bit too... and Tonks and Professor Lupin, I just..."
Ghosts, he was thinking about ghosts and the reasons why this thought was conjured up in a by-the-book know-it-all's brain and never even passed his when her words caught up with him. He, Severus Snape was merely a subject of a scientific experiment.
And to his horror, and, yes, shock, this kind of cynicism, the cynicism of an extremely curious researcher, was something he actually could understand. And the worst thing about it was that since he could relate to it so much, remembering all too well his own start with the Dark Arts, there was nothing he could say to make a valid, honest reproach.
His face must have been really curious to look at, judging by the array of expressions shifting over her features. Scared to hopeful to confused to horrified to desperate.
"Well, you did manage to shock me," Snape said clearing his throat. "I'll give you that."
"I know you don't have a very high opinion of my character, but... Please tell me you don't hate me," Granger said pleadingly.
"Hate is too strong a word for someone I don't give two Knuts about," he answered suddenly irritated.
"My main reason was what Harry told me. I knew I'd succeed. When he turned the stone, he was given a chance to see his parents, and Sirius, and Remus and Tonks, in a pivotal moment of his life. It helped him, and they went back in peace. I don't think they were in any way afflicted. "
"Are you trying to tell me that you turned the stone when you were experiencing some kind of a, how did you put it, pivotal moment?" Snape said sceptically.
"No, I didn't. Besides, I so wanted to know what it's like... on the other side. And you were always so wordy with your lectures, so exact and eloquent. You were the best choice to tell me." She hung her head and slumped in the sofa. "But if we had managed to communicate, I'd tell you that..." She paused, biting her lip.
"What would you tell me?" he asked cautiously. Probably some sentimental claptrap or other, but something in him wanted to hear it, nonetheless.
"I know, it sounds like a horribly worn-out platitude, but I'd tell you that you are missed and that more people than you could probably imagine think that you were... I mean... are a great man."
Snape didn't really know what to say to that. It was, indeed, a worn-out platitude, but the kind it never hurt to hear.
"I think I've cleared up your reasoning for aping the idea of research, and I even have to say that I find it novel and quaint that a Gryffindor, for once, didn't act on their pious hopes or wasn't trying to exact their own brand of Gryffindor justice—"
"Oh, for gods' sake, don't make it all about the Houses. This is just old," she snapped, looking shamefaced, however.
"Whatever. The problem of reversing this situation remains, and I expect a solution soon because it seems to be having a deteriorating effect on my health and life."
She hung her head.
"That's why I was going to see Mr. Avery."
"And did you?"
Strange, but he didn't know if she had.
"No. I... I think we should work together on this, and if we are to visit him, we both should go."
Severus really tried to look appalled. But on a certain level, he refused to comprehend the idea actually excited him. Hermione Granger was, even he had always grudgingly admitted, a brilliant scholar. Not excessively inventive, which would have made teamwork difficult, much more diligent than, say, Draco, and her sense of self-importance had always been quirky at best, which meant he could take the lead part easily and let her do the monkey work. And, what the hell. Even if he seemed to be the focal point of all the experimenting and research, the very concept of studying something as obscure and uncharted sent a pleasant thrill through his veins.
"So, your vaunted Gryffindor bravery gave up on you at Avery's doorstep, and now you need a chaperone?" he asked instead.
She rolled her eyes, nonplussed. Good for her. It would be a pain in the neck to work with her if she took offence at every barb he was destined to let slip, or slip in on purpose.
"Think what you want. You're stuck with me anyway," she said, and didn't look like she was horrified by the idea. "We have a lot of things to plan and discuss today, then. Tea?"
"Tea would be lovely, thank you," he said with deliberately exaggerated politeness. Hopefully, her tea brewing skills weren't as abysmal as Longbottom's.