A/N- Sorry for the delay, I will try and get the next chapter out more quickly. Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Disclaimer- Alas, these characters have not come of their own free will. They have become my puppets, and as puppets they shall remain until these words play to their end.

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Chapter 16- Depression

She stared at him blankly for a moment. There was something wrong with him. She had observed him now for over seven years, and never before had she ever seen him NOT react to a failed potion. What was wrong? He had seemed rather… Well he had seemed rather civil. The word civil and the word Snape usually did not go hand in hand, especially regarding a Gryffindor 'know-it-all'. As she stared at him, she noticed that he was holding his arm strangely, so she dared to study it for a while longer. From what she could tell, he had put a magical cast upon it. Why would he have done that? Had he hurt himself somehow? "Do you mind casting your infernal gaze elsewhere? I am in no mood to be ogled at," he snarled.

She quickly turned away from him. Damn his odd way of knowing what was going on within a room without ever really watching. It was simply disconcerting, the way he spoke without adding any venom to his words this day. Why was he being so complacent? She sighed and waited, watching as the potion started to turn a strange muddy brown color. The moment the five minutes were up, she cleaned up her mess, and quickly left the room, leaving Snape alone. Alone, just as he should be, the annoying old bat. She pushed him from her mind, wondering why he seemed to occupy her thoughts more and more as each day passed. She growled at herself silently. How was she to push him from her mind when she wondered at her own thoughts of him, therefore thinking of him indirectly? It simply wouldn't do.

She stopped in the hallway suddenly. There was someone coming from around the corner. She didn't know how she knew this, but she knew it nonetheless. She stood frozen in place, both from fright and with morbid curiosity to know if her instinct had been correct. Just a few seconds later she noticed Minerva strolling around the corner and waving at her. She waved back, two feelings fighting inside her; the foremost being relief that the person had been someone that she knew well, and the second being the uneasiness that she had known that she would be coming around the corner. How could she have known? Just… how?

Minerva hastily made her way over to Hermione, a large smile gracing her face. "Ah, Hermione, just the person that I wanted to see. How is Professor Snape treating you lately? He hasn't been an overall grouch has he?"

Hermione went to answer, but then shut her mouth promptly. Oh dear. Her eyes went wide with the realization that she wouldn't have the ability to say anything, anything at all. Argh. Well, it would have seemed that Snape's plan for her not to say anything to her old mentor worked after all. Oh well. She offered a small smile.

The woman pursed her brows together. "What is it? Is there something wrong?"

Hermione nodded quickly and mouthed slowly 'I cannot speak' so that she could read her lips.

The older woman twittered for a moment. "To think that he would be so upset over a few harmless words, honestly. Don't you worry dear, I am sure he will release you soon enough." She winked at her, a faint smile threatening to break out and turn into a full-blown grin twitching at the edges of her lips as she turned from her.

Hermione pursed her brows together as the woman started to walk away. There was something wrong with McGonnegal. She watched as she turned the corner that she had come and heard the woman start to hum. Yes, there was something seriously wrong with the Deputy Headmistress. She shook her head in an attempt to rid herself of her own confusion, and finished going to her quarters.

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A full week passed by. Each day something went wrong with the potion and each day he would assign her two feet of parchment on what had gone wrong as well as what happened to the potion afterwards. He had been distant and resigned the entire week; he had not yelled at her, he had not spoken to her except for beginning of her day, when he would say something around the lines of 'Begin, you have until dinner' and then again to tell her to leave with her new daily assignment. Other than that, he had not spoken to her, even though she sat next to him at the table, even though she lived not but a few doors down the hall from his own, even though she would pass by him within his personal library, even though she wanted desperately for him to speak to her.

It wasn't as if she really WANTED to talk to the man, it was more in the lines of just wanting to listen to someone. And the only someone that she was ever near most of the time, happened to be her Master. With the constant studying and potion attempts, she entirely lacked a personal life, not that she ever really had one to begin with, but she at least had Harry and Ron to speak with on what little down time that she had. Now… Now she was alone, she couldn't speak, Minerva hadn't spoken to her ever since that odd meeting in the corridor a week earlier, and she just couldn't bring herself to bother Harry nor was she about to message Ron. Not after his proposal, not after that unexpected interruption in their friendship. How would he forgive her? She simply… She simply did not like him like that anyway. In fact, she did not like anyone like that. Perhaps Trelawny had been correct when she had called her an 'old maid' or what had been the equivalent of it. She had never really paid attention to the exact words, she just remembered that it hurt. Perhaps she wouldn't ever find anyone. Perhaps she would end up living in some house in the middle of nowhere with twenty cats, and magical artifacts of convenience where most of her house had been turned into a library and laboratory.

She sighed. Maybe she had been wrong? Maybe she should have accepted the proposal… Maybe she would never find anyone that she could have the ability to 'fall' for. She forced her thoughts away from the strange emptiness in her heart, and focused on what she had been trying to focus on before she became sidetracked. Snape. Master Severus Snape, resident Professor of Potions at Hogwarts. She wanted him to talk to her. Not only because of the hole inside of her heart, but because she was secretly worried for him. There was something wrong with him. She had never seen him so… So depressed before, or rather, so blankly depressed. Sometime during the past week he had stopped bringing the book to class, and just stared at the desk in front of him instead. Silently, unmoving, his breath became unnervingly shallow and his eyes seemed to glaze over as if he were either in deep thought, or in the absence of all thought. She hoped it was the former. She wanted him to speak to her. To yell at her, berate her, or perhaps even lift the bloody curse off of her throat; it was bloody annoying. At least then she would know that he was himself and she could stop worrying. Not that she should, in fact she shouldn't care at all how he was.

If he were to die, then at least she could find herself a new Master without a strike against her own record. She had learned a few things from those books, once she read them thoroughly, that once a person quit, they were never allowed to take another apprenticeship within the same profession, nor were they ever accepted within many institutes afterwards, but if the Master died, then they are given good credit, and if they were to apply again, they would most likely be accepted by anything they applied for, whether it be a new apprenticeship or academia at university. But she couldn't help it. For some reason, deep inside of her, in spite of everything he had done to her within the past month or so, she couldn't wish him that much harm. She thought of vengeance within her mind, but it was never seriously. She wouldn't be able to harm him, nor would she ever wish him harm.

She couldn't put her finger on what she really thought of him. There were times that she outright hated him, but there were times that she admired him, worried for him, and even once both liked and was thankful for his company. But that had been a year and a half ago, just after both Harry and Snape had grudgingly agreed to put aside their mutual dislike in order to work together. She was never told what it was that they had worked on, nor did she ever really figure that she would ever be told. Harry had simply stated that Snape had secrets, that what they were working on happened to be one of them and he was not about to lose his trust considering that the work they were doing could very well prove to defeat Voldemort. She never really pressed the matter. Especially after…

She choked back a sob. It had been over a year, and she still couldn't think of it without nearly going into hysterics. Damn him, damn Voldemort. How could he, they had nothing to do with anything, why not her? It was her that was working against him, not them, so why? It should have been her. She did not deserve life after that. Not when it was meant for her to begin with. They all had tried to convince her otherwise, but she had known better. They had gone to kill her during Christmas break, knowing her usual routine. Had she gone, it would have been her, not them. It should never have been them…

Suddenly, she didn't feel like talking anymore. She didn't feel like even breathing, let alone studying. A small thought feathered its way into her mind. Snape. How could he live like this? There were times that she had overheard him saying the things that now went through her own head at unexpected intervals, she had seen him falter, seen the deep pain within his eyes when he allowed his walls to fall. But that had been over a year ago. Maybe he no longer thought that way… But… But then why would he suddenly seem to be… gone?

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Two weeks. It had been two weeks. He finally decided to heal his arm simply because it had become annoying. Two weeks. Two weeks of watching his apprentice fail at her potion, through no fault of her own. No, she was too perfect to make them badly herself; he had to help them along. Unfortunately, it had required the 'outside' element that he hated so much. Alcohol. It was the only way that he would be able to make her fail without using the 'alternative yet effective' methods his own Master had used to make him fail in the same manner. Alternative yet effective…for scars only prove to show what you have worked for.

Instinctively his hand went to his right arm where other scars of his youthful 'mistakes' were. He gingerly lifted up his sleeve, taking note of the miscellaneous scars riddled there, wondering how many of them had been from home, how many had been from his apprenticeship, how many had been from his willing servitude of 'The Master', and how many had come from him being a spy.

There it was again, that feeling. That horribly atrocious feeling that had been plaguing him for two weeks. It was indescribable, but if a word had to be put to it, it would have been 'numb'. It was purely and simply numb. So many emotions, so many memories that invaded his mind, he couldn't control them. He no longer had a reason to hide it, so he didn't have to force his attitude on people when he didn't feel like doing so. And for the past two weeks, he hadn't felt like yelling, or speaking, or eating, or breathing. But Albus had insisted on the last two, and the requirements of his 'Masterly duty' required some sort of mumbled instructions to his apprentice, as unfortunate as that might have been.

He was numb, but there was so much more to it than that. He was in pain, pain from deep within him. It was this pain, mixed with regret, mixed with the horrors that he himself had done willingly when he was younger, mixed with the knowledge that no one ever loved him, that he himself had never loved, mixed with years of hatred of both himself and of others, mixed with memories of his early childhood, mixed with his secrets and finally mixed with the firm belief that he should in all basic logic, be dead. All these created the numbness, the depression that plagued him ever since just before he had turned himself into Albus. He had just expected to be killed, but he was offered an 'opportunity'. He had been promised that after it was done, his life would have meaning, that he would have paid off any atrocities he had committed and live a right happy life after this was done.

Some promises could not be kept, and that had been one of them. But at least he had gained a friend. A friend… He desperately wanted more, so much more, but he couldn't decipher as to what he really wanted, no… needed to help ease the pain away. Though, in the back of his mind, he knew there had to be something to help, something to live for, something… Or perhaps someone?

He growled at his thoughts. Why in the bloody hell was he moping around? He had dealt with the feeling for so many years before, why in the bloody name of MERLIN would he let it get to him now, of all times? He had an apprentice to teach, who had a desperate need to learn, and he was almost doing NOTHING to help her along. What was wrong with him? If he had the need to be depressed, it would have to wait until after she was done. He was not about to let her off the hook by killing himself off so early in their game. No, the game had just begun; they still had over three years left to go. An idea came to him as he looked at the rum. Perhaps… Perhaps if he let her defenses go down, then perhaps he wouldn't have to drink it. He smirked, calculating the next move within his own demented game. He was back.

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A/N- Hope you like the chapter, as always please review, I love to get them.