A/N Thank you for all your support.
Hermione's mind was a mess.
Since returning from Azkaban yesterday morning, she had outwardly managed to play her part and prevent any suspicions rising from her friends or teachers. In order to do so, she had relapsed, mostly resorting to restricting her emotions and more complex thoughts into a tiny corner of her mind and bringing up her Occlumency shields instead. She knew it was a deeply unhealthy coping mechanism but it felt like her only option - that, and the dreamless sleep potion she'd taken last night to ensure she got some rest.
Harry and Ron had been relieved to see her at lunch yesterday. They'd only returned from the Hospital Wing themselves that morning - Ron after finally shaking off the aftereffects of the poison and Harry recovering from a blow to the head during a disastrous quidditch match on Saturday. They'd noticed how uncomfortable she was at breakfast and had urged her to get treated straight away - to hell with missing classes - but she'd tried to grind her way through at least until lunch. Within twenty minutes of Ancient Runes, Hermione was finding it difficult to concentrate and Professor Babbling had suddenly been before her, asking if she was well. To Hermione's embarrassment, Professor McGonagall had been forced to bring her Second Year class to an early close in order to escort her to the school gates and had been waiting for Hermione on her return from the prison. After dazedly reassuring her Head of House that all was well, Hermione had used the excuse of the wet March morning to hide inside the hood of her cloak, maintaining the mental shields she'd put in place before she'd even stepped outside Antonin's cell. There were only a few minutes left of Defence by the time they reached the castle so she had gone to Arithmancy, content to try and lose herself in one of her favourite subjects and not think about anything that had happened. She got through lunch, mechanically eating her chicken casserole without tasting it, and then through double Potions with Slughorn.
Despite her numbed thoughts, she'd been braced ever since her return for someone to out her in some fashion: to point at what must be written all over her face, to gasp at the shame of it all, to sneer that they knew what had happened. But they hadn't. No one seemed to have noticed at all. But was that only because of the shields? After dinner she had taken a risk, loosening the strength of her shields just slightly so that a little more sensation filtered through her mind as she climbed to the Common Room with Harry and Ron. She could feel everything that she was repressing ready to burst out of its confines, but the least damaging way was to release something that powerful a little at a time.
"I'll see you guys later," Harry announced as they reached the seventh floor.
"Where are you going?" Hermione asked, taken by surprise.
Harry shot her a slightly guilty look. "I have a lesson with Dumbledore tonight, remember?"
Hermione's defensive shields wavered at the Headmaster's name, then they began to crumble at Harry's reluctant reminder that Dumbledore didn't trust her enough to let her friend tell her about what took place in his lessons. "Oh, yes," she murmured and turned in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. Nobody wants you dead… She needed to be on her own: her breaths were beginning to hitch in her throat, sweat was breaking out on her brow and upper lip, dark spots were appearing at the edge of her vision. She could sense Ron at her shoulder. "No. We shouldn't be seen together," she told him, forcing her voice not to shake. Together… It's you and me in this, milaya. Just you and me together… She spared Ron a quick glance and said, "Lavender." He frowned, his shoulders slumping, and before he could say anything else, Hermione hurried off. Ron didn't follow.
Don't faint, don't faint, she told herself as she closed in on the Fat Lady's portrait. You're nearly there. Just keep going.
Heart pounding, a non-existent wind rushing in her ears, she gasped out the password and hauled herself into the Common Room before fleeing up to her dormitory. A quick sweep of her gaze told her that the room was mercifully empty. She stumbled over to her bed and collapsed onto it, dissolving into noisy sobs. She cried out her fear, frustration and uncertainty, letting it drench her cheeks and pillow. Everything she'd been holding back for the last few hours poured out of her, all the more powerful from having denied for so long.
What had she done?!
What was she going to do?!
Those twin questions circled round and round in her head, leaving others springing up in their wake.
Was that it now? With there being no hope of a cure was her life effectively over? Tied to Antonin Dolohov forever, the time she could be away from him decreasing and shrinking until she was unable to leave his side without burning up?
It appeared so - if she believed him.
She desperately didn't want to. A few months ago she certainly wouldn't have. But so much had passed between them. She believed she had seen many moments of honesty in him recently, but she couldn't trust his word with something as life-shattering as this despite his evidence. Not just because it was much in Antonin's interest to let her continue to suffer the effects of the curse, but also because there was far too much at stake for her to lose hope. Her freedom, ambitions, dreams. Everything that constituted a life of her own. She couldn't just give that all up without a fight.
But she'd already lost one fight. Mortification swept over her as she relived the moment where she had stopped resisting Antonin's pull on her. She rolled onto her back and pulled her pillow tight over her burning face in a symbolic attempt to smother both her embarrassment and the vivid recollection of his mouth on hers.
She'd kissed Antonin Dolohov.
She'd kissed a bloody Death Eater multiple times and he had been the one to stop things progressing any further!
Oh, she could hear the accusations that would be thrown at her if anyone ever found out - Tramp!Fool!Slut!Traitor!Whore!
They had no idea.
They'd never understand.
And their disgust would only grow if they knew not only how damn glorious it had felt, but that also - despite everything - she longed to kiss him again, to feel his mouth move firmly against hers, to taste the essence of him on her lips, to have him hold her close so that she could lose herself in bliss.
And she wanted more than that.
Even here, miles away in her dormitory, her emotions in disarray and with the curse soothed hours ago, her body felt like it vibrated in yearning for his touch, even the most intimate parts of her. She could imagine it: his mouth, hot and wet, at her breast; his fingers teasing and exploring over her arse and between her sex; him filling her up, moving inside her, creating sensations that she knew were supposed to be wonderful even if she was ignorant of the details. And she was ignorant, woefully ignorant when it came to sex.
She pushed the pillow down against her face again and squirmed at the thought but the truth was that she needed to be practical about this. Because she could have it - those vague fantasies. No matter how unbelievable considering her blood status, Antonin wanted to have sex with her, she was sure of it. And she (Merlin help her) knew that she wanted it too. Sex. With a Death Eater.
All her usual objections flew to the forefront of her mind - he was a murderer, a blood supremacist, loyal to Voldemort's cause and wanted her friends dead. But she knew all that. She'd already been telling herself that for months but it hadn't prevented them from getting closer, crossing lines she never thought they would. Because while all that was true, his beliefs and dedication to Voldemort were most likely a consequence of being groomed since birth and she'd seen and come to understand that there was more to him than that. She'd seen hints of vulnerability within him, had enjoyed their academic discussions more than she probably should have, and now he wanted to 'keep' her. She didn't exactly know what that entailed but it felt like maybe her life might matter to him. Or was she just being naive?
Either way, his claim that the curse damage was permanent changed things. If he wasn't prepared to work on its cure anymore, the only hope she had was of fixing things herself and that would take months at the very least. She would need to deny him all that time and more, but she was tired of doing so. She knew she didn't have the strength. It felt like this morning had been the first step down a very slippery slope. An inevitable fall. And so what if she compromised on this? It was her body, her choice. What was the worst that could happen if she gave them both what they wanted?
Partaking in such an intimate act would surely bring them closer - but didn't she want that? Wasn't she trying to figure out how to help him, to rid him of his years of conditioning and open his eyes to an alternative path?
He was still convinced that he would escape and, with the way the war was progressing, Hermione could hardly be certain that wasn't going to happen. In those circumstances - whether they'd engaged in sexual activity or not - she would need to track him down to have a chance of life. And (though the thought made her feel grubbier than any lewd fantasy) wasn't it more likely that he would protect her if their connection deepened?
No doubt he would try to exert influence over her, get her to betray Harry and the Order but -
Oh, Merlin.
She'd been so distracted by her thoughts of Antonin that she'd temporarily forgotten what he'd said. At once, she felt an urge to storm down to Snape's office and confront him, just like Antonin said she should. Was he right? Had Snape merely manipulated her and told her what she wanted to hear? Was his wording deliberate or unintentional? And if certain members of the Order were as ruthless as Antonin claimed, would an admission that he believed the curse couldn't be cured leave her with a target on her back from people she trusted? What if it was discovered that she and Antonin had kissed? Was that too much to be tolerated? Snape had encouraged her to get close to him but he'd also made it explicitly clear that that was a line not to be crossed. Hermione had absolutely no intention of telling him something so private anyway but the potential risk to her life was an extra dimension that actually left her feeling scared. Would Snape be the one - even though he didn't want to?
Feeling sick to her stomach, she recalled a conversation she and Harry had had with Hagrid the evening of Ron's poisoning. Hagrid had recently overheard an argument between Dumbledore and Snape which, at Harry's insistence, he reluctantly shared with them. Apparently, Snape thought that the Headmaster took too much for granted and that there was something that Snape maybe didn't want to do anymore. In response, Hagrid said that Dumbledore flat out told Snape that he'd agreed to do it and that was all there was to it. That was followed by a suggestion that Snape investigate into his house - which had caught both Harry's outward and Hermione's inner attention because it hinted that there was a wider belief that Malfoy was responsible for the attack on Katie Bell.
But now, Hermione viewed those preceding words in a very different frame of mind. Suspicion and paranoia clawed its way from the back of her mind: was it at all possible that they had been talking about her? Had the Headmaster ordered Snape to spy on her all these months until she reached a point of intolerable risk? Had he been ordered to kill her?
A few months ago it would've been unthinkable to consider her Defence professor capable of such a thing, let alone the Headmaster ordering it. Surely, the great and good Albus Dumbledore wasn't reluctantly plotting her demise? Impossible!
But Antonin had been proved right before about the darker side of the Order and that exchange only seemed to confirm his warning.
But if she wasn't safe around Snape and Dumbledore - and only Merlin knew who else that she was meant to trust - what was she supposed to do? If she wasn't safe within her beloved Hogwarts, where was she supposed to go?
She had no answers.
Though her tears had long since dried up, a cycle of anxious thoughts tumbled endlessly in her mind about the curse's cure, the kisses and Snape's possible deception, each feeding automatically into the other. She lay awake long into the night, hidden from Lavender and Parvati as they retired to bed by the curtains pulled closed around her four-poster, and finally resorted to the dreamless sleep potion when she could bear consciousness no longer.
With no answers to any of her problems presenting themselves the next morning, she got through her time with her friends and the day's lessons by relying heavily on her Occlumency - again, nobody around her seemed to notice that anything was wrong, which was a relief and also a testament to how much she had perfected using her shields. However, as the afternoon drew on and her upcoming session with Snape came closer, she found a restlessness stirring in her chest that only grew stronger through dinner.
She knew she couldn't do as Antonin had suggested and confront Snape. Yes, she had done so before but that was when she hadn't suspected him personally of being the one lined up to potentially end her life. But if her card was marked, pointing out that she knew the truth would surely only seal her fate and bring it about more quickly.
No, she told herself as she journeyed to his office, you cannot let on that you know. She was going to have to hide that and everything else that had occurred in Antonin's cell yesterday. It was far too risky. She checked that her shields were locked down tight.
"Enter."
The moment that she turned around to face him after closing the door, her resolve and shields vanished. It was the first time she had seen him since returning from Azkaban, and all the emotions she had been repressing flooded through her. "You tricked me, didn't you?" she accused - the words coming shakily out of her mouth before they'd even registered in her mind. "Nobody wants to kill me - you were trying to hide the truth with your choice of words, weren't you?"
The expression on his face came as close to shock as she had ever seen it and he rose quickly from behind his desk. "Miss Granger, get a hold of yourself," he commanded, tone icy cold.
"Do you deny it?" she asked instead, feeling faintly delirious. Her head gave a nasty throb and she fought down on her body's urge to start trembling. What in Merlin's name was she doing?!
"You will not speak to me with such disrespect," he told her, nostrils flaring.
"Do you deny it…" she repeated, voice wobbling even more, "…sir?"
He hesitated for the slightest moment. "Of course I do."
You'll see the truth of it even if he denies it, Antonin had said, and Hermione rather thought she had. Pain twisted through her heart far more strongly than any fear or anger she felt. She had put her trust into Snape: shared with him the most private aspect of her life, laid her soul bare before him at her most vulnerable moments, and he had become a steadfast if reluctant presence in her fight. The truth left her feeling betrayed.
"There is no plot against your life from anyone in the Order," Snape said firmly.
But Hermione didn't believe him. She had confronted him and found her devastating truth, and now all the fight drained away. She could ask him to swear it but his words were meaningless to her now.
"Did you hear me, Miss Granger?"
Her shields rose up, just as easily as they ever had before and she looked him straight in the eyes. "Yes, Professor."
He stared at her. If he made any attack on her shields, she didn't feel any intrusion against her solid defences. Even so, when he looked away, there was a certain feeling in her gut that he knew that she didn't believe him. She should probably try and convince him because it could cost her life if she didn't, but all the belligerence had gone out of her. That wasn't to say that she was about to surrender meekly to her death. No, she was very much fond of being alive and wouldn't go down without a spirited defence. But she wasn't going to play this game of deceit and shadows when she'd seen the truth so clearly. She wasn't going to make it easier on Snape, Dumbledore or whoever else was involved by letting them metaphorically sneak up behind her when they thought she wasn't looking. If they wanted to sacrifice her life for some greater purpose, they'd have to do so knowing that she was fully aware.
So where did they go from here?
Snape looked tense. "You are needed in this fight," he told her. He almost sounded convincing.
"Yes, to help Harry," she replied. That was what he'd told her the last time they'd had this discussion.
He scrutinised her, perhaps determining whether she was displaying rudeness. Apparently he decided that she wasn't. "We must all play our part to ensure victory."
"Yes, Professor."
Her response appeared to irritate him though he tried not to let it show. "And your work with Dolohov is also of much importance. You hold a vital influence over him. Loosening the Dark Lord's grip on one of his most loyal followers would strike a severe blow. Have you discussed anything of significance lately?"
Oh, if only you knew, she thought. She couldn't tell him about any of that but she couldn't say nothing either. He wouldn't believe her. There was something she'd been meaning to talk about lately but she hadn't known how best to broach the subject. "We talked about Malfoy."
"Malfoy," he repeated, his tone flat. "Which one?"
"Draco," she answered. "We discussed the likelihood of him being behind the attacks on Ron and Katie Bell, and who his intended victim could be."
"I see," he said. "I would have thought such foolish gossip and speculation beneath you. Slandering another student -"
"He's nearly killed two people!" she interrupted heatedly. "Including my best friend. And you know it's him, I know you do. He's been tasked by Voldemort to kill the Headmaster! He needs to be stopped - as much for his sake as anyone else's. How can you and Dumbledore just stand by and let him keep trying?"
"You overstep," he snapped at her and attempted to say more, but her passion had taken hold of her once more.
"You've spoken of your duty of care towards me before but what about Malfoy and all the other Slytherins at risk of being recruited to the Death Eaters? You're their Head of House! They need help before history continues to repeat itself and they turn out like Antonin, convinced that serving him is their only option. How can you let it happen all over again? Don't you care?!"
"I am not required to defend my professional actions towards my students to you, Granger, and I will not be spoken to in such a manner," he snarled. "I would expect as much from your friends but I thought you at least had some measure of respect and sense. Twenty points from Gryffindor and if you say another ignorant or impertinent word it will be fifty!"
Her eyes blazed angrily at him but she held her tongue. She turned and, within a heartbeat, had yanked open the door. "Don't you dare turn your back on me - we're not finished."
But Hermione disagreed.
She looked back at him from the open doorway. "Thank you for all your help, Professor, but these Occlumency sessions are no longer needed. You've already taught me everything I need to know." Then she walked away.
Shocked and seething, Severus stared at the empty doorway.
What the hell had just happened?!
He'd previously thought that his handling of Granger these last months was going as well as could be expected - so how had he managed to completely lose control of the situation? Where had he gone wrong?
Granger had challenged him from the moment she'd entered his office. Was there anything that he could've said tonight that would've prevented this rupture between them? Yes, there probably was, but she'd caught him off guard multiple times, leaving him with little time to think strategically.
Her confrontational behaviour was out of character and concerning - even if much of what she'd said was actually true.
His weight swayed back and forth between his feet as he determined whether or not to go after her. He had never been caught in such indecision before.
Second after second ticked by and he realised that he'd waited so long that he would have difficulty in successfully tracking her down within the castle. With a deep sigh, he resumed his seat behind his desk. He could only hope that her defiant behaviour stayed within the confines of this office. If it was witnessed by anyone else, then it would make it all the more difficult to keep this development from Albus's attention.
Now that he had let her go, Severus knew that he couldn't tell the headmaster about this, any of it - that Granger knew (despite his attempts to mislead her) that her life was under threat in order to protect Potter, that she knew Draco was behind the attacks and that he'd been ordered to kill Dumbledore on the Dark Lord's orders. Dolohov's hand was in all of this, Severus was quite sure, but he shouldn't expect anything less of the sly, manipulative bastard. And Severus could hardly blame the girl for listening to the Death Eater when he was the one who'd encouraged her. No, he couldn't tell Dumbledore because then whatever happened to her would be his fault. He couldn't handle the loss of another innocent life on his conscience right now.
He was going to have to do his best to keep a lid on the situation until the old man's death, just like he was with Draco. If she voiced her accusations to Potter and Weasley, then all hell would break loose because those imbeciles would no doubt try to take down Draco themselves or shout about the attempts on Dumbledore's life for all to hear. It was a very precarious situation and Granger had the potential to set it all ablaze with her well-meaning but ignorant grasp of the circumstances.
Granger. Malfoy. Potter.
Severus had a nasty feeling that, between them, those children were going to be the death of him.
And on the eighth day - just as she had predicted - Granger returned to Antonin's cell.
The curse had claimed another day from her cycle.
The wait between her visits was always hard to endure but this one had felt particularly fucking torturous for him, unable to see how she was responding in the wake of all that had occurred between them the last time she was here. He had primed himself for disappointment, knowing her habit of retreat, and he reminded himself that what mattered the most was that the significant step had already been taken. It might take time, but she had surely begun to fall.
Her eyes seemed to lock with his the moment she walked through the door and he could tell that she wasn't hiding behind her shields - a good sign.
"I've finally remembered to return your book," she said, holding the tome up for him to see.
He couldn't care less. "Thank you." He rose from his chair to take it from her, making sure not to touch her so that she would think he was prepared to show restraint. "Would you care to take another? One about runes, perhaps?"
"I'll take any that helped you with spell creation," she replied, a spark of defiance in her eyes. "No doubt I'll need them if I'm going to figure out how to undo this curse." He had no objections - he'd always liked it when she had a bit of fire in her. Besides, it wasn't as though she was going to be successful.
He reached for her hand, giving her time to pull away if she chose but she didn't, and he lifted it so he could kiss the backs of her fingers. "Right this way, milaya," he said, and escorted her over to his towering piles of books.
As he talked her through the first couple of tomes, he couldn't help but notice that her gaze frequently strayed down from his eyes to his mouth. He decided to exacerbate her distraction by occasionally pulling his lower lip between his teeth as he thought, and quickly whetting his lips with a swipe of his tongue. He definitely heard her breath hitch in her throat more than once and his spirits soared. This visit was proceeding perfectly - the only way it could've been bettered was if she'd started kissing him the moment she stepped into his cell and declared her undying devotion to him. Then again, while that certainly would've been something to experience, he would've questioned her sanity (or perhaps his). This Granger was composed yet not distant. Any emotional upheaval caused by his words or actions about the curse and their future together seemed to have run its course. Her interactions with him hadn't retreated like he'd thought they would. And if it turned out that she had also accepted the physical line that they had crossed, then this would be the perfect result for him.
"I'll take this one for now," she said, her fingers closing around the book on spell-creation runes he'd suggested a few weeks ago. She placed the book on the nearby table and then turned to look at him, eyes searching his face. "I'm not ready," she blurted suddenly and then averted her gaze. Her curse-induced flush deepened, leaving her positively glowing. "You were right."
Antonin didn't pretend to misunderstand what she was talking about - the moment he'd pulled away from her last time had been fucking haunting him ever since, making him question whether he'd done the right thing. He took a couple of steps closer to her, not erasing the gap between them completely, but certainly enough for him to dominate her view. "I told you - I know you, milaya."
Her lips pressed together at his words and he saw her throat shift as she swallowed. "I'm not ready," she repeated, then added, "for all of it." She started twisting her fingers around themselves and he stilled her, taking her hands in his and stroking his thumbs across her palms. "But…" Her voice was little more than a whisper as she stared down at their hands. "I think that I want to be. One day."
Oh fuck. This was perfect. This was absolutely fucking perfect.
He held a hand to her cheek and her eyes closed. "I-I don't really know what I'm doing when it c-comes to this sort of thing," she stammered.
He brushed his lips across hers. She let out a little gasp and opened her eyes, her fingers flying up to grip in his hair. "That's okay, milaya." Okay? It was beyond perfect - a dream scenario. She was like freshly-fallen snow, ready and waiting for him to lay his tracks in her, to mould her into exactly what he wanted. "I can teach you if you like? Help you find what feels good, hmm?" he asked, his voice low and seductive, his lips barely an inch from hers. "Take care of you."
She nodded wordlessly, staring deep into his eyes, and then pressed her sweet lips against his.
A/N I really hope you liked the update! Lots going on here. The Hermione and Snape confrontation was both fun and difficult to write to get the scene how I wanted it to go, and we had to get a little Snape WTF-POV at the end. I know a few of you were rooting for Snape to win the long distance battle with Antonin but, unusually, Antonin actually had the truth on his side here and that tipped the scales in his favour. Fortunately for us all, Snape has no intention of letting Hermione being killed. Hooray.
We are finally in sync with posts of AO3 so if that's your preferred site to read on then please jump across.
Oh, and just before you get too excited, these two aren't going to immediately start shagging just because they've finally kissed. We'll get there when they're (and I'm) ready.
Take care, everyone.
Red
