I own none of the places, characters, or ideas created by JK Rowling that appear in this story. I take credit for everything else.
Thank you, Southern Witch, for betaing this for me. An especially big thanks is due to ayerf, who listened to and explained my rather random British questions.
Chapter 4- Lethe's Bouquet
Severus woke suddenly, reaching for his wand through the hazy remnants of sleep. Sunlight was filtering through the open window, warming his skin, and he could hear a lone bird whistling from a nearby tree. There was a steady hum from the distant motorway, but no other sound was distinguishable in the early-morning calm. He clutched his wand until the rapid beating of his heart slowed and his breathing steadied to an even cadence.
A grimace pinched his features. He hated waking like this every morning, detested the fear that produced such blind, uncontrolled panic. With a concerted effort, his grip slackened on his wand. Recently, his magic had been so erratic that Severus was unsure if his wand would do him any good defensively.
Perhaps it had only been the neighbors that had startled him awake; the teenager next door owned a car that backfired every time he started the bloody thing, and across the street resided an old woman with two yappy dogs that particularly enjoyed voicing their displeasure at a volume that was so loud that Severus imagined London could hear them. The only thing saving the creatures from a long-overdue Silencing Hex was Severus' inability to reach his own front door without gasping for breath or succumbing to an incapacitating coughing fit. It was utterly humiliating to be beaten not only by his weak body but by a pair of lapdogs—especially after surviving twenty-odd years in service to the Dark Lord—, and that was a thought that Severus did not wish to dwell on any longer than he already had.
Whatever had woken him, there was no point in lying abed all day contemplating morose subject matter. If he could manage it, he decided that an afternoon of reading downstairs was in order after spending so many confined to his room.
Next to the bed was a thick robe draped over a chair, and he slipped it on, tying the belt tight. It was an unusually warm autumn, but of late, Severus had a hard time fending off the perpetual chill he felt. In a few months, he doubted if he would ever be warm, restricted as he was to the drafty rooms of Spinner's End. Of course, there was no guarantee that he would even be alive come winter.
He was pulling on a pair of gray woolen socks when he heard the distinct squeak of Tilly's voice from downstairs. There was a muted thud that rattled the mirror on his bedroom wall, and someone answered Tilly, but his or her voice was too muffled for Severus to recognize. He was certain that it was not Nettlebot, who had a markedly commanding tone that easily drifted through the thin walls whenever the Unspeakable paid an unexpected visit. Etiquette seemed to matter little to the Ministry if one was dying, although Severus wondered if the lack of manners had more to do with the Dark Mark on his forearm than his illness.
Lips pressed into a thin line, he snatched up his wand once more and made his way down the hallway, controlling the tremor in his hands by fisting them tight. The creaky stairs were navigated with an ease developed out of long familiarity and necessity. In all his years at Spinner's End, there had always been someone to spy on or avoid in the house: first his father and then Wormtail, and on occasion even his mother. Nettlebot, with his arbitrary visits, now resided at the top of Severus' list.
He was panting with exhaustion, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, by the time he reached the last step. Braced against the wall, he waited for his burning lungs and shaking limbs to return to normal before he leaned forward to open the door and peer through the small crack.
Cluttering his sitting room was a sea of cardboard boxes. A witch with an unmistakable head of bushy brown hair was kneeling amid the chaos. His belongings had been pulled off the furniture and down from the shelves, stacked haphazardly in what little space remained. Hermione had her back turned to him, engrossed in a pile of dusty trinkets that had been taken off of the mantel.
He hoped that Nettlebot was responsible for the disaster the girl had created instead of his resident house-elf, who was standing opposite Hermione. Tilly was vigorously polishing a picture frame with an unwieldy shammy that was nearly half her size. Since moving to his home, no amount of yelling or silence had dissuaded the slavish devotion Tilly exhibited toward him. Severus found her both supremely infuriating and intriguing. And with only Nettlebot to sporadically disrupt the monotony of Muggle mill-town life, he was beginning to think the eternally sprightly house-elf to be a required irritant.
Severus pushed the door open fully, careful to keep it from banging against the wall. At the movement, Tilly looked up and gave a startled yelp, dropping her cloth.
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked. There was a deep concern in her voice to match Tilly's anxious expression. "Did you hurt yourself?"
Leaning a shoulder against the rough, wooden doorframe, Severus shook his head sharply at Tilly. He remained in the half-shadows of the stairwell, waiting until he had her full attention and tipped his head toward the ground-floor doorway.
She might have been an exasperating house companion, but Tilly was also capable of an impressive degree of perception. "Tilly has been forgetting the food, Miss Hermione," she told her companion with a look of tearful regret. "It shall be burnt for Master's breakfast." She thrust the picture into Hermione's hands and left the room in such agitated haste that Hermione was alone by the time she voiced her objection.
"But he's still asleep."
Eyebrows scrunched together, she continued to stare at the doorway, absently turning the abandoned picture frame around in her hands. Severus followed the movement with a frown, watching the glimpse of photograph appear and disappear with each rotation. When she stilled quite suddenly, Severus was sure she had noticed his presence, but she simply turned the frame over and studied the Muggle picture intently. Her finger glided over the pale-faced woman gazing stonily at the photographer.
Severus' frown deepened. He crossed his arms over his chest, and between his fingers his wand bounced up and down to the rhythm of his annoyance. Apparently time had done little to cure the girl of her nosey curiosity.
"Find anything interesting, Granger?"
He was gratified to hear her frightened yelp as she spun inelegantly and dropped the picture. It clattered loudly on the floor. Her robes whirled around her, the fabric catching against the collection of mantle decorations at her feet. They scattered across the floor in a dissonance of metal and porcelain. A child's tin spinning top, rusty from neglect, twirled jerkily over the wooden floorboards and came to an abrupt halt against Severus' foot.
Hermione's widened eyes made a slow journey from the toy to meet Severus' gaze. She sprung to her feet, looking very much like a child caught out, and managed to squeak an inarticulate, "Professor!"
He lifted a brow, his eyes sweeping unhurriedly over the mess. "Tell me, Granger, do you always make yourself so at home in other people's houses?" He watched her shift uncomfortably as she made her own appraisal of the room, and he drew out the silence until her cheeks began to tinge pink. "Or perhaps this is merely a courtesy you extend to my home?"
"I thought…" she began as hesitant in voice and carriage as Tilly was when Severus was displeased.
"I'm sure you think a great many things," Severus interrupted with such contempt that Hermione flinched. It was satisfying to see the girl, normally so self-assured, flustered and off-balance, especially when she had so blithely demolished his sitting room and his plans for the day. He shoved his weight off of the doorframe, preparing to weave through the labyrinth of boxes to the armchair by the fire, but his legs began to tremble unexpectedly. His knees abruptly buckled, and he hit the floor, his teeth grit against the pain.
Granger had managed to vault the piles of his belongings almost instantly and was at his side in a flutter of activity and chatter. "Oh! Are you all right, sir? You'll have such a nasty bruise on your knees. Can you take my arm?"
And before he was allowed to respond, Hermione had her arm under his elbow and was hauling him up with a surprising amount of strength for such a small person. They made unsteady progress around a stack of boxes and a moth-eaten blanket to the chair by the fire. Severus dropped unceremoniously into the seat, dragging Hermione halfway with him.
"Sorry," she mumbled. She pulled back but continued to hover anxiously over him, adjusting the lumpy pillows behind his back with fretful tugs. "Are you sure you aren't hurt? Do you want something for the pain? I have paracetamol in my bag. It may not be as good as a potion, but it will do in a pinch." She punctuated her prattle with a firm yank on one of the pillows, which jerked him backward.
"Granger, get off," he demanded vehemently, swatting her hands away. Her fussy manner was rapidly becoming more trying on his nerves than was her unsolicited presence at Spinner's End. He pressed two fingers to his temple where a vein throbbed and heralded the beginnings of a grand headache.
Severus was gratified when she obeyed his command immediately. She sat down in a chair opposite his, settling on the edge with an attentive expression that he had witnessed often enough in the Hogwarts classroom. However, she was woefully mistaken if she thought he was going to extend her the courtesy of conversation. If anyone was going to be making an explanation, it was going to be his uninvited guest.
The silence spun out unbroken, passed very uncomfortably on Hermione's part if the way her shoulders hunched gradually inward was any indication. Severus drummed his fingers against the chair's arms, a ghostly smile hidden behind the sweeping curtain of his hair. She was as easy to intimidate now as she had ever been, despite all her blustering courage.
Granger had at last opened her mouth when Tilly popped into the room. A sturdy, silver tray was floating next to her, laden with a tea service for two. Sandwiches and scones, still steaming from the oven, were tucked next to a bowl of clotted cream and fresh berries. Tilly snapped her fingers, and a little table that was buried under a mountain of boxes whizzed across the room and landed neatly between Severus and Hermione. The tea tray settled on top of the table, and Tilly turned to grin proudly at Severus.
"Does Master Snape need anything else?"
There was a look of such keen adoration on Tilly's face that Hermione had to hide a laugh behind her hand. Severus cast a sour expression at her before saying gruffly, "Thank you, Tilly. That will be all."
Tilly bent over in a bow, her nose nearly touching the floor, before she left the room, face aglow.
There was a tense pause as Severus and Hermione regarded each other. A sparkle was flashing in her eyes, a reprimand in his. Her mouth quirked, as if she were prepared to say something, but it remained pinched shut.
"Smart girl," he said, his words laced with a sardonic approval that conveyed more admonition than praise.
Hermione cleared her throat as Severus leaned forward to prepare the tea. "I'm sorry about the mess," she said. "I had planned to be done before you were awake."
He spared her a dubious glance between adding a splash of milk to the tea.
"No need to apologize when you have made yourself quite at home," he replied in a tone that set Hermione on edge. "Do feel free to continue whatever you were doing when I so rudely interrupted." The pain that was throbbing in his knees was making him especially snappish, he knew, and he blew out a sharp breath to gain control. There were several answers he wanted from her, and he was sure that she would remain as tight lipped as a centaur if she felt as if he was purposefully antagonizing her.
"I was only trying to help," Hermione declared crossly, swelling with predictable indignation. However, there was a spark of warning and determination in her eyes that was new to him, a power he had not seen even when she was scolding her fellow students at Hogwarts.
The opportunity was too tempting for Severus to ignore. "Perhaps I overlooked something, but I don't ever recall asking for your help or you offering it."
A frustrated moue twisted her features. "I thought it would be nice if it was a bit more livable in here. I'll put everything back where I found it."
He gave the tea a perfunctory stir before handing the delicate cup across to Hermione. "I don't need your interference, no matter what Nettlebot or Dumbledore told you," he stated, slow and firm. There was finality in his tone that he was sure Granger would pay little heed to, and his irritation blazed in the tight smile he offered her.
"But you're dying," she said quietly. The fire that was snapping in her eyes faded, replaced with an enveloping sadness.
"Yes, and I need your pity even less than I want your help," Severus pronounced with unconcealed anger. The clink of his teacup against the saucer punctuated his displeasure.
Hermione looked down into her tea. "Don't you want to live? There has to be a cure of some kind. Dumbledore said as much in his letter, and the Ministry seems eager enough to help you."
"The Department of Mysteries is always fond of an impossible challenge."
Granger assessed him with a sweeping glance that she tried to cover by tucking a curl behind one ear. "It doesn't have to be impossible."
"I'm afraid your sheer confidence will be of little assistance to me."
She huffed. "There is a treatment. All I have to do is find it."
"You seem to be infected with Dumbledore's eternal optimism," he said through clenched teeth and a pain that had nothing to do with his physical injuries. It was inevitable that everything should lead back to Dumbledore. However, Severus hardly appreciated this fact, particularly when the former Headmaster was referred to with an undeserved level of sainthood.
Hermione's teacup was shaking as she brought it to her lips for a sip. "There's nothing wrong for hoping for the best. Professor Dumbledore wanted to help you."
He turned a disbelieving expression on her with just enough censure mixed in to make Hermione squirm. "So he places my life in the hands of a girl barely out of knee socks How very helpful of him, indeed."
"I'm sure he knew what he was doing," Hermione retorted hotly. Red had flushed her face and was creeping down past the neckline of her robes, but the dangerous glint had returned to her eyes. "And I am not the incompetent you think me to be."
Severus gave a lazy flick of his fingers in dismissal of her fury. "Of course he always knew what he was doing. You do not become the greatest wizard of the century by being Gilderoy Lockhart. Whether you believe Dumbledore's motives were always so altruistic is another matter entirely."
Severus blew away the steam still rising from his tea and took a sip. "Dumbledore knew what people's weaknesses were, and he used them to his advantage. Look at how he so expertly controlled Potter, and now he's done the same with you: you've already played into whatever plan he had because he knew you have to fix all the perceived injustices you find in the world, whether it's exploited house-elves or dying professors. There's a reason you are here, and it has nothing to do with the heartfelt concern you think Dumbledore must have felt about my well-being."
He hushed her half-formed objection with a lift of his eyebrow.
"So you can stop trying to fervently convince me that he was only trying to help. Dumbledore manipulated and used people. It's what every great leader does, and the faster you begin to understand that, the closer you might come to effecting some of the changes you so desperately want to see."
A stifling silence descended on the room. There was a thoughtful look burgeoning on Hermione's face as she observed Severus with her head cocked to one side. He returned her gaze unwaveringly, narrowing his eyes when a defensive retort was not immediately forthcoming.
"Don't you ever get tired of always seeing only the bad in people?" she finally asked, covering a yawn with her hand.
He let out a soft snort of amusement. "Don't you ever grow tired of always thinking the best of everyone?"
An expression he took for perplexity was wrinkling her brow, and he sighed.
"You aren't at Hogwarts anymore, and it's not the saintly Gryffindors versus the nasty Slytherins," he said with an amused contempt that caught Hermione's full attention. "You are in the real world, and people can be just as cruel as they are kind."
"You don't need to be patronizing. I am well aware of that," she said tightly. She finished her tea with offended primness, avoiding his gaze. When she was done, she asked him in a tone that was as rigid as her posture, "Do you know what may be wrong with you?"
"If I knew what was wrong, I could have spared myself this delightful tête-à-tête."
Color suffused Hermione's face. She tensed as if she were about to spring out of her chair, but then slowly relaxed into her seat. "I understand that you don't like me, but the alternative must be more unpleasant." There was an upward lilt to the last word that conveyed her uncertainty.
"It seems your optimism knows no bounds,' he replied derisively.
"Sorry?"
"Tell me, how are Voldemort's followers enjoying life these days? Are they thriving under the benevolent pardon of the Ministry?"
Hermione shook her head, and he could tell by the thinning of her lips that she was fighting back another yawn unsuccessfully. "You were publicly cleared the day after Voldemort's defeat. Didn't Mr. Nettlebot tell you?"
Severus gave a half-shoulder shrug. "You think that will matter to anyone?" She was even more naïve than he thought she was if she believed that everyone would forgive his past unquestioningly. If Potter—with all his misguided, absolute trust in Dumbledore—had continually doubted Severus' loyalties, it was hardly worth hoping that anyone else would trust him. The stain on his reputation was as permanent as the mark on his forearm if Minerva McGonagall's last remarks to him at Hogwarts were any indication.
Hermione returned his earlier shrug. "Your funeral was well attended," she explained and then grimaced, a sentiment which he fully echoed. "Kingsley was there as a Ministry representative, and the Daily Prophet ran a story on the front page. It seemed to be received well enough. People were willing to believe that you fought for our side, and your name is on the war memorial at the Ministry."
"People are willing to believe a great deal of nonsense when someone is dead. There's no risk involved if they're wrong."
She made a frustrated noise at the back of her throat. "You are being impossibly pessimistic."
"On the contrary. I am being entirely realistic."
She was not to be stymied, however, and a spark of victory was flashing in her eyes. "Harry even gave a speech at your funeral."
The expression on Severus' face turned thunderous, and Hermione pressed back into her chair, fingers turning white around her teacup. "How fortunate I wasn't there," he said, tight-lipped. The idea that Potter would even dare to attend Severus' funeral in the first place was bothersome enough. That they would allow the boy to actually speak was insulting. The offense warred with Severus' reason; of course the Ministry would turn his funeral into a platform to show off their darling Potter. Anything for the Boy Who Lived.
"I was only trying to say that there are people who would support you," Hermione explained.
"I don't want anyone's support." It was obvious that she regretted mentioning the boy, but Severus felt no sympathy in airing his displeasure at her.
"You've made that perfectly clear," she snapped, and while Severus could tell that she meant for it to sound mocking, the yawn she had been suppressing twisted her voice so that she only sounded petulant instead.
"I wonder that you haven't taken the hint, then."
The hurt she felt at the sting glimmered through her brave front. "I should leave," she said, her intonation stilted. She tried to stand, but only made it halfway out of her seat before she wobbled and plopped back down. Confused consternation flashed across her face. She pressed her fingertips to her right temple, teacup still clutched in her other hand, and groaned.
"Feeling alright?" Severus asked solicitously, but Hermione missed his smug expression and the way he unconcernedly stretched his legs out in front of him. "I'm just suddenly tired." She blinked at him owlishly. "I stayed up late last night doing research." This time she didn't bother to cover the wide yawn that followed her statement.
"How surprising." There was a definite whiteness rapidly taking over her complexion.
Ignoring him, Hermione looked woefully around the room. "Perhaps I can come back later to finish this up?" "You most certainly will," Severus replied, watching closely as her eyes drooped and her head suddenly dipped down, chin to chest. "I certainly won't be cleaning up this mess," he said as the teacup she was holding slipped from her lax hands to shatter on the floor.
He downed the rest of his now tepid tea in one gulp. With a sigh of utmost satisfaction, he flicked his wand in her direction. Her broken teacup knit itself together, and a smile unfurled gradually on his face as a collection of folders and neatly penned notes flew into his hands with a smack.