His eyes drilled through between the youngest siblings of an old big wizarding family he knew, across two empty tables and straight into Draco Malfoy’s face. The Slytherin was laughing roguishly about some jokes his housemates were telling, too far away for Harry to hear. He didn’t care. He didn’t even see Malfoy. Too heavy was the weight of that head that rested on his arm.
“She’ll be alright,”, Neville tried for the thousandth time.
“Yeah.”, even Ginny had gotten over her shock.
“Says Snape.”
“He’s saved her life, mate. He really has!”, Fred, sitting to Harry’s right, joined in. “You should have seen her! It was like she returned from the dead! He just poured that potion down her throat and – bang!”
“He fumbled at her brain, if you can recall.”, Harry said hollow, still staring forward. “He pulled out something white.”
“In case you never saw splinters of a skull, those things he pulled there might have killed her slowly.”, George; to Harry’s left; noted. “It was like I had her brain in my hand,”
“Leave it.”
“Just because you bore Snape a grudge the very first moment you looked at him, doesn’t mean he’s a complete arse.”, meant Ginny.
“Hermione’s infested you.”, Ron chuckled.
“Pardon?”
“Remember? Summer? After he stormed the kitchen?”, Harry pricked up his ears, but didn’t change his position in the slightest.
“Snape’s had Snuffles’ mother under control, far better than Snuffles himself had.”
“Yeah. Blimey.”, Ron sighed at the empty table between his arms. “That was the first time I heard him swear, if I think about.”
“It was the first time any of us had heard him swear.”, George pointed out again. “I’d die for making him do that again.”
“You heard him swear.”, Ginny noticed. “Just not in English.”
“Oh yeah. Damn it. Almost forgot that.”
“When did he swear?”, Neville listened up.
“That night – you – know – ”
“Who returned.”, Ginny bent the muttered phrasing to the right meaning.
“Right!”, Neville chuckled. “What language was that?”
“Dunno. Not even Dumbledore understood.”
“But McGonagall did, didn’t she?”, Ron remembered as well. “I think I’ll just ask her next lesson.”
“Don’t you dare to, Ron.”, Ginny warned.
“There!”, he huffed and brandished at her. “Believe me now, that Hermione infested you? I bet she was dead for a second or two and a part of her soul jumped over to – ”
“Don’t be silly, Ronald.”, his sister murmured. “A soul just can’t split and divide itself on two people,”, somehow this made a bell ring in Harry’s head, but since he had no idea why ever and Malfoy’s smile was so captivatingly annoying, he decided to ignore it.
“But hang on – what if she really was dead for some seconds? Don’t you think we should ask her? What’s it like to die, I mean?”
“Ron!”
“Alright, alright! I was just saying. Cool down. I know she needs to rest.”
“Yeah. Good, peaceful rest.”, Harry huffed. “With Snape at her side.”
“He’s probably not even there anymore.”, Ginny tried to cheer him up.
“He didn’t turn up for lunch. We’ve been sitting here for three hours and he hasn’t turned up.”
“Maybe he went straight to his office. I’ve heard that teachers can call meals via their desks. Remember the Yule Ball? It works like that, I think.”, said Fred.
“Or he is up there, torturing all the information about the DA out of her.”, grumbled Harry, not noticing that Malfoy’s smile shortly froze and faded when he caught sight of him, before either’s attention was drawn by their friends again.
“Honestly Harry, we have evidence that he hates Umbridge. I really don’t think he’d blow us up, nor do I believe he’d be so – ”
“Why are they still here?”
“What?”
“Malfoy.”, Ginny, Ron and Neville turned, the twins looked up. “Little bootlicker.”
“They’re just enjoying themselves. Let them. As long as they don’t go weird on us, let them be little bootlickers.”, George sighed.
~~#~~
Tasting freshly washed teeth was something she absolutely enjoyed. Maybe it were her parents that had implanted that pleasure in her supposedly still swollen brain, but she didn’t care. Rain was back, though only to her ears. Judged by his standard hairstyle, she wouldn’t have expected him to be valuing a shower that much. Slowly she began to fear he might actually drown himself in there. He had left the main door of the tower as well as the one to the boy’s lavatory open, just in case. She sat in the middle of the bed with her arms wrapped around her knees, pretty much like he would do, she considered, and studied the decimating clouds. There was a chance for a beautiful sunset today. Not even four o’clock and she was already thinking about sunsets. But she was wearing her pyjamas already. The last time she had done that at four o’clock in the afternoon had been at the age of eight. She had been sick. Silence. He was done.
Glad that he was still alive but sad somehow that the constant sound of the water had stopped, Hermione sighed deeply and stared at her fingernails, for god only knew which reason. Now that she sat there, completely alone with her fingernails, she realised that those she gazed at were the only she knew. She had no idea what his fingernails looked like, nor could she recall Harry’s or Ron’s or – her parents’ even. Finding herself presented with a new, pointless task, she huffed and directed her eyes back on the landscape until she finally heard footsteps from behind. Nevertheless she refused to look at him before he came around her bed, walking towards the windows to her right.
“Now that’s an interesting sight,”, she didn’t know why she had had the split-second urge to quote Luna Lovegood, she just had.
“And what would that be?”
He wore an obvious fresh, white shirt with the usual knuckle-reaching sleeves and black trousers. His hair was bound back in a tight ponytail. Some shorter strands at his face had sprung out and the tail itself was a little bush.
“Would you – ”, Hermione suppressed a giggle, “Would you mind freeing your hair, Sir?”
“Why should I be doing so, Miss Granger?”
“Let me think – well, maybe because I’m a little bit curious?”, she curled her lips with a childish smile.
“If it satisfies you,”, he murmured more than annoyed and pulled off the black rubber band.
Hermione quick-wittedly clapped a hand on her mouth as to prevent herself from bursting into laughter. Now she knew why he preferred the greasiness. His hair was almost as bushy as hers naturally was, and standing into awkward directions every here and there.
“You may – ”, she sniffed, still trying her best not to laugh out loud, “Bind that – together again, Sir.”
“Girls.”, he sighed to himself, lightly shook his head with rolling eyes and did as she demanded. “Are you done with it?”, somehow she adored that frustrated frown of his.
“Yes.”, she bit her lower lip and sighed as well. “Why?”
“Because it is really disturbing for a man to hear and see a sixteen year old girl laughing about his hair.”, Snape murmured.
“I meant, why do you hate Harry?”
“If you mean something and expect it to be understood in that way, don’t throw it into a very different context without bespeaking the change of topic.”
“Sure.”, that blew away all her cheer. “Is it because he’s alive? While his mother is dead?”
“No, I don’t hate Harry.”, the conceited words hit her even more and he fully turned to the windows to let their impact unfold.
“Of course you don’t.”, Hermione snapped back. “You treat him like a doormat for no specific reason.”
“There are things going on in the world around you that are far too complicated for your grasp.”
“Am I too young – again?”
“Quite, yes.”
“Why are you still here.”
“That was not a question.”
“No, it wasn’t. If you don’t like my questions, why then are you still here.”
“Just that I don’t complement you for your questions, does not mean that I dislike them.”
“Why are you really here.”
She pleaded, resulting in having to wait for almost a minute. A minute in which she only stared at the clean fresh clothes and that bush of black hair. Why? He usually was so quick giving answers, especially nasty ones to feed people with the acknowledgement that they were to shut up – but he couldn’t find an answer to this simple –
“Close your eyes.”
And again, Hermione waited for something unknown. Trapped in the dark behind her lids, her eyes couldn’t see what he was doing, nor could her ears hear him because he was completely silent. Many seconds passed and she feared he had left without a sound.
Then, almost startling her, there was warm breath against her right cheek. She shivered. The whisper came even softer than after he had saved her from falling. Narrowing her brows, and wondering, she meant to recite what he had said.
“Patamoshto – ya – sabotchusa – tebya? What?”
His breath was gone. Hermione waited whether there would come more or at least an explanation, but soon she realised that there wouldn’t. She opened her eyes – and found that she was alone. Confused, she looked around. Where he had stood at the window, was only a neatly placed pair of clean black shoes. That was why. He had taken them off. But where – she spun and peeked past the oven. His back on her, he strolled down the room, silent like a cat.
“Did anyone ever tell you how special you are?”, Hermione said very quiet, half hoping he wouldn’t hear it, but he stopped walking and raised his head.
“Did anyone ever tell you?”, he repeated, equally low.
“My parents,”, she counted on her fingers.
“One more already.”
“Harry and Ron on occasions,”
“Lily.”, he groaned. “And this tosser of a paedophile.”
“And you.”
“And I. Compared by those counts, you are more special than me.”
“Counts are worth nothing.”
“Then why starting to count,”, he mumbled.
“A heart doesn’t count. It values only what it wishes to value.”
“Spoken like an old widow who has suffered her entire life from the joys and sorrows of a loving heart.”
“Then call me old, Sir.”
“No. You are too young to even slightly understand the meaning of your own words.”
“What do you know about my understanding.”
“A lot.”
“Of course. You’ve seen it all in there.”, she ostentatiously pointed on her head, but he still had his back on her anyway.
“Being capable of Legilimency can be a benefit, but it is no use if the opponent knows to close their shutters. Very highly accomplished Occlumens have dashed against their own eyes’ fidelity though.”
“Can you teach me, Sir? After – that incident – with my – um – `daydream´ last year, I’ve done some research and – ”
“Naturally you did. But you are tragically naïve.”
“And if I tried hard?”
“It is not a spell you can learn from a book and a little bit of practice on a puppet. It means full control of your mind, body, heart, soul – simply everything there is in connection with your thoughts, memories – and emotions.”
“Can you teach me, Professor?”, Hermione remained persistent.
“Maybe; that is solely on you. And by all means, not in near future. You would risk your life, given your current health. Having escaped brain death and considering learning to work Occlumency only hours later is either the resolution of a desperate or asinine person, or hopefully just a side effect of your injury.”
“I would say, a focused person.”
“Likely.”
“Fine, if you don’t want to teach me Occlumency right now, I can understand. But we cannot just hang around here all day, doing nothing.”
“Do your days usually start in the early evening, Miss Granger? And if you should have forgotten, I am your teacher and you are my student.”, Snape murmured. “What do you expect us to be doing while you recover from a horrendous accident? Play `I spy´?”
“Well,”, chuckled Hermione, “That’d be too easy. I spy with my little eye, a man who loves to deny, that he is too shy, to tell a girl why, he is ashamed to cry. Or even laugh.”
“Lovely.”, he grunted. “Most entertaining.”
“Then what about `Yes or No´?”
“Ah of course! As if we haven’t been playing this for hours yet. Very creative.”
“What’s wrong about this game, Sir? We could make a list. Each refused answer, receives a point. Ten points and the lucky one has to reveal a stunning truth about themselves.”
“I would rather try teaching you Russian.”
“Good, then you teach me Russian.”, she sang, but he didn’t look at her yet.
“Get out paper and pencil. No cheating.”, he spun and walked back over to her.
Utterly satisfied, Hermione turned to sit against the up-tilted pillow, picked her wand and levitated her bag onto the bed so she could search for the objects in question. Having made space to write on the trolley, she dropped the heavy bag on the floor again and made herself comfortable. Snape sat down opposite to her on the bed’s bottom end, cross-legged. She wondered when he had taken off his socks and where they had ended up.
“Who begins?”
“The one who asks.”, Hermione presented him with her most evil sneer ever.
“If I must,”, he considered for a moment, then asked with an absolute professionalism, “Did you like the onion soup, Miss Granger?”
“Yes. Did you, Sir?”
“Yes.”, he replied after a very short second and with a bored eyebrow-wiggle as well as a not much longer lasting smirk. “Does your head still hurt?”
“No. But this is not going to be all about random stuff concerning my state, is it?”
“Yes. Do you love Viktor Krum?”
“What?”, Hermione blinked. “Um – that’s an – unfair question, Sir – ”
“Do you?”, he was pushing it insanely high already, she thought, biting her lips with slight regret.
“No.”, she swallowed. “Do you love Charity Burbage?”
“No.”, strangely a bit disappointed about how quick that came, she sighed. “Not in the way you might wish me to do, or if I was to answer in accordance with your definition of love.”
“What – are you gay?”, Hermione blinked confused.
“No.”, he replied ice cold.
“Bisexual but currently dating a guy?”
“No, and you owe me two questions. Do you ever since she explained them to you, use tampons regularly?”, his thoroughly empty expression annoyed her.
“Fine, Hermione, you want it private, you get it private.”, she hissed to herself. “Yes. Have you ever experimented with a tampon?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god.”
“Do you wish to find that pillow in your face again?”, Snape raised his infamous eyebrow.
“No.”, chuckled Hermione. “Has it been an – intimate experiment?”
“No. Do you want to hear the story?”
“Yes. What is the story behind your tampon experiment?”
“In our third year I asked Lily for some so I could alternatively test and compare the viscosity of various different antidotes.”
“Oh.”, Hermione’s excitement fell off. “Did Peeves catch Parvati, or why did she have scratches on her face and hands?”
“No. How come you be under the impression that I sent Dobby for Peeves?”
“Er – I – no idea – would – would you say, you have a good relationship with your father?”
“No. Have your parents given up the try to make you wear braces?”
“Yes, thanks to the result of – you know which attack, Professor. Though they weren’t too pleased about it. Would you show me your teeth?”, he shortly did, surprising her that they indeed weren’t as yellow and crooked as she remembered them.
“Happy?”
“Yes.”, she chuckled. “Did you work magic on them as well?”
“No. Still two questions, by the way. Do you find Arithmancy easy?”
“I love it! So – yes! Why? Oh – I – I mean – um – did you – consider that because I keep the list in my Arithmancy book?”
“Yes. Are you scared when you think about the O.W.L. examinations?”
“A little, yes. Have you achieved an O in one of your O.W.L.s?”
“No. Eleven.”
Silence.
Hermione only gazed at his casual expression, slowly beginning to blink and frown. His eyebrow wandered up a tiny bit, then the corner of his mouth. So did Hermione’s with disbelief about both the answer and the slightly embarrassed smile he at last failed to hold back.
“E-eleven?”, she breathed.
“And it has been ever since our exams that they asked for conjuring a Patronus as a bonus in the practical Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. already, rather than fully concentrating on it in the N.E.W.T. classes. I can absolutely not see how some of my classmates and I might have had influence on this change; not in the slightest. Four questions.”
“So you haven’t been the only overly eager student in your year?”
“No. But eventually we ended up being just two who took nine N.E.W.T.s and passed each of them with over hundred percent.”, he sighed mournfully; Hermione could do nothing but stare. “If we hadn’t been so far apart in the alphabet and in warring Houses, they would have accused us of cheating.”
“Lily.”
“Yes. She was exceptionally spurred.”, he kept his sad half-frown, making Hermione feel guilty about having asked. “Not as insane as I was, though easy learning as well. Five. You are really bad at this game.”
“Because you count your refusal to ask questions as me not letting you! Did you use a Time-Turner?”
“By all means, no! If I think back now, I have to admit that I have gotten old. I needed nearly no sleep then and still didn’t lose my ability to concentrate. People called me obsessed, but I merely loved school and gathering as much information in my head as possible. I learned the books by heart in no time in the holidays because I rather wanted to read other books during school to come down, did the homework in theoretical classes while still paying attention, spent many hours a week questioning systems and established methods, experimented a lot with different things; I was a very bored student, to say. My mother had taught me too much at home, already before I got my letter. I knew the basics of the entire Hogwarts education as soon as I could write fluently without being aware of the mass I was capable of compared to children my age, but I never really felt that I knew too much. I was enthusiastic and my mother advanced it in, which I believe, was the best she could have done. Six.”
“So in school, you were a versatile genius – being scorned for it?”
“In short, yes.”
“You just had her, right?”, Snape avoided her eyes by looking out of the windows, his arms wrapping himself. “She was the only one who could understand you – fully.”, tears stood in his eyes and Hermione knew that if she was to continue, she would hurt him too much as to be able to square it with her conscience. “Dinner?”
He pressed his right hand on his mouth and shut his eyes for some seconds, then just eyed the floor, apparently unaware that he did. He studied his fingernails briefly – and rested his forehead on them. She wished she had the courage to give that rubber band a tearing flick so he wouldn’t be forced to expose himself so much to her.
“Write down what you would like to have, I’m in the lavatory.”, he mumbled, slid off the bed and slouched off. “Trying to find eight more things I could ask you.”
~~#~~
Dinner had passed in silence. After they had brushed their teeth alone in separate bathrooms, he allowed her to read a book. She knew he did that partly to see whether she was actually recovering – and because he didn’t want to be confronted with his past, should she start questioning him again. But she wouldn’t have, at least not on purpose. So they had spent two hours reading, each by themselves. The sun had already set and she clapped her book shut in the light of the lamp on the bedside trolley. Hearing that, he did the same in the shine of a little light-ball that floated next to him and put away his own book. For some moments he only looked at his own reflection in the glass.
“How are you doing, Miss Granger?”, he slightly turned his head.
“Fine, actually.”, she considered. “I feel, I could leave this place tomorrow already.”, that saddened her, but she had to admit to herself that she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with him in the Hospital Wing.
“Good. Do you wish to go to sleep?”
“Definitely. Just sitting around makes me tired, even if I don’t happen to almost die before it.”
Snape gave a stiff nod, raised and the light vanished like he did in the otherwise dark room. Curious, she watched him unlock the wheels of another bed and roll it over to hers. It just fitted in the space between the trolley and the windows. Then he disappeared in the bathroom again – and returned wearing only a pair of Oxford blue pyjamas and his hair loose. He made himself comfortable in the bed and looked at her until she finally composed her senses and laid down as well. A snap of his fingers turned off the lamp.
Scarce light from the Grand Tower’s many windows fell inside and onto the white blanket he had pulled up to his head. His black hair slightly shimmered, but she could hardly see his face. Nevertheless she felt that he hadn’t closed his eyes yet.
“Sir?”, Hermione whispered.
“Yes?”, he whispered back.
“Thank you.”, no reply, just calm silence. “Um – I know it’s – how to say – I don’t want to be – would it be asked too much if – ”
He broke her off without a word, but simply by leaving his bed. To her surprise, he sat down at the edge of hers and she instinctively slid back towards the oven. Obviously having understood her plea, he lifted her blanket and laid down beside her on his right, the bed just big enough for them and even some space between. Both waited for the other to say something. They waited so long that they fell asleep before they could speak another word.
~~#~~
When she woke up early next morning from a wondrously dreamless sleep, he already sat sideways at the window front, fully dressed, and the second bed was gone. His hair was a little straighter than on the previous day, but still quite bouffant. Legs crossed and hands in his lap, he looked out into a grey, cloudy dawn. Hermione rubbed her eyes. The hilltops in the distance were more silvery grey than the brown below. Fog? Hoarfrost? Or had it – snowed overnight in the higher regions? He lowered his head, looking at something in his hands. It was so small she couldn’t see what it was. But when he lifted his hands to his neck, she realised that it was some sort of necklace. He tucked it away beneath his clothes, buttoned them up, lowered his hands to their former position and gently turned his head towards her. His soft greet had nothing lively and the slow blinking of his eyes emphasised the woe he didn’t bother to hide.
“Good morning, Miss Granger.”
“Good morning, Professor.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“I can’t recall having slept better ever before.”, she considered; his head zoomed to the window so fast she startled. “Would you – help me to the toilet, please?”
“If you manage to make me be stupid enough to work out ten questions – oh don’t look at me like that,”
Huffing, Hermione glided out of bed, into her slippers. Before she could stand straight, he was at her side and reached under her arm. After only a few steps, she noticed that she could walk far better already and that she might not need his support anymore. But it felt good.
Half an hour later, she was in full school uniform though, her slightly greasing hair plaited and all her pimples covered with makeup. He was about to open the unlocked doors, but she stopped him.
“Sir,”, she aspirated.
“Yes, Miss Granger?”
“Before we go out there – and have to act like nothing ever happened – you should know – you were wrong.”, he didn’t respond, but eyed her with interest. “You were the best company I could have had. Thank you.”, though hesitantly, she reached up and laid her arms around his neck, nestling her head to it, standing on the tips of her shoes. “You may treat me like usual, Professor; I will act like usual. If you need anything, and if it is just silence, let me know.”
She didn’t expect an answer. It wasn’t necessary. But he gave her an answer: his arms wandered up her back and held her close, gratefully. At least another five minutes passed before they slipped from the warming embrace and made their way to the Great Hall. She knew it was impolite, but she wished she could read his mind and figure out what had been going on in there while she had actually forced him to accept her closeness.
Getting her assumption confirmed, she could move alone without losing balance or getting a headache. The speed wasn’t considerably fast, but not much slower than it would have been when she took a leisure walk. Though staircases turned out to be more difficult. Worried she might stumble, or shake her brain too much, he did his best to avoid stairs by using of a number of slopy shortcuts she had not known yet. They arrived in the Entrance Hall at seven o’clock, finding the tables behind the gilded doors empty. Almost empty. When she heard the sound of their shoes, she raised her head from her father’s magazine.
“Good morning, Sir, good morning, Hermione.”, the airy voice drifted towards them. “So it seems, you got well, then?”
“Yeah – I’m – fine again. Thanks, Luna. And – good morning.”, Hermione sighed and signified that she could walk alone from then on.
Their teacher waited for her to sit down next to Luna at the Ravenclaw table. She felt his concerned looks in her neck with every step she took. Normally the tables were already set for breakfast when she arrived, but now there was nothing but Luna’s plates. One for her appeared along with a cup of coffee. Right when she wanted to help herself to a sip, a hand was laid onto the cup, blocking even the smell of it. Startled, Hermione looked up at him, appearing as worried as she had felt him to be.
“You are better off with that, Miss Granger. Abstain a little.”
The man pulled back his hand and walked on between the rows, up to his yet lone seat at the staff table. Curious what he meant, Hermione eyed the cup. It now contained tea. She lifted it and recognised the smell immediately: spearmint.
~~#~~
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