Severus sat down on the couch in front of the fire with his back to the door. He glared at the flames. He had tried to escape, knowing that Granger would feel obligated as his "caretaker" to walk with him to the Great Hall and back again. Seeing as she was back in her room, he had tried to slip out of the teachers' lounge and make it to the Great Hall alone. But he'd barely been halfway across the room when the headmistress had entered and scolded him for "Disregarding Miss Granger's orders." Then she had all but shoved him back into his own room and closed his own door in his face. He had an inkling that she was waiting in the lounge for Granger to show to be sure he didn't try and misbehave again.
Severus hated this. He was being treated like a child, told where to go and when he could go, and not allowed to do anything on his own. He had made it into the bath, foreseeing that it would be inappropriate for Granger to try and help him there, and had enjoyed it before wasting half an hour trying to get himself back out. It was the most humiliating thing in the world for him to have to ask for help from anyone, especially the Gryffindor girl he had once mocked and insulted openly. She was having her revenge, and enjoying it, he was sure. No, that sounded twisted and terrible when thinking of that morning's incident. He didn't think she had enjoyed that at all, but she was probably back in her room, reveling in the fact that he had been forced to ask for her assistance, actually needed her help. She hated him and was only making his life harder.
And it was all her fault, all of this. He had woken in the shrieking shack and had been completely alone and known he was dying. Remembering that he had given his memories to Potter, he had closed his eyes and accepted the inevitable in peace; he could die, his work was done. But he hadn't died, he had only lost consciousness. He surely would've died before long and was only hovering between life and death when Granger decided to barge in and ruin it all. He had wanted it all to end, wanted let go of his past, wanted to die. But she had denied him that simple pleasure. Why? Surely she had done it to mock him, proving just how helpless he had been back in the shack and how powerful she was. She must know that he had wanted to die and been desperate to make him miserable. He had awakened again and found her there with him and been furious. Then he became aware by how morose and sorrowful she seemed at his supposed passing, and he was touched. And when she came to grips with the fact that he was alive, she seemed so shocked and deeply awed by his return from death that she had stared at him with wonder.
No woman had ever looked at him like that. For a few moments, he had managed to imagine that she was Lily, finding him there, having thought him dead and coming to mourn him. Lily had looked at him in many different ways in her life, but never the way the Granger girl had, as if she was so relieved and thrilled that he lived that nothing else mattered for a few moments. Lily had always said that his eyes changed when he was feeling particularly passionate about something. It had to be the good kind of passionate though, something deeply emotional and nothing negative. She had said that his eyes were always black, unless he became passionate with rage or fury, and then they would somehow get even blacker and colder and darker than before. Then she had said that when he was pleased or at peace or feeling a surge of positive emotions, his eyes would "Melt into the darkest, deepest, sweetest chocolate you ever saw."
Then he was brought back to the present. There was a knock on the door and he knew Granger was waiting for him outside. He had lost his appetite earlier that morning when he had to send her a patronus. She knocked again, a bit harder and louder, but he didn't move and continued to stay on the couch, staring into the flames. He heard the muffled word, "Alohomora," and heard the lock in the door click. She turned the knob slowly and opened the door just a crack, not looking in. "Professor?" she asked.
Still, he didn't move. She opened the door a bit more and peered inside hesitantly. "What?" he snapped, though he knew exactly why she was there.
It was a moment before she answered and he found a great satisfaction in the idea that he had caught her off guard and she didn't know what to say. "Um, b- breakfast in the Great Hall?" she asked haltingly.
He grunted and continued to glare at the fire, wishing he was glaring at her until she cowered before him, but not wanting to turn around. "Sir?" Her voice was a bit firmer now. And then she found the authority she'd had in the hospital the night before and said calmly, "I will escort you to breakfast or bring your food here and you will not leave. Which way do you prefer?"
Letting his breath out in a puff in annoyance, he stood up slowly and turned to her, his glare even more terrible than before. But to his surprise, she didn't wilt beneath his unyielding gaze. He watched as she actually opened the door wider for him to go out before her. Growling, he walked past her through the doorway, making sure to let his shoulder shove her rather harshly against the doorframe on his way out. He hated the contact and touching her at all made his stomach turn in disgust, but it was immensely satisfying to see her hit the doorframe and stumble to close the door.
When she turned around, he expected her to be hurt or furious, or both. Instead, she looked up into his face with the most understanding light in her eyes that another human being had ever given him. He was taken aback by the clear, completely unashamed way that her eyes stated simply how much she wanted to help him and she pitied him and was concerned rather than angry or upset. She definitely wasn't proud or happy with his being infirmed. And she seemed utterly unperturbed by his actions, cruel as they were. Even taking into account that he was only acting a bit meaner than usual and that she had grown up going to school and taking his remarks and comments with strong silence most of the time, she was awfully brave to be able to face him like this after he had almost attacked her the night before, and after she had had to help him get out of his bath that morning, and after he had just shoved her into a hard doorframe and was still glaring at her.
He walked to the main entrance to the lounge and stepped out into the corridor in the dungeon, Granger hovering beside him, looking as she had the night before, though her attempts to hide the fact that she was on edge and waiting for him to stumble were more subtly disguised now. Refusing to give in though his side was already aching from the short distance they had covered, he looked straight ahead and focused on the stairs a few yards away that would take them up to the Great Hall.
Only a few moments later he was panting, gasping for breath and leaning heavily against the stone wall on the side of the spiraling staircase as he slowly made progress, taking one step at a time and only one about every three minutes. "Sir," Granger said, looking concerned and worried.
"No," he said harshly between deep breaths, shoving her outstretched arm away. He would not lean on her and accept her help, no matter how innocent and kind she looked trying to offer it.
"Sir," she said again, this time a bit more urgently. Still he refused to lean on her arm.
"No," he said firmly.
He took another step upwards and felt his knee buckle beneath him. Time seemed to slow down and he knew he was going to twist in the air and tumble back down the cold stone steps. Fear actually gripped him for a split-second before something strong caught his arm and steadied him. Surprised, he looked down into the face of the young woman who had once been his student and was now his colleague. He tried to wrench his arm out of her grasp but she was stronger than she looked and held him firmly. The expression on her face said that he was not taking another step without assistance. Thoroughly annoyed and completely furious, he succeeded in ripping his arm away from her. But before she could glare at him and grab ahold of him again he placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned heavily against her. If she wanted to help so badly then the least he could do was make her job a bit more difficult than was necessary.
He half expected her to at least sigh at his weight resting heavily on her shoulder, but she only gave him an expectant look that told him she was ready to move on up the stairs whenever he was. He sighed inwardly, wondering when her patience would finally wear out and he could get his enjoyment out of bothering her the way that he was, and stepped up, still leaning heavily on her. Though he expected her to crumple beneath his weight or look upset or like she was uncomfortable or in pain any moment, she did not. This only increased his annoyance and by the time they made it to the Great Hall he was positively furious with her once more. Then again he wasn't sure there was a time since she'd saved him that he hadn't been positively furious with her.
They made it to the table in the Great Hall only a few moments late, and McGonagall looked pleased to see that he was finally accepting Granger's help. He made to sit down, taking his hand off of her shoulder, and realized just how much he had been leaning on her when his knees buckled beneath him. Granger was faster than gravity was, though, and had only just enough time to wrap her arms hastily around one of his and pull him back to his feet, where he knew he would have swayed had she not been supporting him. She walked him to his chair and eased him down into his seat before she herself sat down beside him. Then she turned her attention to the conversation at the table and moments later to the food that appeared shortly after, giving no sign of having experienced the slightest bit of pain or energy loss during the walk from the teachers' quarters.
The way back down to the dungeon was just as arduous as the way up. When they reached the teachers' lounge, Severus was panting a bit and he grabbed the handle of his door, supporting himself with it and turning to face Granger, who was standing nearby and allowed him to release her shoulder. He realized she was breathing rather hard and was red in the face with beads of sweat on her forehead. She was breathing just as hard as he had been while trying to face the stairs on the way up to breakfast without assistance. Her face showed signs of being in pain and exhausted from bearing his weight, but still no complaint left her lips. He watched as she reached into her robes and pulled out a small beaded bag, which she stuck her entire hand into, though it should've been too large to fit all of the way up to her wrist. She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed the sweat from her face before folding it and returning it to the bag. Then she looked up at him and seemed surprised that he was still there.
Severus himself was unsure why he hadn't just left her standing there without so much as a thank you. Despite the fact that she was still breathing more rapidly than usual and her chest still heaved, she managed to give him a small smile. "Anything else you need, Sir?"
Finding a savage pleasure in the idea of forcing her to work even when she had already spent her energy on him, but unable to quickly think of some errand to send her on, he shook his head. Then he turned and walked into his rooms without another word, closing the door behind him.
For the first time since he had returned from Saint Mungo's, he was able to sit and do something that calmed his nerves; turn carefully through the pages of an ancient potions book and find the page that held a single potion he'd never before completed successfully. In the past he had been asked to make potions for the Ministry of Magic and for Saint Mungo's and other important magical corporations. But he had never had to brew this potion. He knew how to brew the strongest love potion in the world, Amortentia, and he could brew Felix Felicis, also known as liquid luck. This potion, however, had always eluded him. He had tried to brew it, once, long ago, failing to understand then the rarity of several of the necessary ingredients. He had failed to brew it correctly and only gotten one other chance in his lifetime. He had seized the chance with vigor but was interrupted midway into the potion brewing and forced to leave it to waste away while he dealt with more important things. Now he was held back from creating it by the lack of ingredients.
Ingredients were precious. None of his younger students understood that, and very few of those who passed their OWLs and went on to take his advanced potions class managed it either. It seemed very rare to find someone, anyone, who understood how precious potions were and how far more important their ingredients were. All of the written accounts of potion making and instructions on how to brew potions were important as well. Potions were excellent things, but they weren't of any use if they were nonexistent. You had to have the ingredients and the knowledge of how to brew the potion before you could actually bring it into existence.
Severus sat at his desk for hours, lost in thought over the potion whose perfect way of creation had always eluded him. He was brought from his reverie only by the light knock on his door that came at last to force him to remember that Granger was taking care of him and he actually needed her at times. With that lovely thought, he turned and glared at the door. The knock this time was sharper. "Professor?" her muffled voice came through the door.
"What is it now, Granger?" he snapped loudly enough for her to hear.
She said something, but didn't say it loud enough because he couldn't make out a word of it. Growling, he said loudly, "Just open the door and tell me."
He heard her use a spell to unlock the door and then her face could be seen as she opened the door just wide enough for her to see in. "Professor?"
"What?!" he was tired of her being so polite after all of his cruelty. When would she break and react the proper way?
"I- I brought you some lunch from the kitchens because I didn't know whether you'd want to walk all of the way up to the Great Hall again." her young face was still radiating concern and kindness.
That, and her reference to his weakness by saying she thought he might not want to make the great journey to the Great Hall again, was all it took and he himself snapped. He stood from the desk very quickly, careful to place his hands on it and steadying himself fast enough so that Granger missed it. "It so happens that I do want to walk to Great Hall for lunch, Miss Granger," he pronounced her name with so much scorn in his voice that he actually saw her flinch for once in response to his unkindness. Satisfied, he let go of the desk and walked carefully to the door, opening it and finding a tray of still-steaming food balanced on her hand. Infuriated by the sight of the tray—just another sign of his weakness and the necessity of having Granger take care of him—he flung up his arm as he walked past and the tray—along with the food it held—flew through the air and caused a horrendous mess in the teachers' lounge, and all over Granger.
Severus walked quickly and resolutely through the lounge, not pausing to look back on what the simple act of raising his arm had done. He held his head high and walked as he used to before the snake hurt him, and with a sudden feeling of strength pulsing through him, he left the teachers' lounge and made it all of the way to the stairs before he realized that he wasn't even panting yet. He stopped and a smirk spread across his usually cold face. He was not as weak as he had thought. Surely the phoenix tears had finally finished their job now? (He was positive that phoenix tears had been used to heal his wounds, though the healers had insisted that they had used none and he had asked McGonagall, who denied the use of them as well) Pleased with himself, he lifted a foot to take on the staircase, which, once again, seemed familiar and easy to handle, unlike that morning.
Just then Granger walked around the corner and stopped at the opposite end of the corridor from him. She stared at him for a moment and then ran forward, stopping beside him. He glared at her expectantly. Why had she run? Did she think him so weak that he wouldn't be able to make it this far? With annoyance, he realized that earlier he had indeed required her assistance only shortly after reaching this point and would be, by now, panting, had he still been in the shape he was in that morning. Granger looked him over, seeming to take her time and carefully evaluate his health.
"You're not breathing hard or sweating," she said breathlessly. Then a smile split her face. A smile! Severus stared at her in disbelief. "You're getting better! You're better! You can make it this far without missing a beat!" she was nearly shouting now, looking extremely happy.
She grinned at him girlishly, and then glanced to the stairs and back as if asking if he was ready to proceed. He was confused. Then his confusion changed to amazement. He had yelled at her. He had hurt her. He had abused her help. He had been unkind and never thanked her once for all of the help she'd given. And he had just flung the tray of food she delivered to him and made a mess that she had undoubtedly cleaned up herself, not to mention dirtying her robes, which were now clean. And yet still, she stood before him, breathless and excited for him because he was making progress in his recovery. Looking at her now, he never would have guessed, had he not known, that he had ever mistreated her.
He was talented with controlling his emotions. He was cold. And hard. And cruel. People could make him happy, people could make him very angry, and he would usually keep a straight, calm face. He could be in a great amount of pain and still breath lightly, still keep a stony expression, still hold his complaints and moans of discomfort inside. But that had come of years and years of being mistreated himself, until he learned to bottle all reaction and emotion inside of himself and keep it there. No one else could see it, because whenever he had dared to show it in his past, it had brought him nothing but trouble. But Granger was a different story. She didn't have years of experience keeping her emotions inside. In fact, she was positively terrible at it in the past; any emotion inside of her had been quite obvious, especially to perceptive people like Severus. And yet this week, when she had cared for him, her emotions had been well kept under control. Sometimes she seemed close to losing that control, but the only time she had slipped was when they were in the bathroom that morning and she had been embarrassed by the situation. He hadn't seen her face, but had practically felt the heat emanating from it as she blushed a deep red in her shock at the circumstances.
Holding her emotions inside must be a terribly difficult thing for her, as she'd never really done it before. Or perhaps questing with Potter had forced her to keep questions or complaints inside her own head instead of voicing them. Perhaps questing had, indeed, actually taught her something valuable. Severus realized that he and Granger had been climbing the stairs for quite some time as he came from his thoughts and they entered the entrance hall before making it into the Great Hall, where not even all of the witches and wizards were at the table.
For the first time, he wondered if Granger had been out of her room from the time they got back from breakfast to the time she had come to him with his lunch. Had she been working on repairs to the school even after much of her energy was spent on helping him to breakfast and back? In the midst of their meal, he angled his position in his seat so that he could have been turning to look at the headmistress while she spoke. He was, however, sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye at the young woman beside him. Her face was bright and she was smiling, but she did show signs of strain. She looked a bit stressed as well. Severus turned back to his food and focused on it, not wanting to risk looking at Granger any longer. He didn't much like to look at her, either.
Not to say anything bad about her appearance; the girl's tremendous buck teeth from her childhood had receded to become straight and normal-sized, her once-bushy hair was now a mess of brown, well-defined curls, and her face had changed as she grew up. She wasn't the girl he had once insulted, he was coming to realize. She was different in so many ways, and yet still so much the same. Had the war done this to her? Or was it just the process of growing up that had changed her so?
Severus leaned away from his empty plate and remembered with a scowl how the headmistress had shared Granger's enthusiasm when she saw Severus walking without assistance and looking much better than before. Still scowling, he allowed his thoughts to wander back to the potion he had dwelled on earlier. He was so deeply lost in his thoughts that he turned and only looked half as threatening and malicious as usual when Granger said, "Sir?"
He looked at her inquiringly.
"I asked if you were ready to return to your room," she said slowly, watching his face for signs of comprehension on his part.
He nodded tersely, standing without a word and walking towards the door of the Great Hall. He noticed that when Granger followed him now she was walking differently; before she had hovered nearby, ready to catch him should he stumble, and now she was unafraid to let him walk on his own. They made it back to the teachers' lounge without incident. As soon as they made it inside, Granger walked right to her room, not even making sure he entered his own. Satisfied, he walked right back out of the lounge. He walked to the seventh floor, to the certain hall where the room of requirement was hidden. He paced, concentrating on what he wanted. When he looked up, a door had appeared in the wall.
He stepped inside and found himself surrounded by piles of students' lost treasures. Stored and hidden away, they were all heaped together and made quite a sight. Things were burned and singed, sometimes quite badly, in most places. Severus drew his wand and said, "Accio potions book."
He waited a moment, wondering if perhaps the fire that had devastated the room had in fact devoured what it was that he sought. But then, rising above the array of items and floating to him, was what he wanted. He took the book from the air and was pleased to find it undamaged. The outside was new, almost without wear. But he opened the first page and found the ragged, worn old pages that he was so familiar with though he hadn't seen them in years. Closing the book carefully, he tucked both it and his wand back in his robes before leaving the room of requirement and returning to his own room.
He sat down at his desk and began to read. Page by page, he was reunited with the old, often incorrect potions written by the author, and then greeted by his own writing, correcting the mistakes and even writing down spells he had created. He read through it once and closed the book, reopening the first page and beginning again. This was his past, and many of the things written in it were spells and potions he still used to this day.
There was a knock on the door. Wondering why Granger couldn't just leave him alone, he stood and walked to it. He opened it quickly and only just a bit. Peering around it, he said, "What?"
The woman before him frowned up into his face and said, "Severus, I wouldn't expect you to treat your headmistress in such a fashion," before shoving the door open the rest of the way. Severus was shocked; it wasn't Granger, it was McGonagall.
"This," she said, holding out an envelope, "just arrived for you. I took it upon myself to deliver it." She began to turn away but stopped and looked back. He looked up at her, waiting. "Severus," she said at last, "I know that Miss Granger would be your last choice of caretaker, but please, try and appreciate what she does for you? At least make an effort to be a bit kinder. I'm sure you were under the impression that I was her just a moment ago, were you not? You thought she was coming to bother you yet again." and with that, she walked to the fireplace in the teachers' lounge and stood, looking into the flames. Without turning around she said, "I would like to know why you appeared at lunch though I met her in the corridor outside bringing your lunch to you."
Severus opened his mouth but she said quietly, "You may come to my office and we shall discuss some things."
And she left.
Infuriated that Granger had caused him detention of sorts, he stalked after the headmistress, shooting a particularly vicious glare at the door beside the fireplace with the otter carved gracefully into its front. He walked to the headmistress' office and felt a pang of regret when he saw that everything was exactly as it had been under Dumbledore's time as headmaster. Then he sat down in the chair where so many students had been spoken to and was questioned and then scolded like a child.
When it was over he walked back to his quarters. Halfway there he met a lanky boy with disheveled red hair and freckles. He looked just as unhappy to meet the potions master as Severus was to see him. "Hermione?" he asked hopefully, looking behind Severus like a child peering around something they are hiding behind.
"Wait here. I will send Miss Granger your way," Severus said without stopping to chat. He walked on. When he reached the teachers' lounge he walked to Granger's door and knocked loudly.
The young woman who opened the door looked surprised and concerned when she saw him. "Sir?" she asked.
He sneered at her. "No, I don't need your help. Weasley's waiting in the corridor for you." Then he turned and walked to his room, closing the door loudly behind him. He didn't want to hear about her love for the idiot boy. He didn't want to see it or have anything to do with it. His only dealing with love had left him broken and weak; vulnerable. He hated being any of those. Besides, they were young. Granted, he had been young when he came to love Lily, but his had been true love that would last. The two young people who were by now probably embracing and kissing passionately in the corridor beyond the lounge knew nothing of what true love was, and they would most likely split before long.
For the first time he remembered the letter McGonagall had delivered to him. He sat down at his desk and opened the envelope, unfolding the parchment and reading quickly. Then he cast aside the long-overdue letter of condolences and congratulations from the Malfoy family, who seemed extremely happy to know that they were now not the only death eaters still alive and free after Voldemort's death.
He sat down to read over the pages of potions in his ancient text once more and was able to lose himself and forget the world again.
So now you've seen things from Severus' point of view. The next few chapters will me 99% from Hermione's perspective but after that I won't be dedicating whole chapters to a single point of view and it will change between Severus and Hermione. If you have a spare second I would be thrilled to hear what you thought of this chapter and whether or not you liked seeing thing from a different perspective! Thanks again to all of you! I love you all. ~Taelr