Hello I'm back!
Taking a week off was DEFINITELY a good idea, because I wrestled with the direction I wanted this chapter to in many times and it took me a long time to get to a place where I was happy with it.
As always, your support means the world and even if that's just reading the nonsense I've written, know that I'm eternally thankful.
Let's get back on track, and jump a little further into Hermione's mind :)
Her first week of classes went past in a whirlwind, if she thought she'd studied hard last year she knew this year would be on a whole other level. The new potions teacher, Professor Slughorn, was jovial and courteous and everything she thought she wanted in a teacher, except that now she had it she found him frustrating and slow. He seemed to be more interested in 'collecting' his students like trophies than he was helping them to flourish, and strangely she found that the praise he heaped on her every time she answered a question quickly got old fast. It didn't help that Harry had seemingly overnight become the best potions student in the whole school! Every waking moment he seemed to spend studying the tattered textbook he'd taken from the classroom. Infuriated, she'd stolen a glance one night in the common room and found that it was thoroughly annotated in a spiky scrawl that looked so familiar but for the life of her she couldn't place. Honestly, if he was following those instructions instead of the ones listed in the book then it was practically cheating. She would never stoop so low, although a niggling voice in the back of her head whispered that she wished could she have access to such fascinating notes.
Defense was a fascinating affair. Professor Snape still commanded a room with ease, but the inclusion of - as he might call it - foolish wand waving, made him even more intimidating. Their first lesson had concluded with a basic demonstration of some heavy disarming spells, her professor using a target dummy to show the correct wand movements and stance. Even though his target was an inanimate object, a few of her classmates still winced at the ferocity with which he struck the dummy. She doubted that anyone in the class had witnessed anything close to the level of magical power Professor Snape held, and instead of scaring her it enthralled her. This was the wizard entrusted to keep her secrets. Perhaps she could request some extra defense lessons as well..
She was taking nearly as many subjects for her NEWTS as she had done in her third year, although thankfully she hadn't needed the use of the time turner. Instead, it sat safely in a place only she knew of. It had been accepted that she would return it to Dumbledore on the last day of term, once it was determined that she would no longer need it for her school years. Instead, when she had entered his office to deliver it he had merely looked at her with a quizzical grin and claimed that she had returned it last week. It was in her bag, she knew it was, but Dumbledore always had a reason for his quirks and if it meant she should keep the time turner, then she wouldn't argue. Instead of using it, however, she had hidden it, not wishing to have another boosted growth spurt. So far, she had readjusted her schedule three times. The amount of homework and studying she would need to do to gain top marks in her exams was far beyond what she had accomplished for her OWLs. Factor in Occlumency lessons and the potential to be sent away with information and it meant that she barely had time to sleep, never mind relax. She was also penciling in apparition lessons in order to pass her test as quickly as possible. As the Headmaster had said, the sooner she learned the skill the sooner she could get to work. He had made it very clear that until she was able to apparate, she would under no circumstance undertake missions outside of school grounds.
Her nights were frequently taken up by the same dream; endless running, hitting a dead end, the feeling of utter emptiness and that one word that seemed to shatter her very core. She had requested Dreamless Sleep from Poppy, giving the excuse of nerves so as not to delve into her very frustrating flashbacks. She couldn't take it every night, however, and when she didn't it was always waiting for her. It was all she could do to get up and throw all her energy into the studies for the day, even if her body screamed in protest. Friday evening arrived in no time and Hermione found herself confidently striding into the Defense room and up the stairs to the office, where she knocked with a smile on her face and waited to be let inside. Hearing the familiar call of her professor, she pushed the door open and slipped inside, leaving her bag by the door and coming to sit in the same chair as before. The room had changed slightly, namely with the inclusion of two pensieves on their respective tables. Another set of cozy, if worn, chairs and a small table had been placed in front of the old fireplace, which was now lit. She couldn't recall any of the professors using it in previous years that she'd seen. Perhaps he was used to the extra warmth, having resided in the dungeons for so long. Snape glanced up briefly as she entered, and went back to marking the essay in his hands. It didn't take him long, and soon he was repositioning his chair to sit in front of her.
"This evening, Miss Granger, we will start by investigating the makeup of your internal barriers. This will feel very different from our first foray into occlumency, and it is important that you relax as much as possible while still maintaining the facade you have created. After I have thoroughly examined the shield, I will attempt to break it. I would ask that you do not put up any resistance when I do, as this is not meant to be taxing." He finished the sentence with a smirk, and waited for her to steady her breathing and settle into the chair. When she nodded to show her readiness, he pointed his wand at her temple slowly, and with a voice as dark as night, murmured "Legilimens."
Severus stood inside an expansive library. It wasn't one he recognized, and wondered if the design and layout had been her own creation or somewhere she had visited. On his first entry to her mind he had been so focused on breaking the walls down that he hadn't stopped to truly look. However, taking the time now he saw that it was truly breathtaking. It was light, airy and felt more like a castle than a library. The high walls were made of beautiful marble, creamy white with tendrils of silver snaking through them and forming into lavish leafy patterns. Strong marble pillars stood proud throughout the foyer, giving off the feeling of protection. Sunlight shone through the domed stained glass ceiling, casting shadows of colour around the floor that twinkled and shifted as he moved around the rooms. There were books, so many books. The walls had endless alcoves cut into them, and in these alcoves resided textbooks, novels, ancient tomes, every type of literature he could imagine. He plucked one off the shelf, to find it had promptly been replaced with another. He tried to flick through the pages but found them blank. Frowning, he tried to return the book but found it had no place. When he looked back to his hands, the book had vanished. Returning back to the grand entrance, he scanned the pillars and found benches lining them. Each created with a gorgeous oak wood, varnished with a red wash to give them a delightful sheen. As he wandered past each pillar, eventually he found her. Miss Granger was sat, book in hand, flipping the pages lazily. She was barefoot, clad in a yellow sundress, the colour of daisies. He sat down on the bench next to her, and she smiled.
"I modeled it after a library I used to visit with my parents as a child, before we found out I was a witch. I thought the way they housed the books was so unique, and every time we went I could easily get lost in it's corridors for hours. When it came to recreating it in my mind, I added some more of.. Me, I suppose."
"It is indeed unique. The books are a clever touch. Is that where you enclosed your memories?" She laughed at that, a bright laugh that echoed throughout the hall and lit up the room.
"Not quite. That would be obvious." She turned to him, beaming. "You need to look closer, Professor."
Severus furrowed his brow and sauntered back to one of the alcoves. Instead of taking a book, he examined the walls surrounding it. They stretched as far as the ceiling, and seemed to sink into nothingness. He took another book, this time focusing on the spot where it had been. It was impossibly quick, but he caught a glimpse as the replacement book shimmered into view. What appeared to be a cavern sat behind the books, although he could not see more.
"The books are a guise?"
"A distraction. The books have no words written in them, and at first glance it would appear that the memories were hidden inside. They're endless, the books. They'll keep duplicating as long as one is removed from the shelf. Thus, making it impossible to break through to the cavern behind them without considerable time and force."
He was impressed. That the girl had managed to create a shield so thorough on her own was far more than he had assumed. He thought back to her letter - I have begun to craft barriers that would withstand a weak probe. This was far beyond that of a weak probe, perhaps she needed less work than he had originally thought.
"Interesting, Miss Granger. Would you permit me now to attempt to break through?" She continued to smile serenely, flipping the pages every so often.
"Of course."
Severus drew out his wand and began to fire off bombardas at the alcove, slowly increasing his pace to match the rate at which the books reappeared. It took some time, but eventually he could feel the foundation of the spell shake, and he knew he bested it. Stepping through into the abyss, he wrinkled in features in confusion as instead, he was met with nothingness. The further he walked, the more the darkness appeared to engulf him, and when he turned to re-enter the foyer, he saw he had walked a huge distance without realising. Making the trek back through the nothingness, he stepped back through into the library and folded his arms.
"Care to explain?"
She giggled. "Like I would give away my secrets that easily, Professor."
Severus tapped his fingers against the fabric of his robe sleeves, looking around again. There had to be a weak spot, magic this concentrated could not be evenly distributed without compromising on detail - and that was something Miss Granger certainly hadn't done. He walked the length of the foyer again, tapping on objects as he went. The steps, bookshelves, benches, entryways into the smaller corridors, everything he touched hummed with the same frequency. Sighing, he closed his eyes and instead tried to feel the magical energy in the room. All around him, the powerful buzz of her magic emanated from each object she had constructed. It called out to him, reached to snake itself around his being and he found for a moment he wanted to let it. At the last second, he shook his mind free of such a foolish idea, and went back to registering the magical power, looking for a sign of weakness. When he found it, he smirked. Very clever, Miss Granger. He opened his eyes and walked back to the middle of the foyer, standing in front of the young witch's bench. Slowly, carefully, he lifted his wand to point directly above him. Hermione's eyes widened as she watched him utter the spell, his never leaving her gaze.
"Bombarda."
The word was spoken so lazily, with seemingly no effort behind it, yet the spell erupted with such power that it betrayed his demeanor. His wand didn't emit any light, but instead the vague picture of an invisible object hurtling through the air shot up into the sky and impacted directly into the stained glass dome above their heads. Immediately, the glass shattered and with it, the roof and walls began to peel away from them. The walls of the fortress crumbled and dropped onto the floor, massive chunks of marble stone breaking into rubble at their feet. He could hear Granger desperately trying to rebuild the fortress as shards of stained glass fell down around them but it was no use, he was in.
Hermione's mind was an organised chaos. Everywhere he looked there were pockets of memories, each one vying for the opportunity to be let free. The tether on those pockets was a fascinating sight to behold, and Snape knew that Miss Granger hadn't done this on purpose. It took years of careful, purposeful mental preparation to be able to categorize memories in such a manner, some witches and wizards went mad trying to harness the natural disorder that resided inside their heads. Snape's own journey to control his mind in such a way had been, thankfully, straightforward, owing to the trauma bestowed on his mental state so early in his life. As far as he knew, Miss Granger had never suffered such horrors, and so to see this state of organisation occurring naturally gave an insight into her brilliance. Her brain was wired to be intelligent, the foundations to retain knowledge had been inside her for years. He imagined she still had to work to understand what she was learning, but the words were all there, stored inside her head.
He pushed his way through the pockets, spying glimpses of childhood memories bubbling at the surface. What looked like a birthday, suspiciously devoid of other children, the Sorting hat proclaiming Gryffindor and the pride that burst from it, writing the essay on werewolves and the sudden realization that Lupin was hiding a dark secret.. Although the familiar pull of knowledge cropped up at seeing these unexplored memories, he had no intention of diving in further and instead began to withdraw. As the pockets started to fog over, he was met with something new, something he had not experienced in years. A small bubble of fear started to creep into his consciousness, clawing at him, willing his heart rate to increase. The fear grew and grew, until the bubble popped and suddenly he was running down an endless corridor, fleeing from an intruder with no face, willing himself to go forward. This was not a memory, this was something else, something altogether more dangerous. He could feel Granger's panic and the tension in her mind building, he could feel the wild terror in her eyes as she desperately searched the walls for an opening. More than anything, he could sense the dread that rose within her as this unknown threat closed in and ensnared her. He forced himself back, back through the memories and back through the wreckage of a once pristine library where a barefoot Miss Granger sat crying, and then he was out of her head and back in the office with his hands on his knees, the knuckles white. For a long time he could focus on nothing else but his own breathing, until a sob pierced the silence and he raised his head to look at the witch.
"What did you do to me? How could you see it..?" She whispered. She kept her dead down, her breathing coming in sharp bursts, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if she had just been outside in a snowstorm. Until, absent minded, she reached her tongue out to lick the moisture from around her lip, she hadn't realised she was crying. There were tear tracks down either side of her face that refused to dry.
"Miss Granger," He chose his words carefully, anxious not to affect the witch any more than he already had. "What I just experienced-"
"No, it doesn't make sense." Her shoulders slumped. "It's not real."
Snape looked at her, confusion and understanding hitting him one after the other. "That wasn't a memory." He said, his voice low. It wasn't a question.
"It was a dream. A recurring dream. I don't understand, sir. I know legilimency can be used to look through memories and sense emotions, but you shouldn't be able to view my dreams! That's just my imagination!" Her breathing was still erratic and her face was still wet but she was beginning to replace horror with the familiar sensation she felt when on the hunt for an answer.
"You are quite right, Miss Granger. It is… unusual.. For a dream to appear within another's mind. In the cases I have read, it only occurs should the dream in question be tied to a particular event which holds substantial emotional relevance."
Snape was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. He had intended only to test and break the barriers, and finish the lesson. Instead, he had witnessed something not only deeply personal, but surprisingly disturbing. It was unusual for him to feel fear the way he just had, and it made him want to run from the room without looking back.
Instead, Snape did something completely irrational for him. He stood from his seat in front of Miss Granger, and instead of running for the door he moved to the fireplace and settled into one of the old armchairs. Not daring to turn round to meet her surely curious gaze, he called out.
"After intense sessions such as these, I sometimes find it beneficial to take tea, something different to focus the mind on. You may find it helps, Miss Granger."
Still completely dazed from the experience within her own mind, Hermione stood without thinking and moved to sit across from her Professor, chewing on her lip and worrying her hands. She was fighting a battle between the raw emotion drawn up from experiencing her nightmare once again, and the definite oddness that came with being in such a cozy setting with her Professor. With a call of her name, the house elf Hermione had been accosted by the year previous popped into sight, bowing low at the sight of Professor Snape.
"Sherbet, would you be so kind as to fetch a plate of biscuits for Miss Granger and myself, and a pot of chamomile tea. Any biscuits will do, whatever the kitchens have on hand." He turned to Hermione. "Is that agreeable, Miss Granger?"
Hermione was still tense, but the familiarity of the house elf and the memories that stirred in her at her reappearance gave the shaken witch stability she desperately needed. "Biscuits sound lovely, thank you, but I'm afraid I can't stand chamomile tea. The taste just doesn't agree with me." Shakily smiling, she looked to Sherbet. "I'll take peppermint, thank you."
