For disclaimers, rating,notes etc. please see Part 1.
The month that followed ranked as one of the less happy times in Hermione's life. Granted, nothing actually actively life threatening happened, but it was still exceptionally uncomfortable.
Harry's presence might well have been protecting them, but she was beginning to wonder if it she wouldn't prefer to take her chances with Malfoy. Insisting that he needed to be within easy reach of her - she noted that Snape was absent, or at best an afterthought in his considerations - he had been provided with rooms near Gryffindor Tower. Not immediately next to hers, thank heavens, but certainly in the general vicinity. It seemed that every time she left her room in the first week after his arrival he was there, waiting for her. He escorted her to class, he escorted her to meals. If she needed to go into Hogsmeade, he was there ready to accompany her.
Eventually she had to ban him from the classroom.
"Harry, I can't teach with you hovering about the whole time. Plus which, the students spend more time trying to get a glimpse of the famous Harry Potter than they do concentrating on their studies. I have a job to do here, you know."
He had flinched at her - unconscious - repetition of the phrase used so frequently in the past by Snape. She had wanted to apologise, but the look on his face spoke too strongly of yet another betrayal, and the words died unsaid. From that point on he waited in the corridor outside for her classes to finish.
Late one evening, at the end of that week, the inevitable issue between them had to be faced.
Hermione had suggested to Snape, a little tentatively, that it might make things easier in the long run, if Harry had a bit of time to come to terms with things. Leaving aside any questions of the last seven months. To her surprise, he had agreed fairly readily. However, their discretion didn't seem to be having any noticeable effect on Harry's behaviour. The close supervision and the constant acrimony were beginning to wear on nerves that were already ragged. She missed Snape, and she just wanted to be held by him. And she didn't see any reason why she should be alone simply because Harry insisted on being childish.
So, having finished her marking and preparation for the following day, she left her room to head for the dungeons. Closing the door and warding it, she turned to run nearly physically straight into Harry, who was blocking her path.
"Where are you going?" he asked harshly.
She couldn't clearly see his face in the night lighting of the corridor. She took a couple of breaths, knowing that this would have to be dealt with.
"To the dungeons," she stated, keeping her voice even.
"To see him?"
"Yes. To see him," she confirmed calmly. "Harry, we're lovers. That means we spend time in each other's company...."
He cut across her.
"I don't need to know, thank you." He didn't move. "I don't think that it's safe. You should stay here in future."
Her temper began to rise.
"What do you intend to do, Harry? Sleep across the entrance to my rooms?" She clicked her tongue in annoyance. "I shall be perfectly safe going to the dungeons, although if you insist on coming with me I suppose I can't stop you. Anyway," she added with a touch of sarcasm. "I should have thought that it would make your life easier - knowing that we're both in one place."
Harry's face was shadowed, but his body language looked as if she had just cast Petrificus on him. Stiffly, he stepped back so she could pass. Without a word, she brushed past. She noted, bitterly, that he didn't choose to accompany her.
She sometimes wondered who he was actually trying to protect her from - Malfoy - or Snape. The best that could be said for the relationship between the two men was that it was not yet open warfare. Nevertheless, meetings between them were laden with sarcastic insinuations and barely concealed attacks. Harry settled to a perpetual air of reproachful hurt, and Snape simply retreated into his familiar sneering cold derision. She hated it from both of them but refused to interfere.
Term progressed with near glacial slowness, not to mention temperature.
The night before Halloween found her, sitting in her rooms, sharing a bottle of wine with Rose Brunarde and sunk in a general gloom. One of the secondary infringements on her liberty, brought about by the near house-arrest that Harry seemed intent on inflicting on her, was that her evenings in the Three Broomsticks with Rose had had to be curtailed. Rose seemed to accept that without comment and happily moved the meeting place to Hermione's rooms. Hermione had ejected Harry by the simple expedient of hinting at "girl talk." Memories of Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had sent him off on some unspecified "official business." Rose simply eyed Harry with thoughtful interest as he left.
Now, Hermione was sipping moodily at her drink and staring into space. Dimly, she realised that Rose was saying something. She brought her consciousness into focus with an effort.
"I'm sorry," she said guiltily, "what were you saying?"
"I was asking if you were planning to go to the Halloween feast tomorrow?"
Hermione sighed.
"I suppose so. Assuming that I get permission from my bodyguard, that is." She knew she sounded sulky, and didn't really care.
"Ah. Mr Potter is definitely very... attentive," the other woman remarked with a smile.
"Too attentive," said Hermione, with feeling.
"Although the Ministry must be taking the threat to you seriously if they have sent Harry Potter to watch over you."
Hermione was a little sceptical about that.
"Maybe," she said, doubtfully. "I think its more likely to be that... well," she paused, again not knowing how much to reveal. "What did Albus say about all this."
Rose shrugged.
"Not very much. Just that you and Severus were in some kind of danger and the Ministry had sent Harry Potter to protect you."
That was certainly the edited version.
"Um," she said reflectively, considering, "well, this is all connected with the circumstances that got Severus and me together in the first place. Harry was... involved... right at the beginning. And at the end. The Ministry weren't too keen on the details getting out. So, I think that they sent Harry because he already knows what's going on. And I suspect that they're only doing it at all to prevent anything leaking out."
Cornelius Fudge and Hermione had parted on bad terms.
"Nevertheless, he certainly takes his duties very seriously," agreed Rose.
"And very selectively," remarked Hermione. "After all, you don't see him shadowing Severus all hours of the day and night."
"I think that might be a little uncomfortable for both of you if he did," came the bland response.
Hermione looked at her, momentarily stunned. Then she had a vision of Harry, squatting at the bottom of the bed whilst she and Snape.... She choked and her face twisted. Then the sheer ludicrousness of it all hit her, and she began to laugh.
"That is an image that I do not need to live with."
Rose smiled in satisfaction.
"But it made you smile, no?"
Hermione conceded that.
"All the same, could you think of something less unappealing next time?"
Nevertheless, the tension had lifted a little. Hermione continued after a moment.
"To answer your question, yes, I imagine that I will be going to the feast. It's usually quite an event. Albus never knowingly under-decorates." She sighed. "I just wish the situation would be resolved. I'm not certain how much more of this sniping I can take between Severus and Harry."
"Yes," agreed the Frenchwoman, "it is distinctly tiresome. The temperature drops noticeably every time the two of them are together. Even Professor Binns is beginning to avoid the staff room."
Hermione looked up sharply. She had truthfully not thought of the impact that all this was having on the rest of the staff.
"Oh dear," she said weakly. "I think that I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice anyone else again."
"No one blames you," said Rose reassuringly.
"Really," said Hermione, a little acidly. "I'm pretty certain that Harry does. And I sometimes feel that I should be more openly supporting Severus. But I just don't want to be involved. I want them to sort it out."
"As they should," stated Rose, with an acerbic edge of her own. "Hermione, they are both grown men, not children fighting over a toy. They have to resolve this between them. You cannot spend your time placating them."
"I know. You're right. It's just...." She trailed off.
"It's hard to see two people that you care about fighting with each other?"
"Yes. I do still care about Harry. Even though he's behaving like a complete moron at the moment. I don't want to be fighting with him. But I can't live my life according to his wishes." She took another sip of her wine. "Severus just refuses point blank to discuss it. And on the whole he's been quite restrained." She saw Rose raise an eyebrow in scepticism. She grinned suddenly. "Oh, believe me he has. You should have seen him when I was a student. This is very mild." Her grin faded. "I know he's biting his tongue because he doesn't want to make things worse for me. But Harry seems determined to bait him at every available opportunity. I can't really expect Severus not to react to that."
"Indeed not. But neither should you expect to be held responsible for those reactions."
"I know," she said again. "I love them both, but sometimes I just want to slap them and tell them to grow up."
Rose smiled a little wickedly.
"Well, then, maybe that's what you should do."
Hermione blinked at that thought.
"I don't think that it would improve the atmosphere in the staff room much."
"You might be surprised," was all the Charms teacher said to that, and the conversation moved on to other things personal and professional.
The next day the school was abuzz with plans for the Halloween feast. Hermione lost count of the number of half heard snatches of conversation about robes, hair and makeup that bounced around the corridors. It seemed that everyone was looking forward to the evening with eager anticipation; even the ghosts and the paintings.
Everyone that is, thought Hermione sourly, apart from the usual suspects. Snape was more forbidding than ever. And Harry - Harry had managed to achieve a point on the anger/hurt continuum evenly poised between The Bloody Baron on one hand and Moaning Myrtle on the other. Her last class of the day was over and she planned to go back to her rooms to spend a long time getting ready for the evening. With particular emphasis on the bath; that being one of the few places that she could escape Harry's near constant oversight.
Closing and warding the classroom door, she headed off, vaguely aware of Harry detaching himself from the side of the corridor and following her.
"I have to stop by the staff room on my way back," she announced, more to the air than to Harry. They had, over the weeks, developed a habit of making general announcements past each other, rather then actually talking to each other.
"The feast begins at seven," came the responding statement.
It was a form of communication that was almost a code. You had to imply the intervening conversation. It could be almost anything - will you be long? - what will you be wearing? - have you much marking to do? - I'll meet you at quarter to - have you fed the cat? The trick was correctly filling in the blanks. It was also extremely wearing.
Hermione thought briefly of her conversation with Rose the night before. This was getting out of hand. She was actually vaguely surprised that Dumbledore hadn't intervened by now. Arriving at the staff room she entered, and resisted with difficulty the urge to vent some frustration by letting the door close in Harry's face. Habitual manners made her pause just long enough for him to grasp the handle before she let go.
Five steps into the room were enough to tell her that this was not going to be a happy visit. As she came to a standstill, a black robed figure rose from one of the worn armchairs.
"Hermione," Snape acknowledged impassively, with a slight tilt of his head. This in itself was not unusual. They were neither of them given to effusive public greetings. It was more the smile in his eyes that told her he was pleased to see her. This time his eyes slid past her to her nominal companion, and the pleasure died. The lack of expression became a positive scowl.
However, he said nothing, just merely failed to give any indication that he registered Harry's presence at all.
"Will you be at the feast later?" he asked, pointedly excluding Harry from the question by his body language.
Left to his own inclinations, she knew that he would have said something cutting. For him, ignoring Harry was a considerable concession. She could feel the near tangible dislike radiating from behind her. A movement from one of the armchairs became Professor Sprout. The dumpy little witch pushed back her flyaway hair nervously.
"Oops," she said hastily, "I've just remembered something I needed to repot. I'll see you all later." She headed for the nearest exit.
It was obvious that to Hermione that the Herbology professor hadn't even bothered to try and come up with a vaguely plausible excuse for fleeing the room.
That annoyed her.
In fact, that really annoyed her.
She turned to look at Harry who was glaring straight past her at Snape. Then she looked at Snape, who was staring at a point just above Harry's head with an expression of sneering derision.
"I may very well be at the feast tonight," she spat, seething with fury. "And let me tell you something else as well. I am absolutely bloody sick of this damned stupid pissing contest that you two are engaged in. If I go tonight, I will spend the evening with Rose. And I want the pair of you to go outside and do whatever it is you have to do to come to terms with life. Because until you do, I don't want to set eyes on either of you again. Is that clear? As far as I am concerned, at this moment in time an evening with Lucius Malfoy would count as a welcome relief."
Harry had gone red and Snape had gone white.
Without a word, the older man whirled and left the room. Harry opened his mouth to speak.
"I mean it, Harry. I want this to stop."
His jaw visibly clenched, and he nodded, although it didn't seem to be in understanding. Then, he too left the room.
She slowly let out a shuddering breath, hands shaking from the force of her anger.
A movement at the back of the room startled her, and the figure of Albus Dumbledore appeared.
Now, where the hell did he come from?
She looked at him a little helplessly.
"I'm sorry, headmaster," she said, not entirely clear exactly what part of the last month she was apologising for, and settling for the last five minutes. "I thought that the room was empty."
He nodded gravely.
"Well done, my dear," was all he said as he, too, left the staff room.
**********
Snape found himself back in his rooms with no very clear idea of how he got there. All he could hear was her furious voice.
... I don't want to set eyes on either of you again....
It made little difference that she had been talking to Potter as well. She had thrown him out. End of story. Inevitable end of story.
His head was pounding and his heart was racing. He leant on the back of an armchair, struggling not to hyperventilate.
Breathe. You've done this before. Breathe.
Blackness edged into his vision and he shut his eyes, fighting the pain in his chest that was as impossible to evade as Crucio.
After a while, he felt something cold and slightly dry nudging his hand. The blackness receded a little and he found that he was gripping the back of the chair so hard that his hands had cramped.
"Meep?"
Sphinx was sitting on the back of the chair, tapping his hand with her front paw, trying to get his attention.
Consciously forcing himself to release his death grip, he straightened with aching slowness. With practised self-discipline he reviewed the conversation in the staff room, recalling the many occasions that he had regurgitated the content of meetings with Voldemort - requiring his mind to focus past the physical pain of his body.
She had told them to do whatever was necessary to reach a working compromise. She hadn't actually told him to go.
I don't want to set eyes on either of you again...
Which meant that there might still be something that he could do to retrieve the situation. What was it he had decided earlier? That he would do anything to put off the moment of her leaving him? There was another anxious nudge at his hand from Sphinx, this time with her nose. Absently, he scratched one of her ears.
"Anything," he murmured to the cat, who arched her back and purred in response.
Hell, he was prepared to treat with Lucius Malfoy. He should be prepared to negotiate a truce with that self-important little brat Potter.
His breathing was now easier, although his heart rate hadn't slowed appreciably. All he had to do was find Potter and work out what was necessary to get them through this. It wasn't as if it would be an indefinite arrangement.
He could do that. He would do that.
Finding Harry Potter proved to be slightly more difficult that he anticipated. He wasn't in his rooms. He wasn't in the Great Hall, where the decorations for the evening's festivities were nearly complete. He scowled reflexively at the pumpkins everywhere. He was feeling even less celebratory than usual. The fact that he would deal with this situation for Hermione's sake, did not mean that he was approaching the prospect with anything like enthusiasm.
It wasn't until he passed the hourglasses indicating the running tally of house points for the third time that he was hit by a stray memory of the boy's father. Both James Potter and Sirius Black had worked off their frustrations - girls, homework, him - in the same way.
The Quidditch pitch.
He pulled his robes round him irritably and headed for the nearest exit.
It was a good guess. A lone figure on a broomstick was flying around the empty stands. And flying dangerously. That much Snape could see, even in the darkness. The broom was travelling fast, and executing sharp turns and dives that must have had the rider almost horizontal against the acceleration. But for the extra weight of thirty years of additional memories, he could have been standing there watching James. It didn't give him a warm fuzzy glow inside. But it did remind him of what he was dealing with.
He made no attempt to signal the rider. He simply waited, motionless, for the broom to land. Eventually, the acrobatic fury seemed to be spent and Harry Potter glided to the ground to stand in front of him.
"Enjoy the show?" he asked nastily.
Snape gritted his teeth. The boy was obviously determined to make this as difficult as possible.
"Very impressive," he said, as neutrally as he could manage.
"I assume you're not simply here to give constructive criticism on my technique."
"I believe we had some unfinished business to discuss."
"No. I don't think so."
"Really? I thought that you were supposed to be protecting Hermione." Let's not get into the fact that it is actually supposed to be both of us. "That might get a little troublesome if you can't set eyes on her."
"Whose fault is that?"
Oh, enough of this childishness.
"Mr Potter, I have a very clear idea of your stance on our situation. I do not believe that much will be achieved by simple repetition of opposing positions." He struggled to keep his voice as even as possible. And it was a struggle. "I suggest we give some thought to Hermione's request that we find a way of living with a situation that neither of us desire."
We in this case meaning you, he thought savagely, hating the fact that he was being forced to make this overture.
"I believe," said Harry unpleasantly, "that she told us to do 'whatever it took'".
A swift movement of Harry's hand caught Snape's eye. The boy hadn't moved, but his right hand now held a wand.
For Gods' sake. He wasn't seriously proposing a duel was he?
He said as much to Harry.
"Why not?" was the response.
Why not, indeed.
There was no denying that he was severely tempted to hex the arrogant prat to Hell and back. And he could probably do it. He hasn't been bluffing about his ability to inflict suffering on others. He just didn't want to. Not if there was any alternative. He didn't draw his wand.
He sighed.
"If it would give you some kind of satisfaction to curse me, Mr Potter, please do continue. However, I feel that I must ask you whether you feel that a duel is precisely what Hermione meant when she asked us to come to terms with life." That was about the least inflammatory thing he could think of to say to that adolescent challenge.
His lack of armed response seemed to disconcert Harry. So like James, Snape thought, irrelevantly. So Gryffindor. James would never have attacked an unarmed man. He was not so certain about Sirius Black....
Slowly, Harry lowered his wand.
"I don't like you, Snape," he stated flatly.
That statement of the obvious was almost laughable.
"I don't like you either, Potter."
"The only reason that she is danger from Lucius Malfoy at all is because of you."
Snape considered this.
"True," he conceded, after a moment.
Even in the dark he could see that the simple admission had startled the boy.
"Although," he continued, unable to resist some degree of needling, "I seem to recall that it was you who gave her the sample of the Potion in the first place."
Harry was silent.
"I would have thought, however, that rather than deconstructing the process by which we arrived at this position, a rather higher priority should be to ensure that Hermione comes to no harm."
There was more silence and then a very grudging, "Agreed."
"Believe it or not," Harry added, "that is what I'm trying to do. Not that it's made one whit easier by the fact that you act as if I'm just not there. Like I'm one of your annoying students to be ignored at all times, rather than a professional with a job to do."
"I might have more success in accepting that if you behaved more like a Ministry Auror and less like an over-protective older brother."
He could see the younger man begin to bridle, but he didn't respond. Maybe that hour's idiotic stunt flying had actually had a beneficial effect on him, thought Snape sourly. He waited for Harry to make the next move.
"All right," he said, eventually. "I'll try to back off. But you can't change what I think about this." The last was said aggressively.
Snape fought the urge to sigh again, and clenched his hands inside the sleeves of his robes, controlling his voice.
"I do not seek to change your feelings, Mr Potter, simply your actions. Very well, I will attempt to be less... " Gods, this was almost as bad as dealing with Malfoy... "dismissive in my attitude," he finally got out.
The truce concluded, both of them stood there, unsure of exactly how to finish the conversation. It didn't really seem the moment for a friendly handshake. Finally Snape broke the impasse by inclining his head briefly in Harry's direction.
"Good evening then, Mr Potter. No doubt I will see you later at the feast."
Without waiting for an acknowledgement he turned on his heel and headed back towards the castle.
When he got back to his rooms Sphinx was still perched on the back of the chair, chin resting on her crossed front paws. She looked at him intently as he came in, following up with an inquisitive "Mrrp" when he didn't immediately speak.
"All right," he said, abruptly, "I did it. I made peace of a sort with the Potter boy. Who would have thought that it would come to this?" He snorted. "Now all I have to do is survive the enforced gaiety of staff and student alike on this Happy Halloween."
He was about to begin to change into his dress robes, when he was distracted by a scraping at the window. Glaring, and with no very great enthusiasm, he opened the casement to admit a magnificent eagle owl, with what looked like a package of parchments attached to one leg.
Snape's mouth went dry at the sight of the bird.
"Iago?" he whispered. The bird simply glared haughtily back.
With hands that were trembling very, very slightly, Snape released the parchments. The bird cast a disdainful glance around his spare quarters, clearly judging that there was nothing there to merit its further time. It immediately took off and flew out of the open window.
Snape turned the parchments over in his hand, running the tip of one finger over the familiar seal. Then with a determined flick he opened the package. There were two messages, neither of them lengthy.
He read them both and then stood for a long time, feeling curiously numb. Almost empty. He vaguely remembered that there were feelings that one was supposed to have at moments like this, but he could feel none of them. It was as if some agent had intervened to sever the connection between his mind and his emotion, and replaced it with a simple cold... what? Numbness? Dread? Something between the two.
Without conscious thought, he managed to walk to a chair and sit, ignoring the still open window. Mechanically, he read the letters again, in the absurd hope that between the window and the chair something would have changed. That the content would somehow be miraculously different.
But the first still read:
Amarina de Vriess Snape,
Snape Hall
Halloween
Severus,
I regret to inform you that your father, Darius Patroclus Snape, passed away last night. Your presence is requested at the Hall on the evening of 2nd November to begin the usual ceremonies.
Mother.
And the second, shorter still, also read:
Chateau de Montnégre de Malfoi
Halloween
Cousin,
I grieve with you in your loss. I trust the work progresses satisfactorily.
Lucius.
**********
Anger and frustration had carried Hermione back to her room, blessedly unaccompanied by either Harry or Snape. Closing the door behind her, she sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands for several minutes. She had no very great expectation that her outburst would achieve anything much, other than even more wounded silence on the part of Harry.
And as for Severus....
Her anger began to subside and his face in the staff room came back to her. That look of absolute shock as she announced that she didn't want to set eyes on him again. A brief look of... what? Devastation? Something swiftly suppressed by anger of his own. But it had been there nevertheless.
She raised her head to stare into the middle distance, clenching her hands.
Not a man to play at anything....
But he surely would see past the anger... would realise that all she wanted was some kind of easing of the strain - for all their sakes.
She became aware of her nails biting into her palms; no mean feat, given that considerations of safety and hygiene had meant that she had taken to keeping them very short since beginning her teaching position.
But this was Snape she was talking about, she thought resignedly. Of course he wouldn't see past her words. In many ways she still hadn't been able to get past his barriers, despite their physical relationship. Hadn't been able to truly persuade him that this really was her choice and she was happy with it... happy with him. He would immediately assume that she had finally rejected him.
Oh Severus, for an intelligent man you can be such a fool sometimes....
She supposed that she would have to go and find him - to make the first move again. She sighed to herself at the thought. She was tired and wound up and desperately wanted this sorted out without her intervention. Just for once.
Couldn't they see... either of them... just how damned frightened she was by the situation? That she actually needed them to help her through this, rather than constantly sniping at one another.
It just simply, she thought, fully aware of the childishness of the complaint, wasn't fair that she should be expected to deal with this. So she wouldn't. At least not yet. It was bad enough that there was the reasonable chance that Lucius Malfoy would come after one, or both, of them for a cure for his wretched son.
Which led to another problem, she reflected. Even if Malfoy senior did come calling, there was nothing that either of them could do. The few threads of cloth that had been the last of the dark creature had been completely destroyed in making the cure for Seamus. There was no way to get any more and there were no possible substitutions.
She unwillingly turned the problem over in her mind, more as a way to avoid thinking about Snape and Harry than anything else.
There really was no alternative solution was there...?
With no real conscious intentions, she stood up and moved towards the cabinet that contained her working papers. Part of her was aware that it was ridiculous even to be considering whether a cure was feasible. Another part of her, the frightened part, wanted to have something to bargain with if the worst came to the worst. She was desperately afraid of what Lucius Malfoy would do if he couldn't get what he wanted out of them.
When he couldn't get what he wanted....
Automatically, she flicked through the bundles of notes and parchments, carefully filed, despite her normal, rather haphazard, approach to storage. Her fingers paused at the place where her workings on the potion should have been, and then froze.
They were gone.
She checked again more carefully. They were definitely not there.
With full attention, she went through every single sheet of paper and parchment that she possessed, all to no avail. The notes were just simply no longer there.
With a rising emotion that was almost precisely equal parts anger and fear, she closed the cabinet. There were only two possibilities. Malfoy or Snape. She considered Harry briefly, and then discounted him. Harry was being intolerable at the moment, but he wouldn't have broken into the room. He would simply have demanded that she hand her notes over and there would have been an almighty row when she refused. Harry was fairly straightforward in that respect.
No, this was a Slytherin act. It remained to be seen whether it was of the friendly or unfriendly variety.
Her need to find Snape abruptly took on a more pressing quality. Either he had taken the notes, in which case she wanted an explanation.
Or Lucius had them, in which case he needed to know as soon as possible.
There was still some time before the feast was due to start. Which meant that he would more than likely be holed up in his rooms. She ran her hands through her hair. Too bad; this just couldn't wait. She checked her wand, in an odd need for reassurance, and left her own quarters.
She made it down to the dungeons without encountering anything sinister. And also, she noted, without encountering Harry either. She was actually rather relieved at that. On the whole she thought that the situation was better handled between her and Snape first off. Heading towards his rooms, she paused by the door of the Potions classroom. There was no earthly reason why her notes should be down here; she was pretty certain that she didn't keep anything here that firstly, she wasn't currently working on, and secondly, would cause any harm if it was found by inquisitive pupils.
However, it would do no harm to check. Better that than to raise a panic needlessly. She unwarded the door and entered. The classroom was quiet and as immaculately tidy as she had left it; her habits of keeping her workspace tightly organised had been effortlessly transposed from the Ministry to Hogwarts. A quick check through her desk and office revealed nothing, as she had expected. In the area of the classroom set aside for personal work, both her own, and Snape's, private projects were in various stages of completion. She wandered over and gave hers a cursory check. Unsurprisingly, nothing had changed in the last couple of hours since she last been in the room. She gave Snape's cauldrons a quick glance. She didn't know what all of them were, and hadn't bothered to enquire, although he had certainly been spending a lot of time down here recently. She knew that he would share information with her when he was good and ready.
Spending a lot of time here....
She had simply put that down to a, not unnatural, desire to avoid Harry. Now, with a lurch, she remembered their conversation of over a month ago.
Whatever it is that you're not telling me... it isn't something that I'm going to need to know about is it?
Oh Gods... he wouldn't, surely....
She examined the cauldrons again, this time with closer attention, trying to quash the faint feeling of nausea. They all seemed to be innocent enough, but on a nearby shelf was a large stone bowl, containing a thick layer of sediment covered by a clear, viscous liquid.
Well , that doesn't prove anything. Lots of potions have a clear base. It could be... well... anything.
But she knew, deep down, that it was not just anything. It was the base for Hester Allworthy's potion. And consequently the base for the cure.
She tried hard to be angry. She wanted, more than anything, to be furious with him. But she was mostly terrified. Terrified at the thought of what might have prompted him to start making this. Without telling her.
She ran her hand through her hair again, aware that she was shaking slightly. This really had to be sorted out now. Turning her back on the incriminating bowl, she left the classroom.
Arriving at the door to his chambers she halted momentarily, trying to compose her thoughts into some kind of coherent strategy for tackling this. The last thing that she wanted him to do was to withdraw even further. Devoid of inspiration, she realised uncomfortably that she would have to play it largely by ear. Knocking lightly on the door, to give him some warning, she entered.
There was light, but no fire in the grate. One of the windows stood open, letting in gusts of freezing air and making the room bitterly cold. Snape was sat in a chair, staring into the hearth where the fire should be. In his hand was a parchment, or maybe two; she couldn't quite see. He was utterly immobile, not seeming to have registered her entry. For an awful, surreal moment she thought that Lucius Malfoy had already got to him.
All thoughts of her notes and the potion in the classroom fled from her mind.
"Severus?" she said cautiously, trying not to let the panic show in her voice.
He didn't answer. She could have sworn that he hadn't even heard her. She moved closer to his chair, until she could see the shallow rise and fall of his chest that told her that he was at least alive.
"Severus, what is it?"
She half extended one hand to lay it on his shoulder, but something in his body language made her hesitate. It had been a long time since she had seen him so drawn in on himself, so inaccessible to her. Not cursed - at least not magically. But she had a fleeting memory of a room above a bar in a country pub; of a man struggling with unmanageable pain, unable to reach out.
She placed the hand on his shoulder anyway.
"Severus," she repeated gently, "talk to me."
He stirred at her touch and looked at her, his eyes curiously blank.
"Hermione," he whispered.
"Yes, love," she murmured. "What is it?"
He shook his head and looked away from her. She shivered, partly at the bleakness in his face, and partly at the actual temperature of the room. Distraction, she thought.
"It's too cold in here," she said softly. Pointing her wand at the hearth, she lit the fire, and left him briefly to shut the window. She paused then, looking back at the top of his head over the chair and considering. With the casement fastened, the fire began to warm the room imperceptibly. Slowly, she moved back to him, looking at his tense, closed face. If he hadn't said her name, she would barely have known that he recognised her. Carefully, as if she was approaching a badly injured animal, she knelt beside the chair at his feet and took his free hand into her own.
"Severus," she said quietly, insistently, "tell me what this is about."
In response, he simply handed the messages to her. She read them through. The note from Lucius Malfoy raised an enormous number of question, but, looking at him, they were not going to be answered tonight. And right at the moment there were far more important things that needed doing.
"Oh, my love," she whispered, holding his hand more tightly, "I'm so sorry." His other hand, no longer holding parchment, came forward to rest on her hair.
"I can't even remember what he looked like."
The disconnected phrase came out of nowhere. Or perhaps out of the boy who never understood how he had failed his father; only that he had. Gently, Hermione pulled his hand to her mouth, brushing her lips across the back of it. There was nothing at all that she could say that would make this any easier for him to bear. All she could do was make sure, as far as he would let her, that he didn't have to face it on his own.
"I suppose," he said inconsequentially, "that I shall have to speak to Albus about this."
"He'll understand," she replied absently.
She knew a little of his background. The death of his brother. The subsequent near abandonment by his father, and the fact that his mother had become an alcoholic, as far she could gather. The thought of him dealing with this alone disturbed her profoundly.
She wondered how best to phrase her concern.
"Will you be all right? Going back I mean?" was all that she could come up with.
"I'll be fine," he said. She could hear the reflexive distancing in his tone.
"After all," she pursued, "it's been a long time, and things can be...." She trailed off uncertain how to continue.
"Hermione, I'm tired and I don't have the energy for guessing. Just say what it is you have to say." He sounded drained, and there was no real bite to the words, his customary defensive sarcasm now pared down to a grim determination to keep going. It brought her thoughts into sharp focus.
Don't mess about, woman, just ask the question.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
She felt a shudder go through his body. Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it obviously hadn't been that.
"I... It isn't necessary for you to come. I can manage everything."
"Yes," she acknowledged gently, "I know you can. That's not what I asked. I asked if you wanted me to be there. With you," she clarified.
He was still for a long time. Only the slightly ragged edge to his breathing betrayed his feelings. She let the silence run on, uncaring of the Halloween feast or the cure for Draco Malfoy or the conflict with Harry. All she cared about at that pinpoint of time, was the man in the chair next to her.
When he spoke, it was so soft as to be almost inaudible.
"I thought you didn't want to set eyes on me again."
She shut her eyes and brought his hand back to her mouth, letting her words vibrate across his skin.
"Love, I wanted you and Harry to stop bickering. I was trying to provoke you both into sorting it out between you. I picked a bad way of doing it. And a bad time. I'm sorry."
His exhalation was audible.
"It's done," he said tautly. "Potter and I have reached... an accommodation."
"It doesn't matter. Really. Not at the moment." She began to stroke the side of his hand with the ball of her thumb.
Another pause.
"The school... we shouldn't both be away...."
"Albus will understand," she repeated. "You know that."
Silence extended into the room again, but this time he began to twine his fingers in her hair, lightly caressing her scalp. When he finally answered her, she could hear the slight catch in his voice.
"Then, come with me. Please."
**********
END OF PART 4