Chapter 13: Talk to Me

"Maybe this thing was a masterpiece until you tore it all up.

Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well.

And you call me up again just to break me like a promise,

So casually cruel in the name of being honest."

-Taylor Swift, "All too Well"

Before, after the last time Hermione had run out the door and left him alone and self-loathing, Severus had avoided seeing her at all costs. He had refused to go to classes, meals... he hadn't left his dungeon quarters for nearly two weeks, until she came back.

This was partly humiliation. After all, he had kissed her (quite roughly, actually) against her will, she pushed him off of her with a forceful spell, and had proceeded to run from the room yelling "no, no!" Naturally, Severus feared their next encounter might be uncomfortable.

But what had truly kept him from seeking her out, if only to tell her he would leave her alone, was her own well-being. He wanted her to be happy, even if that meant she was happy with Weasley. Severus found himself quite noble for this selfless mindset, astounded that his love for someone could be so pure.

This time, Severus was not so gallant.

He attended classes as normal, albeit with short lectures and a shorter temper. He ate his meals at the head table in the Great Hall, taking even longer to chew his toast than normal, hoping to catch a glimpse of his love when she came to breakfast. He even went to Quidditch the first Saturday in February, with the futile hope he might find her in the mass of students. It was there that he was able to speak to her for the first time since the night of the gala.

He was lucky to spot her, in the sea of yellow and black. Just as he was about to give up and retreat to his cave, he noticed her, lifting her mass of wild hair from the collar of a yellow Hufflepuff sweater; he couldn't see her face. The ocean of students waiting to climb to their seats was immense, pushing him closer to her, and he feared speaking to her as much as not. So he watched her intently as she spoke to the Thomas boy and Ginny Weasley. As the little group inched their way toward the stairs, Hermione turned, and Severus saw her face.

She was very pale, but her nose bright pink. Is she ill? Her face looked thinner and her eyes red. Is that from the cold? Or has she been crying? While Ginny and Dean laughed, Hermione merely smiled a little sadly.

He wanted to go to her, take her inside and put her to bed, to hold her while she napped. If she's sick, she needs to be inside the warm castle, resting. What are her friends doing, allowing her to come out here like this? The crowd pushed him closer; he could touch her hair if he reached now.

Don't do it, Snape.

Let her go.

You know she's better off without you.

But he was a selfish, vile coward.

"Miss Granger!" He called, when he was close enough. He watched her stiffen at the sound of his voice and turn slowly to him, her expression controlled.

"Yes, professor?" Her voice was even, but her expression suspicious. It stung him, a little, to hear her call him that.

"You look quite ill," he noted, trying to sound natural. "Perhaps you should be inside, where it's warm."

She gave him a quizzical look before turning to her friends.

"Ginny, Dean, go ahead and get seats. I'll meet you in a moment." Her companions retreated reluctantly up the stairs, the Weasley girl giving Severus a withering glare as she did. He didn't blame her for hating him, after what he'd put her through just the previous year.

"Are you ill?" He blurted. It was all he could think to say.

"Severus, please." She wasn't even looking at him as she pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

"Just talk to me, please, Hermione." He hunched toward her, keeping their words private in the middle of the bustling crowd. When he cupped her elbow, she didn't pull away.

"I don't have anything to say," she told him quietly, still avoiding his gaze.

"Then just listen. Come back with me, just let me explain."

It was a long moment before she spoke, but when she finally looked up at him, there were tears in her eyes.

"There is nothing you can say that will make me forgive what you did to us." Then she slid her arm from his and escaped up the stairs.

Later, as he sat in his rooms, the stack of essays on the table long forgotten, Severus realized that Hermione was not angry with him. She hadn't screamed or sobbed or tried to curse him, as he probably deserved. She'd never lashed out or even told him how upset she was. All of this would have been preferable, because Severus knew that he had broken her heart.

XXXX

It was a pattern that continued over the next several weeks; Severus cornering her, begging to speak to her, and Hermione calmly refusing to listen. In the classroom cupboard she'd helped him organize months earlier, he took her hand.

"Please, Hermione. Please, just speak to me."

"I can't," was all she said.

A week later, feeling desperate from her constant evasion, he announced that he'd need her to stay after class. She had stared at him from the back row, then slipped out with the rest of her peers.

He considered giving her detention, but he didn't want to explain it to her head of house.

The term wore on, and rather than easing the pain, time only thickened it, made it increasingly unbearable. Each encounter ended the same way; she slipped away, and he was broken all over again. The pain of losing her never had a chance to dissipate, when it was happening over and over again. It consumed him.

For the brief period they were together, Severus had allowed himself to hope for things with Hermione he'd never dared hope for before. He had seen it, their future together. And it seemed she had seen it too. More than that, there had finally been someone who cared for him, who cared for the person he really was. He had hoped if Hermione could love him despite everything she knew of his past, perhaps she was not alone. Maybe there could be redemption for him. Maybe he could atone for his sins, learn to coexist with the rest of the world. Perhaps the world could learn to accept him in return.

But now he was back where he began, where he'd been his whole life. He couldn't help but think that he had many years yet to live, and he wasn't sure they held anything for him. Not without her.

Late one night in mid-March, after a particularly horrible day in which Hermione had not been in his class, Severus went to the cupboard and removed a small ebony basin, just large enough to cradle in his hands. Inside was a swirling, whitish substance that moved like liquid but felt, to the touch, like smoke. He clasped the edge of the table and sunk his face into his memories.

There wasn't much in Severus Snape's life that he cared to remember. But tonight he wanted to be with Hermione, and this was the only way he knew how.