Chapter 14: Helping Draco, Severus' Anger, and an Emotional Breakdown

A few days later, the buzz and hype surrounding the Katie Bell incident had started to die down. Hermione was thankful. The whole incident had turned those closest to her into snarling beasts, backs hunched, teeth bared, as if ready for an immediate attack.

For example, Harry had been in an outright foul mood the whole week. Hermione recalled the conversation...

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"Hermione…I know the two of you are friends and all, but you've got to admit, the whole thing is pointing towards Malfoy. I am a hundred percent sure that he is a Death Eater, and is carrying out You-Know-Who's orders. Come on Hermione, I know you're not dense" Harry had pleaded his case with her.

But Hermione would not budge on her stance.

"We are not having this argument AGAIN Harry!" She exclaimed ignoring his protests.

She refused to do this again.

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Harry had apologised in the meantime but she was steering clear of his mood swings.

Instead, Hermione had been focusing her energy in trying to get Draco to talk to her. He was looking worse for wear. Hermione noticed that Draco was losing a lot of weight again, he was more pale than normal and the poor guy just looked ill. Hermione was really worried for him.

Hermione decided that the only way to get his attention would be to follow him (with Harry's invisibility cloak of course) and pounce when the hallways were clear of eyes and ears.

So, she waited patiently for the right moment.

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As an invisible Hermione stealthily followed Draco up more, and more, of Hogwarts' famous staircases, she noticed that Draco was heading directly for the Room of Requirement. She frowned, trying to remember exactly when Draco had mentioned that he was using the room, for something other than their meetings, and what he was using the room for.

Hermione watched as Draco paced back and forth until the door to the room materialised. Draco went inside, and Hermione followed through the open door and into the room.

The room seemed to be full of junk, not like the open space the DA had practiced defence in last year.

'Why would Draco think of this?' Hermione thought to herself, as she manoeuvred her way through the labyrinth of objects to approach Draco.

Draco seemed to have a keen interest in a large, dark wooden cabinet. Hermione watched the bazaar show, as Draco produced an apple from his pocket and placed it on the low shelf in the cabinet.

Hermione then heard the words:

"Harmonia Nectere Passus" Draco said.

Nothing seemed to happen, so Draco repeated himself. He tried to be clearer, and more confident with his pronunciation of the spell.

Hermione watched in fascination as Draco became more, and more, wound up over his failed attempts to...do whatever it was he was trying to do.

After the eighth attempt, Hermione was getting worried at just how frustrated Draco was getting, he was going to make himself even more ill if he kept stressing like this.

Hermione sighed quietly.

Draco halted mid-spell, and whirled around at the very quiet sigh. He had become very well attuned to the quietest of noises recently.

Wand drawn, Draco searched for the source of the noise, but couldn't see anyone.

"Who is there?" He said menacingly, prepared to cast the nastiest hex he could on the unlucky snoop.

Hermione was taken back by the sheer crazed, rabid look in Draco's expression. She couldn't comprehend just how anxious the young boy was and she calmly went about removing her cloak.

As she moved, she suddenly felt a slight stinging sensation on her hand. She pulled the rest of the invisibility cloak off in surprise.

"Relax Draco, it's only me" she said quietly as she massaged her stinging hand.

"Hermione!? Merlin shit, you scared the crap out of me" he said to her, looking slightly less panicked now.

"It didn't escape my notice" she muttered, as she looked at her hand that Draco had cast a stinging hex on in warning.

"I'm so sorry, I heard a noise, then all I saw was this hand appear from thin air, and I thought it was dark magic, or a practical joke" he tried to explain, feeling guilty that he had harmed his friend.

"It's alright, I forgive you Draco, don't stress" she tried to soothe him.

He nodded, and looked at the ground.

"I'm sorry I haven't spoken to you recently, I have just had a lot of things to do at the moment, and a lot of things on my mind" he confided in her.

"Like putting apples into an old, decrepit, cabinet" she stated.

"It's part of 'The Task'" he said shamefully.

Hermione startled at his words. She couldn't believe that she had disturbed him in the middle of his initiation task.

Hermione took a deep breath.

"Do you need any help?" She asked him.

He looked at her in surprise; she would willingly help him, knowing exactly what the end result was going to be.

He voiced his thoughts.

"Of course I would help you Draco, I promised I would" Hermione replied.

For the next hour, Hermione tried to help Draco as much as she could, but there was little in the way of progress. Draco was still far too wound-up to have achieved anything, and he sulkily called it quits for the night.

"I've got other things I need to do tonight, not this hellish shit" he snarled angrily.

Hermione patiently watched his outburst. At one point, Draco shouted in pure rage at the cabinet and gave it the hardest kick Hermione had ever seen.

"Did that help?" Hermione asked, referring to the kick the cabinet had received.

"Yes" Draco snapped back at her.

"Did that hurt?" Hermione asked.

"Yes" Draco said bitterly as he collapsed to the floor to nurse his injured foot.

Hermione rolled her eyes, she was also frustrated. She didn't know what she could do to help Draco, and Hermione Granger DID NOT like not knowing things.

She sighed as she and Draco departed the room of requirement separately.

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Still on edge, Hermione decided that she didn't want to go to the common room, it was too noisy and clustered with lots of other students.

She decided to see if her Severus was free for the evening, she could use the distraction.

As she made her way deep down into the bowels of the castle, she halted suddenly when she heard her name being called.

"Hermione!" The voice shouted from behind her.

She nearly groaned at the voice, she did not want to deal with this person right now.

Hermione, ignoring the voice and continuing her path, could then hear the hurried footsteps of said person running to catch up to her.

"Where are you going at this time of night young lady?" Remus asked her.

"I'm going to have some cobwebs dusted" she told him sarcastically.

He looked confused for a moment.

"Just leave me be for now, please" she said as she turned on her heel and continued to her desired destination.

Remus, who was still riddling her out, decided to listen to her for once and let her go. He could tell that she was agitated about something and decided to let her be, for now.

He made his way towards his personal rooms, and retired for the evening. He was exhausted after the conversation he'd had with Severus earlier that evening.

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She finally made it to her destination, and without any hesitation, she opened the door to his rooms.

Hermione looked over to his chair, and she noticed that he had fallen asleep by his fireplace with a glass of fire whiskey in his hands, the near empty bottle on the table told her he'd had more than one glass. He was clearly stressed by something and in need of some decent rest. She decided that the only thing she could do right then was to help him to bed, so she took a couple of steps until she was stood right behind him and she slowly started to massage his shoulders. At her touch, he startled awake.

"Merlin woman! Do you want me to have a stroke?" He snapped at her.

Hermione froze for a moment.

"I apologise Severus I thought it would make you feel better, I could tell how tense you were" she stated.

Severus made no move to look at her, or acknowledge her in any way.

Hermione frowned.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

Severus sighed and stood up, he walked over to his bookcase and took a book from the shelf.

Hermione gulped as she noticed what book he had in his hand.

"Lupin visited me earlier and we had an...interesting...conversation" Severus said.

Hermione felt all the colour drain from her face, she didn't know what was going to happen next. She took a steadying breath, trying to prepare for the outburst she knew was going to follow.

"Recognise this?" He asked, as he held the book out so that she could clearly read the title.

She nodded.

"Remember when you fled from Lupin's class after your Patronus had changed? Well, you left your books and bag behind, and Lupin retrieved your possessions to keep them safe. This was one of the books you had with you that day. Lupin noticed a few particular pages were bookmarked, with a written parchment of notes in your hand in between the pages. Concerned as to why you would even have this book in your possession, Lupin read through your notes. What do you think he found?" Severus explained in his teaching voice that made first years piss themselves.

Hermione felt a light sweat forming on her brow, and the hairs on her neck had stood up on end.

"Errr..." she began, but was cut off by Severus who had slammed the book down loudly on the table.

"Why the hell did you not come and talk to me about this?" He hissed.

"Severus, please calm down, I didn't want to say anything about it unless I had to. You have been completely stressed out, and I didn't want to say anything that would add to that stress until I was absolutely sure" she tried to explain whilst Severus stood there glaring at her.

"Calm down? Calm down! How did you expect me to react? This is not something you should have kept from me, you should have spoken to me immediately" he said, trying to calm himself.

Hermione stood shaking, she knew he would be mad about this which is why she didn't say anything in the first place.

The two stood for a while, staring at each other as they both tried to keep calm.

Eventually, Severus let out a sigh, and his shoulders sagged.

"Are you...?" He asked quietly, staring down at the floor.

"No Severus, I'm not" she replied just as quietly.

"You need to leave, I just need to process all this, I will speak to you tomorrow but for tonight just leave me be" he asked her.

Hermione felt tears spring to her eyes; she didn't know what to do or say to make this better. Granted, she should have told him but she didn't want to worry him when it wasn't necessary. She knew that the likelihood of her being pregnant was next to none, she had only done the test to definitively rule the option out.

"Severus, I…" she began but was cut off again.

"Leave...now!" Severus demanded quietly.

She nodded as her tears began to fall and headed for the door.

"Please get some rest Severus" she said softly as she shut the door quietly behind her.

Severus stood alone in his rooms, and waited a good five minutes before he moved, he picked up his glass of fire whiskey from the table and launched it at the wall. Feeling marginally better as he watched the glass shatter into pieces.
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Hermione sprinted for the toilets; she knew only Myrtle would disturb her there. She crashed through the doors and immediately made a beeline for the sinks. She gripped the edge of the sink as her whole body began to shake. She hadn't seen her Severus be genuinely that angry towards her in a long time – and it had startled her.

She splashed her face with water and looked at her pale reflection in the mirror.

She logically went through the situation. Yes, she should've told Severus about the potential pregnancy when she had first thought about it, but she didn't because of the exact reasons she had given. Firstly, she didn't even think that she was pregnant but needed to rule it out definitively for herself. Secondly, it was obvious that Severus was under an extreme amount of pressure and there was absolutely no need for her to add to that any more than necessary. Thirdly, her and Severus hadn't really discussed their future as both recognised how involved they would both be in the upcoming war – it was likely that they wouldn't survive it.

Hermione stayed in the girl's bathroom until long after curfew, she had a lot of things to contemplate.

Why had Severus been so angry?

As she started to think about it, she couldn't help but wonder why Severus had been so mad. She understood that it was partially because she hadn't mentioned anything about it to him. However, could there be other reasons? For example, was he angry that she wasn't pregnant? Was he angry that there had become a need for her to take the test in the first place? She really didn't know. The thought of her having to wait for him to contact her to discuss it further tormented her. How long would it be before they would sit down and properly discuss this? Furthermore, there was no doubt that this situation would ultimately lead to a conversation about their future and Hermione wasn't sure if she were ready for that.

Hermione sighed one more time before deciding that she really needed to get back to the common room before she was caught in the corridors well after curfew.

She stealthily made her way out of the toilet and up to her common room without incident.

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The following morning Hermione did not want to face the world. However, she was also not the type of person to miss classes without a valid reason. She forced herself to get up, dressed, and ready for the day and then made her way down to breakfast. The first thing she noticed upon entering the great hall was her Severus, who was sat at the head table with a murderous expression on his face. Yep, students were going to suffer today. Hermione grimaced at the thought of him still being in a foul mood because of her and thanked Merlin that she did not have defence class until after lunch. She was hoping that his mood would've simmered down by then.

The other thing she noticed was Draco, he looked like he had barely slept and was picking at his breakfast so that he could at least show that he was trying to eat something – even if it was all a farce. Hermione knew that he really needed help and she had already planned a break-in to the restricted section of the library in order to obtain some useful information for him. She just knew that she would have to help him, it would kill her if she stood by and did nothing to help as he suffered.

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Hermione and her friends made their way through their day of classes as they normally did and were currently enjoying their lunch. There had been whispers from the other year groups that her Severus was even more harsh than usual. He had taken many house points from all houses, including his own, and handed out several nasty detentions with Filch. Hermione chewed her bottom lip nervously; they had a double defence class with Severus straight after lunch and Hermione was worried about what the state of her friends would be by the end of the class.

Harry noticed that Hermione had been quieter than normal, and he also was aware of how Snape had been during classes that day. Between the behaviour of his best friend and most despised professor, the chosen one came to the genius deduction that something was wrong. He tried to get Hermione to open up and talk to him about it, but she would not say a word. There was nothing to say – she hadn't even received a message from Severus yet about discussing things.

As they all made their way to their defence lesson, Hermione was starting to feel anxious. As they stepped into the classroom, the tension in the air was tantamount and Severus watched as the class came in quietly and took their seats. The whole class knew they were walking on eggshells this session and did not wish to provoke the deadly snake stood at the front of the classroom.

The class started off relatively fine, they were going through the theory part of the session first. Therefore, all students were sitting, listening, and taking down notes as Severus gave his lecture. The problem started when the class moved to the practical portion of the session.

The students were practising some useful offensive spells with partners and Severus was paying particular attention to his know-it-all. She looked thoroughly wound up and her offensive spells were slightly more aggressive than they should've been. Severus stepped forward to go and sort this problem out, if boy wonder was injured again in his defence class people would start to ask questions.

"Granger, whilst I would enjoy nothing more than to see the chosen one blasted into smithereens, maybe we should leave at least some of him for you-know-who" he stated in his usual clipped teaching tone.

Hermione was surprised that she had even been addressed and whirled around on her professor, the remnants of her hex flinging towards him. He defended himself and deflected the hex and noticed that the entire class had gone silent and were interested in the scene between the surprised student and the seething professor.

"Did you just attack a teacher Miss Granger?" he asked calmly.

Hermione gulped and shook her head, immediately starting to explain herself.

"I apologise professor, you startled me mid hex, I was not intentionally aiming at you" she said, feeling even more nervous.

"Be that as it may Miss Granger, I expect my students to have more control over their actions in my classroom and would remind you that there are punishments for such actions. You will receive a 20-point reduction from your house and detention for casting at a teacher – regardless of it being an accident or not" he said.

The Slytherins laughed quietly as they watched the mudblood be punished by their head of house.

Hermione was embarrassed, he had to know that it was a complete accident – didn't he? She hoped he did, she didn't want to give him another reason for being completely angry with her.

She sighed and nodded, accepting her punishment.

"Detention will be 8pm this evening, my office" he said.

Hermione could feel the stress of the last few days catching up with her and tried her best not to cry in front of her friends, classmates, and lover. She really was emotionally at a low and was not sure if she could handle the detention that evening if her Severus opted to remain in his current persona when it was just the two of them.

"Don't snivel girl, you know the rules of my classroom and what is expected of you. It has been this way for nearly six years. If you don't like it Miss Granger, then you know where the door is" he snarled at her.

With that, he turned his back on her and moved back towards the front of the classroom. The class was still silent, watching with bated breath for Hermione's response.

Hermione knew she was about to breakdown, so she took her professors advice. She picked up her books and belongings and ignored the stunned stares of her friends and her professor as she headed out the door.

The second the door shut behind her she took off in a run, not really sure where she was going.