Thank you for the reviews and favs/follows! I'll try to keep posting regularly as things are just getting started for Severus and Hermione.
Chapter 5 - The Notebook
Perched on opposite ends of the sofa downstairs, they sipped their tea in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Every once in a while she thought he was gazing in her direction, but his eyes moved elsewhere before she was ever able to confirm her theory. After circling around the swirling mess of thoughts in her head several times, she could leave the silence unbroken no longer.
"This tea is surprisingly excellent. However, I know the inferior quality of the tea my parents usually stock in our kitchen, so I'm not quite sure how you managed it." Inane small talk. She had wanted to initiate a conversation and, amongst the infinite universe of things that had happened in the last few days, she chose to talk about tea. Collect yourself, Granger, she thought, chastising herself.
"I have found that the subset of skills necessary to create a proper potion is quite correlative with that necessary for muggle cooking," he replied distractedly. She was relieved at the lack of the dripping distain had previously served as hallmarks of the Severus Snape brand, but was disappointed when no further conversation ensued. Having wasted the only opportunity to start a conversation she dared take, she leaned back onto her end of the sofa and sipped her tea quietly.
When she could tell he was done with his tea, she wordlessly got to her feet, took the tea cup out of his hand, and brought both cups into the kitchen to wash. When she arrived back at the couch, she found him stretched out across the sofa and sleeping peacefully. Not wanting to disturb him, she magically summoned a blanket and carefully placed it over him. Without thinking, she found herself again brushing the hair off his forehead as he slept. She then unceremoniously plopped herself down in her second favorite armchair, her first still up in her bedroom, and summoned the book she had been reading the night before.
The next few days passed in a similar manner. Severus slept on and off, mostly on, but in between would make tea for the two of them. Few words were spoken, save for brief exchanges on things like what food he felt he could stomach (his appetite was slow in reappearing) and whether his wounds needed more magical attention as they continued to heal. He was often so lost in thought that she could sneak longer and longer glances at him without fearing that he would catch her looking.
Piecing together the information from many stolen glances, she began to appreciate the nuances of his face. The anger that had been such a consistent presence in his expression had gone. She assumed it had dissipated when Voldemort disappeared for good, and with him Snape's burdensome double agent status and the need for him to consort with (and witness the acts of) Death Eaters. However, she would have thought there would be hints of relief or even happiness creeping into his expression to take the place of the anger, stress, and fear that used to play constantly across it. To her utmost dismay and growing worry, these emotions were only replaced by a mask of incredible, heart-wrenching sadness. At first she hoped that this would be temporary and that as he processed what had happened the sadness would lift, but it seemed quite the opposite. As days went by, he seemed to sink further and further into whatever tragic shadow was gripping him.
After a few days, they fell into a schedule. During one of Severus' afternoon rests, Hermione decided it would be good for her to get out of the house and clear her head. She didn't want to be gone too long, in case he woke up and needed her, so she decided to walk into town to visit the muggle grocery store and stock up for the next few dinners. As she was walking out she passed a bookcase by the door. A small black leather book stopped in her tracks. She paused to think for a few seconds, then grabbed a spare piece of parchment and scribbled a second note to Severus. She quietly put the note and the little leather book on the end table nearest Severus' sleeping head and tiptoed out the door.
He woke for the first time since he had been there to an empty house. He chuckled internally at the strangeness of how quickly he had grow accustomed to her company. He had lived practically his entire life on his own. In childhood he quickly learned that staying quietly in his room was far preferable to dealing with the drunken slurs directed at him by his father. As soon as he escaped to Hogwarts, he obviously preferred solitude over the torments of James Potter and his loyal group of followers, but he also liked being his own company over partaking in the loud, cruel conversations of McNair, Yaxley, and the crew of Slytherins that would eventually become death eaters. As a professor, he took pride in finding solitude even in the midst of a large crowd of students. Thirty some years of practice, undone in days by one Gryffendor. He made a mental note to get his head checked when he was able to show his face in public once more.
However, sane or not, he still felt the tangible unease her absence left within him. He looked around to find something to fill the void, a book maybe, when his eyes came across the familiar curls of handwriting on a piece of parchment on the end table. He grabbed it quickly enough to occasion a mild complaint from several of his healing wounds, but ignored the pain and began to read.
Severus,
Seeing as we are running out of food, I took a quick trip to the muggle supermarket. I shouldn't be gone long.
Hermione
P.S. A number of studies have been done on surviving traumatic experiences. All of the leading experts agree that talking to someone is an important part of the healing process. I know you are not yet comfortable talking to me about your personal history, so I thought maybe this journal could serve as a temporary outlet. Please give it a go. A professor such as yourself should know how unwise it is to ignore the suggestions of empirical research.
Leave it to Hermione to write a not with a post script longer than the message itself. He picked up the leather bound journal and examined it. It was obviously not magical in the slightest. He even saw the barcode sticker that remained from the muggle store in which it had been purchased. After having seen the diary of Tom Riddle years back, the muggle origins of the thing were actually greatly reassuring. Diaries are for schoolchildren, he remarked snidely to himself, tossing the book back on the table. He stood up and began perusing the bookshelves for something suitable to read, but something kept pulling his attention back to the little leather book on the table. Finally, with a heavy sigh that mixed resignation and self-condemnation, he sat down on the couch, conjured a quill, and began to write.
When he heard the key turn in the lock, he had only enough time to shove his quill into the book and throw it down on the table, hastily feigning interest in the mediwizard textbook Hermione had left on the coffee table in front of him. As she entered the room, arms laden with more grocery bags than a woman of her size should carry at once, she glanced quickly at the book, up at Severus, and progressed into the kitchen without saying a word.
In expression of his silent gratitude for not asking him about the journal and also of his contrition for spending the last few days in quasi-silence, he joined her in the kitchen and, for the first time in days, was the one to initiate the conversation.
"Please tell me you used a levitation charm to lighten your load from all of those bags," he offered.
"I've been carrying heavy groceries since before I knew I was a witch." She tried to keep her response brief, not wanting to get her hopes up that just as she had accepted his silence the status quo would change.
He heard the hesitance in her tone and was reminded how uncomfortable extended periods of silence were to those unaccustomed to it. Full of a deep sorrow for putting this wall between them and causing pain to the woman who had quite literally saved his life, he tried again.
"What did you get for dinner?" he asked meekly.
"So we're talking now?" she asked without sarcasm or anger. Her eyes simply bored into him, with a look not unlike that he used to see when he delayed giving her the grade she had received on an exam.
"Yes, well I'd like to… to try," he faltered as he contemplated how best to phrase the thoughts racing through his head. "You discerned correctly that I am not yet prepared to go into some matters of a more personal nature." He stared into her eyes trying to divine what her thoughts were, cursing himself for having disavowed the practice of legilimancy.
"Then we talk about the weather?" she asked, still with the probing look she had when trying to understand a very complex issue.
"No, well yes…How should I…" he couldn't remember the last time he had this much trouble getting a thought out. "I thought that maybe we could ease into it. Beginning with the topics that have nothing to do with recent events and work our way from there?" He inventoried her face again, searching for a hint of her response.
A deep, yet satisfied sigh. "Yes, I believe I can do that." She conceded, realizing with a frown just how frightening it was to open herself up to hope for more than the silence she had been experiencing. "To answer your question, I figured I would cook you the lasagna recipe my mother always prepared when I was under the weather as a child. She didn't have very large of a range as a chef, but the dishes she did cook she cooked well."
Severus smiled and sank down into one of the chairs by the kitchen table. If talking was necessary to ensure the happiness of the witch who had saved his life, then he was more than willing to give it his best effort. Besides, talking to her was already more comfortable than talking to anyone else in his life. Not a man of many friends, he would have to get back into the habits of human interaction. She's worth it, intoned some uninvited voice from the back of his consciousness. Silently agreeing but not wanting to hear any more of what that particular voice had to say at the moment, he returned to the matter at hand.
"So what are your parents like?" he asked as she continued to put away groceries.
"Well, my mother and father met when they were in their mastery to become dentists, so…" he leaned back and let her voice wash over him. For the first time in what he knew to be a very long time, he smiled at the thought of listening to someone else's personal history and stories. Whatever was happening would definitely be a new chapter for Severus Snape.