I'm sorry about my English since I'm still practicing. If anyone is interested in being my beta, I would appreciate it.

I'm also sorry about how long it took me to write a new chapter. I'm not confident in my writing (as I said before), so it takes me some time to write something decent.

Enjoy the chapter! If you have something to say please leave a comment, but remember to be respectful.

Going through some tough times, so I thought I'd write something.

Sorry if feels just like a filler, once I feel better I might edit it.

Chapter 5: Falling

Snape furrowed his eyebrows as far as they could humanly possibly go at the sight of a half-Kneazle's swishing tail back and forth, accompanied by a heavy expression he never thought he'd seen on a cat before.

Apart from Minerva, of course. But she wasn't a real cat anyways.

"I know I said you could make yourself comfortable here, Miss Granger, but I didn't mean to get this comfortable," he said, shaking off another batch of ginger hairs from his black pants.

"I think he's finally growing fond of you, Professor," Hermione laughed as Crookshank went through his legs for the fourth time that day. "After all, it's not as if something like a magical pet sitter exists."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, don't tell me this ugly thing always despised me!"

"If it makes you feel any better, he despises anyone who tries to harm me in any way. So... he also despises Ron, for the record."

"Good, now I can finally rest, knowing that the cat also hates Weasley!" Snape sarcastically exclaimed, throwing both arms up in the air.

"I apologize, Professor, but if you are hiring me, you are also hiring my cat."

"If any of these cats' hair gets in one of my potions, imagine the chaos that it would cause. Just think about that for a moment, Granger."

"As simple as closing the lab and supply doors should suffice. He is very good at staying in my room himself. So..."

Pinching the bridge of his nose to almost cut off the blood circulation, Severus sighed deeply. "I never thought I would be this desperate for help."

Hermione simply smiled, bending to pick up her cat before walking into the back room behind the counter. Running away, as Snape had said before, seemed like the worst idea she ever had, but for some reason, it was the all-so-mighty space she needed so much to put a stop to her never-stopping mind.

Before her eyes, she found something she had never expected to happen so quickly after only a week. Releasing her cat from her grip, he seemed content lying in a corner of the now spotless room. "Wow! It's much cleaner than I remember!"

"I am usually quite straightforward when I am going to do something, Miss Granger."

The cleanest bed sheets she had ever seen were on a rather old canopy bed with some sort of filigree she had never seen before. Or at least, she had never seen it in places like Hogwarts or any other bed she had slept in before.

"What are these marks?" she asked, carefully running her fingers through the intricate patterns as if they could break years and years of history by touching them.

"Watermarks, if you don't want to be too specific about the proper term," Snape shrugged. "As muggles have carpenters, wizards have centaurs. Their hooves are quite strong to chop most of the wood pieces and their hands strangely delicate to carve patterns that go from generation to generation."

"How come a centaur can assemble an entire bed? I thought that they were somewhat..."

"brute?"

"I would rather say... not so very coordinated."

"Because they don't. That's a job for a wizard. We just are very thankful for their contribution to our society, I suppose."

"But they never come out of the woods they live in. So, how does this kind of symbiosis work?"

"I'm surprised you've never read something like that, Miss Granger." Snape seemed to enjoy the clueless look on her face, but she was too invested in the topic to simply care. "As Albus could convince a centaur to teach at Hogwarts, it seems that with the use of some sort of undisclosed motivation, wizards can convince them to work with us."

"Undisclosed motivation? And why haven't I seen these patterns at Hogwarts before?"

"You have; they are just the school emblem."

"Do the centaurs receive any form of payment for this kind of work?"

"Do the centaurs need any form of payment?"

"How rude of you, answering my question with another question," said Hermione, crossing both arms dissatisfied with the answer.

"I'm afraid I don't have every possible answer from our secret world and beyond, Miss Granger, but I do know that you always advocate for every creature's rights. Am I correct?"

"Well... yes. I don't see why we can't treat all of them equally."

"Because most of them don't want to be treated as equals and that is why our world works perfectly hidden from any Muggle. Anyways, the room is, as you can see, and it seems that your cat too, ready to be used if you decide to stay here, Miss Granger. But I still strongly suggest a proper check-up first and at least a letter to one of your friends. Just for the sake of my mental peace."

Mental peace was, somehow, a word she never expected to hear from someone like Snape.

Before she could even reply, Snape had already gone, as if he had already reached his quota of interactions for the day, leaving her with the awkward silence that came with it. It seemed like the perfect place to just die; she could even leave a letter so Snape wouldn't go through hell after finding her lifeless body lying behind the counter.

Cancer. She couldn't even say it without crying. At least her ex-professor respected her privacy and she was infinitely grateful for it. Why go through all the hassle if she was an adult now and all capable of taking her own decisions?

Now she was on her own and she would stick by it.

A loud meow interrupted her internal monologue. Her cat seemed to be awake from his nap and staring at her with what seemed to be a reproachful gaze.

"What? Don't tell me you agree with the professor now! I have already made up my mind and neither you nor the professor will make me decide otherwise. No one deserves to go through all this pain but me and only me. Not even you!"

She laughed at his angry floor-scratching.

"Right, I brought you here with me, sorry."

Falling back onto the bed and staring at the ceiling, Hermione wondered, how a single word could suck up all her courage. But having cancer was not like fighting a magical war; the odds of survival were completely different.

"So... I suppose that you will bring the rest of your luggage by tomorrow, perhaps?" She heard Snape's voice by the door and her cat hissing at him for being called "luggage".

Sitting up again, Hermione stared at the man leaning against the doorframe.

"How did you survive such a wound, Professor? We saw you die that day in front of our very eyes. How did you manage to overcome such a terrible fate?"

"Now you're being rude, Miss Granger, answering a question with another."

"I thought that Nagini wasn't a snake-like any other and there wasn't any way to close the wound. But now that I think of it, if Mr. Weasley survived then why wouldn't you?"

And he was able to talk again, too, with a raspier voice than she remembered and looking much more tired than in her school days.

"Simple. Minerva saved my life for whatever reason she thought I deserved to live."

"But why did you fight for it if all you wanted was to die?"

For the first time in years, Hermione Granger witnessed Severus Snape speechless. It took him a whole minute to come up with an answer that Hermione thought would shut her up, but that it wasn't the real answer. She wasn't completely sure about it, but it almost seemed like he didn't even know the reason why he was still alive.

"To show everyone to whom their best wishes were to see my head on a spike that I am very much alive, and if they are looking for someone to blame, then they can perfectly go after Minerva and punish her in the way they see fit."

"That's a rather morbid way to say that you're thankful to her for that."

"If that was her decision, why not take advantage of it? At least I have a reason now, Granger, unlike you."

"I do have a reason! Plenty of reasons!"

"Oh, now you do, but are you still incapable of booking a simple doctor's appointment? Are you, by any chance, listening to yourself?"

"It's not that simple like a stupid snake bite!"

At that moment, she knew she had gone too far, by the angry look on his face.

"Then, Granger, have the decency to die somewhere else other than this shop. Avoid giving me more jail time, if you know what I mean."

She could still hear the echo of the slamming door behind his feet and the words: Stupid girl in her tears.