SSHG

She left the potion on my desk at noon the next day. It was, as I expected, perfect. I couldn't fault a single thing about it. The witch was going to pass her NEWTS with flying colors. As if I'd ever had any doubt.

We avoided each other the next few days until she left. I'd already spoken to Minerva and informed her I would be out of the castle during the week. So on Sunday night when Hermione walked to the apparition point just outside the gates, I watched her from my office window. Just when she was about to reach the spot, I disillusioned myself and apparated by her side without a sound. She didn't notice when I touched the tips of my fingers to her wild curls. When she apparated away, I went with her.

We landed in a dark room. As I stepped back and out of accidental reach, I looked around. My breath caught. I had seen this room before. In her memories. We were in her childhood bedroom. The pictures on the walls had changed, and now books were piled in corners and on the nightstand, but the room was otherwise unchanged.

She let her bags fall quietly to the floor and shrugged out of her robes. Under them she wore muggle clothes. She put her hand on the doorknob, paused, bit her lip and waited a moment. I itched to know what she was thinking about. What was going on in that brilliant mind of hers? Then, taking what appeared to be a fortifying breath, she opened the door and stuck her head out. After a beat, she went out of the room and down the hall.

With a quiet knock on the door at the end of the hall, she entered the room.

"Hi, mum," she whispered. No one returned her greeting. Why didn't her mother say hello back to her? I followed her into the room at a distance. When the floor beneath my boots creaked, I cursed inwardly and apparated to just outside the window, hovering above the ground and looking in.

I felt rather like a blasted peeping tom.

Mrs. Granger was sitting up in bed, her eyes open but vacant. She appeared thin and gaunt. Her hair was almost white, despite the fact that she couldn't have been more than 45. I didn't know exactly what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. What was the matter with the woman? Hermione sat on the bed beside her mother and patted the older woman's hand. "How are you, mum? Is daddy making sure you get enough to eat?" She gently tucked some of her mother's hair behind her ear and smiled weakly. "Well let me see if I can find something to feed you for dinner tonight. I know its late, but you look like you could use a little something." She stood and turned to the door. "And when I come back, I'll tell you about my tutoring, and the wonderful surprise Severus had for me when I got back to school."

As she went downstairs, I stared in through the window, utterly shocked. Surprise? Aside from my little outburst, I didn't think there was anything surprising in my actions over the last weekend. And I certainly didn't give her anything surprising. The book hadn't been a present, she'd returned it to me with the finished potion. So what the devil was she talking about?

I was about to move around to another window to see where she was, when she came back into the room. She almost appeared to be...tiptoeing around her own home. But why? Surely whoever her attacker was, he didn't live with them. I still suspected an uncle, but I was convinced that if it was indeed an uncle, her father would have noticed something if the man lived with them. Her father had seemed perfectly respectable the one time I'd met him. A little too straight laced as far as muggles went, but attentive to his daughter certainly. I couldn't believe that her attacker could live under the same roof as her father and his actions not be noticed.

Before I could give it any more thought, Miss Granger sat down on the bed next to her mother and started spooning broth to her lips. Just when I was certain that I'd misheard her comment about a surprise, or the mystery would never be solved, she started talking again.

I could only hover there, grateful my disillusionment charm held up. Otherwise I'm sure that someone would have caught sight of me gaping like a gasping cod. Because the story she was telling her mother was just that. A story. She said that she was so grateful to be given chambers close to mine so that she could see me often throughout the weekend. That when she'd arrived on Friday, I'd been waiting for her with open arms and a gentlemanly kiss. And that that night we had shared dinner together. I had secretly set up a picnic in the astronomy tower with all her favorite foods. I had tucked a her favorite flower behind her ear and told her how beautiful she was. How precious to me. And then that I had held her hand under the table in the Great Hall at breakfast the next day. She actually giggled as she said it. She blushed and said that Professor McGonagal would be so disapproving if she knew, but that neither of us cared.

She spoke about me like I was her...suitor. As if we were lovers, though she certainly didn't say anything more physical happened between us than a kiss. It was the way she spoke that alluded to intimacy. The way her tongue caressed my name. The way she smiled when describing me. She spoke of how gently I treated her, now loved I made her feel.

After a few moments, I couldn't stand to hear any more. I dropped to the ground and paced in her back yard.

What the hell was she saying? None of those things were true. Her quarters were probably as far from mine as the sprawling castle would allow. I had never had more contact with her than was absolutely necessary, and we had certainly never had dinner together in the astronomy tower. It was absurd. So why was she telling her mother those things? Why did she speak about me as if she cared about me and I her?

From what I had seen, I doubted the older woman could even comprehend what her daughter was saying, let alone respond. She couldn't doubt the tale Hermione spun, nor could she voice concerns about her daughter's welfare. So why tell the story in the first place?

My mind raced. Was it at all possible that Miss Granger had something seriously wrong with her? Had all the years of torment broken her? I'd heard of people with whole separate lives in their heads. Even people with entirely differently personalities living in the same body. Was it possible that she'd lost touch with reality somehow? I just couldn't believe that. She was always so lucid, even while reliving her worst memories. I'd been inside her mind and seen its clarity. So what other explanation did that leave?

"She hasn't been getting enough to eat," I heard her say from her bedroom window. I walked over to it, looking up at the window and listening shamelessly.

"She's been getting plenty," a voice I recognized as her father's replied.

"No, she hasn't. You have to take care of her when I'm gone. That was our deal. You promised."

"Yeah, well you went back on our deal last week, didn't you? So I went back on my end of it too."

"You got what you wanted! Don't take it out on her!"

"You think I want to punish you? Hermione, I love you. I want you to be a good little girl for daddy and do what I tell you. It hurts me to have to force you. Don't you want to make me happy? Just do as your told and everyone gets what they want. I've missed you so much, baby. I thought about you every day you were gone. Haven't you missed me too? Be a good girl and show daddy how much you've missed him."

I stood rooted to the ground, feeling my entire world crumble to dust. There had to be some mistake. Some other explanation. Because what it sounded like... it just wasn't possible. I couldn't believe that it was possible.

"On your knees, baby. That's right. My good girl. Open your mouth. Open for daddy." It was the soft sob that I heard that snapped me back into my right mind. I levitated to her window. I needed to be absolutely certain before I acted.

I wish I hadn't looked into the bedroom. I wish I had taken the chance that I was horribly wrong and made a terrible mistake. I wish I had never seen her on her knees in front of her father, his big hand holding her hair in his fist, the fingers of his other hand digging into her jaw as he held her mouth open and forced himself down her throat. She was sobbing and choking, trying to get air but unwilling to fight.

"I love you, Hermione," he whispered. Something inside of me broke. Cracked, shattered into a thousand pieces, unable to ever be repaired. But I was acting before I had time to examine whatever it was. I apparated into the room, right behind Mr. Granger. I let myself be disallusioned as I wrapped my right arm around his neck and braced my left hand on the side of his head. Before he even had a chance to react, to cry in alarm or try to struggle, I tightened my grip until I felt my muscles straining and then twisted sharply. His neck snapped with an audible pop. His body went slack and would have crumpled if I didn't still have my arm around his neck.

As soon as his hands dropped away from her, Hermoine sat back, gasping and coughing, not even bothering to try and stifle her sobs. I watched her gaze slide up his body, waiting to see what he would do next. She didn't look into his eyes- she never looked into his eyes. And then she noticed me. She gasped in shock and scrambled back. I dropped her father to the floor. He fell to the floor bonelessly. Her hand went to her mouth to stifle her shriek. I did not spare a glance for the body of that monster. My eyes were fixed on her. On each tear that fell from her huge whiskey eyes. On the bruises that were beginning to form on her jaw where his fingers had dug in.

Each of them was my fault. It pounded in my head over and over with each beat of my heart. My fault my fault my fault. I hadn't imagined it could be her father. I'd discounted the idea from the beginning. Because I'd met the man. Because I couldn't allow myself to believe that I'd see the monster from her nightmares face to face and never noticed a thing. That every summer as a child, she'd left the castle and gone home to him. That I'd sent her home to him. How could I not have seen? How could I not have known?

I wanted to bring him back to life so that I could kill him again. I wanted to tear him to shreds, rip him limb from limb and hear him scream and beg for mercy. I wanted to slowly strip the flesh from his struggling body. But he was dead. The deed was done. Nothing could bring him back. Now there was only Hermione and I in the room.

Her eyes flashed to the body of her father and then up to me. I couldn't tell from the look on her face if I appeared to be an avenging angel or a tormenting demon. I thought at first that she wouldn't speak at all. Then I thought she would scream at me, accuse and hurl insults, anything.

"Severus," she whispered instead. It wasn't an exclamation or an accusation. It was a benediction. Then she covered her face with her hands and fell into sobs once more.

Not knowing what else to do, I let my fingertips touch her shoulder and apparated us back to Hogwarts. I'd originally thought to bring her to my office, but decided to bring her to my private study for more privacy. She didn't even look around to see where we'd landed. Merely curled tighter around herself and continued to cry. Uncertain, I knelt next to her. Would she need comfort? Would she be frightened if I touched her? Without making a conscious decision, I very gently pulled her to me and wrapped my arms around her. At first, she stiffened in the embrace, and then as if realizing who she was with, she melted into me. Her face was buried against my chest, my robes and vest absorbing her tears. She kept her legs tucked tightly to her, practically sitting in my lap. I awkwardly patted her back, not having the first clue how to comfort a crying woman. I simply held her, rocking back and forth in that ageless tendency humans have when seeking to soothe.

While she cried, I tried to push all thought from my mind. My anger would do no good any more. There wasn't anyone left to take it out on. My guilt would have to wait. The damage was done and there wasn't' anything I could do to fix it. My fear for her was spent, the danger now nothing more than a corpse on her bedroom floor. And this...tightness in my chest, the empathy that threatened to overwhelm, whatever the thing was that had broken inside of me before, I didn't understand any of them. They confused me and frightened me with their intensity. I didn't want to think about what they meant.

After endless minutes -how much time had passed? Hours?- her sobs dissolved into weak cries and sniffling. Without releasing her, I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and offered it to her. She accepted without meeting my eyes and blew her nose. When she tried to hand it back to me, I smothered my sneer and simply shook my head. She clutched it back to her as if I'd just given her a priceless jewel.

What was I supposed to say to her?

"Your father," I snarled the word with all the disdain it deserved, "is dead." I watched her carefully to judge her reaction. She'd loved him. Of course, now I understood. She couldn't help but love him. Children loved their parents. I, of all people, knew that well enough. So would she be angry at his death? Mourn it? I braced for whatever she would do. After a long moment, she merely nodded and tucked her face against my chest again. Would she never cease to surprise me? "Do you...Are you angry?" She drew in a shuddering breath and looked up. Not into my eyes, but at my lips.

"No. I loved him. I couldn't hurt him, no matter what he did to me. But he...he was a monster." She glanced up to my eyes and then back down again quickly. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Look at me, Hermione." I commanded. She cringed, closing her eyes against the thought. But I couldn't let her associate anything with me that she did with him. She'd never looked into his eyes. Whether a sign of submission or fear or disgust, it didn't matter to me. I needed her to look into my eyes. We had connected that way before. I wouldn't loose that connection. Slowly, she opened her eyes and raised them to meet mine. Once they did, we simply stared at each other for a moment. Seeing into the others' soul. "You are safe here with me." I spoke the words from my heart, their deep sound making my chest vibrate. Could she hear the sincerity? The honesty? "No one will ever hurt you that way again." Not while I'm here to protect you, I added silently. It was as much a promise to her as it was to myself.

"Thank you," she repeated. "For saving me."

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