Frozen

It feels like she's floating in a leaden fog, drifting in a hazy realm that spans the endless dark and the tangible world. She's too tired to move, and her eyelids feel like they've been glued shut. The voices fade in and out; they sound like they're being transmitted from far away, scattered through static, and they drift and wisp around her like smoke on the wind.

"Why has she not yet woken, Poppy? Would it not be best to Ennervate her?" She recognises that voice; it's the one she carries with her to her dreams. But Snape's voice sounds damaged somehow, like crushed velvet.

"Her body has been through enough of a shock as it is, Severus; she needs to recover naturally. The water out there was probably close to freezing; she's lucky you got her out of the water as quickly as you did, or we'd probably be dealing with hypothermia."

"If you are absolutely sure..." Snape doesn't sound like he is; there's a note of scepticism that twists his words so that they have a narrow and snide edge.

"I am... I am the mediwitch," Madam Pomfrey says with a returned edge of reproach in her voice. "It is lunchtime, Severus..."

"I will stay and watch her while you eat, then."

"That's not what I meant." There's an annoyed click of her tongue and an exasperated sigh. "Impossible, stubborn..." Footsteps, quick and sharp, echo away, and a door thuds mutely.

A breath of a sigh washes softly across her skin, and she hears a scrape as he pulls his chair closer to the side of her bed. A scent winds into the haze around her, soft and green like herbs.

"I should be furious with you, you foolish, curious, impossible woman." Hermione feels warm fingertips stroke through the wispy curls at her hairline. The touch is soothing, relaxing, and she feels herself begin to drift away. She flails against the tug of unconsciousness, struggles to cling to his voice.

"You could have drowned, Hermione." His voice is husky and thick like the words hurt as they swell up his throat. "You could have drowned and it would have been my fault."

There's a soft touch at her wrist as his fingers trace the map of veins beneath her skin.

"I... I cannot..." The fingers slide across the swell of her palm, and he takes her hand. His hand fits with hers so perfectly that she's sure she's in a dream, now. "And now... You..."

Hermione struggles against the narcotic pull of the fog because her entire body is yearning to listen to Snape's whispered words, to stay in this dream, to hear what he will never say to her in the stark light of day. But she's sliding away, and his voice is a blur...a soft, smoky blur...and then she drops back to the dark and the lonely quiet.

When Hermione wakes, the light that filters through her feathered eyelashes is golden and muted... the grey night folds around the soft glow of a Lumos globe on the table next to the hospital bed. There's a soft beep beep, and Madam Pomfrey steps out of the night shadows and touches a button on the Charmed sensor that is set into the frame of the bed.

"Ah, good, you're finally awake," she says with a gentle smile. "Now, just you lie still while I check your vitals." She begins to run a series of scans with her wand; the glowing tip ebbs with a gentle green light, and the mediwitch makes a satisfied sound. "How do you feel, Hermione?"

Hermione flexes her fingers, her feet, feeling the lazy pull of muscles as her body responds to being awake and alive. "I'm fine," she says. She's about to ask why she's in the hospital wing, but then she remembers the dark cold and the sparkling panic and how she'd thought she'd never breathe again. But the memory of almost drowning fades into insignificance when she remembers who saved her...how the last thing she'd seen in the depths of the lake had been the beautiful, subtle shimmer of pearlescent skin, the quicksilver fluidity of a selkie's tail. "Where is..."

"You've missed dinner, and I'm sure you must be hungry," Madam Pomfrey interrupts. "Sit up and you can have something to eat before you go up and see Professor McGonagall. She'd like to have a word with you, she said." Madam Pomfrey slides the bedside drawer open and retrieves Hermione's wand. "Professor Snape managed to find your wand for you...you're a lucky girl, in more ways than one."

Hermione doesn't taste the soup, and she absently picks the crusty bread into little bits. Her mind is too distracted to contemplate Professor McGonagall's impending ire because all she can think about is Snape and how beautiful he looked in that dilated, final moment when her panic had twisted inside out, becoming stark and fascinated relief.

"I cannot imagine what you were thinking, going into a teacher's office when they were not there, and worse, blindly touching a magical barrier without a shred of knowledge about its nature!" Phineas Black punctuates Professor McGonagall's words with sharp little nods, and many of the other portraits are muttering things like "Absolutely," and "Hear, hear," and giving their opinion on suitable punishments.

Hermione drops her eyes from the pontificating portraits and picks at a hangnail on the side of her thumb. "I panicked," she says. "I couldn't see a way out, and I just... didn't think properly." And she cannot bring herself to be properly sorry about what she did because now she knows.

"That much is patently obvious," McGonagall says, but the bitter-sharp edge of her voice eases slightly, and the tight pucker of her lips relaxes, and then she sighs. "Look, Hermione... I know that this year has not been a particularly easy one, but the NEWT exams are only months away, and you should be concentrating on completing your studies to the best of your ability. Leave the lake alone and focus on why you are back at Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake!

"I was just trying to help." Hermione can't keep the dip of sullen petulance from her voice. "And I want to work with the Water Division next year."

McGonagall's eyes narrow. "You are aware that B&B probably requires you to have a Care of Magical Creatures NEWT."

Hermione sighs and returns to that singular regret. She can't imagine ever having found Ancient Runes more interesting than magical creatures. She feels a tiny throb of remorse for blaming Hagrid's terrible teaching, but she knows it's her primary reason. "I wanted to ask if I could sit for the NEWT; I can study from the textbook by myself."

"You would not have a year mark, and that accounts for thirty percent of your final NEWT score," McGonagall reminds her.

Hermione shifts in her chair and presses her lips together. "Well, I was hoping that Hagrid might agree to give me a year mark if I managed to learn Mermish properly...I've come quite far already, and I just need practice..."

"Practice in the library, Miss Granger, not out at the lake's edge." Hermione's guilty-shocked expression must have been plain to read because McGonagall gives her a pointed look. "I'm well aware of what goes on in the grounds of my school, Hermione. And I've had the selkie Chieftain expressing concern about his daughter always disappearing off to talk to you..." She shakes her head, and her face pulls into grim and tight lines. "With the squid escaping the wards on a regular basis, we hardly need to be inviting a tragedy..."

"Like Leenash," Hermione murmurs.

"Yes." McGonagall shoots her a stern look...it's more of an icy reproach for knowing more than she should than for interrupting.

Hermione bites the inside of her cheek as she thinks about Snape again. Professor McGonagall obviously knows the whole truth of him if she knows about the tunnel and the magical barrier that leads into the core of the lake.

"Professor McGonagall," she says carefully, and Albus Dumbledore's admonitory expression catches her eye. She glances away from his knowing blue eyes. "I know that Leenash was Eileen..."

"It is not my story to tell, Miss Granger, and neither should it be yours," Professor McGonagall says sharply. "I must ask that you respect Professor Snape's privacy; that the nature of his family remain his secret to keep or tell. Do I make myself clear?"

Disappointment drags on the corners of Hermione's mouth and she nods her acquiescence.

Before Hermione goes up to Gryffindor Tower, she goes down to Professor Snape's office...to apologise, she tells herself.

But there is no answer and this time his door is firmly locked.

No light spills from under his door, no sound.

"You fell into the lake?" Ginny's voice is swollen with disbelief and... amusement.

Hermione sighs and reminds herself that the price of silence is always high. "Yes," she says defensively. "I felt like a walk, to think, you know, and the ground was slippery."

Ginny eyes her for a moment with a look that is an uncanny mirror of Mrs Weasley. "Well, you should be more careful...that squid's big enough to eat people, you know."

"I know," Hermione says grimly.

Ginny hands her a letter from Harry. "This arrived for you this morning... it's probably a lecture," she says apologetically.

Hermione scowls at Ginny. "You told him?" she accuses.

Ginny shrugs and spreads her little golden hands. "You shouldn't lie to somebody you love," she says simply, and for some odd reason that makes Hermione's heart ache.

"Thanks," says Hermione with a soft sigh.

Dear Hermione,

Love, Harry.

Hermione struggles to get to sleep because she technically slept the entire day away. Her body is not averse to sleep, though... her limbs feel languid and liquid. It's her mind that's awake and practically smoking at the ears with the burning questions that are smouldering.

Something else is bothering her mind, too, beyond the obvious, but it's like something made of shadow and light; it shifts and dances away every time she tries to focus on it. Perhaps it is a dream she had or a conversation her mind overheard while she was unconscious, but the memory is buzzing with white noise and blinding light and she can't decipher it at all.

Hermione remembers how the surface of the loch froze over like steel, became impenetrable and hard and cold. And now it's like Professor Snape has undergone the Freeze, but you cannot see his brittle covering except in the shuttered reflection of his eyes.

Hermione had been afraid Snape would be angry with her...hot temper and fiery words would be so much better, familiar, comforting than this brittle and frozen silence, this icy resentment that burns more sharply and deeply than fire.

On Monday, he moves so quickly from the DADA classroom to the staffroom that Hermione wonders if his shadow had time to catch up with him.

Tuesday is Hermione's busiest day, and she does not have DADA scheduled. Hermione glances up during dinner, and she watches Snape for a moment. He eats like an automaton, like all the grace has bled from his limbs.

On Wednesday, Hermione approaches Snape's desk during the lesson. "Sit down, Granger," he says impassively. "You should be completing your case study on 19th century Dark Lords, not bothering me."

"I'm sorry, sir," she says quickly, "but I just wanted to tell you about the wards and then..."

A muscle tics in his cheek, denting his veneer, and the tips of his fingers whiten around his quill. A drop of red ink falls to the parchment like a teardrop. "Speak to Professor Flitwick," he says tightly. "He is the one who will weave the wards."

Hermione presses her fingertips to her lips. It feels like there's acid eating it's way through her heart, like there's something bitter and agonising burning her throat.

"Sit, Miss Granger."

She sits at her desk and drops her head, hiding her face behind a waterfall of curls. And now there's the taste of red copper on her tongue from where she's bitten the inside of her cheek, and her tears are salty and warm on her lips.

On Saturday morning, Professor Flitwick beckons to Hermione. She always feels slightly absurd talking to him because she feels inclined to bend over a bit and tilt her head, although that would probably be terribly rude.

"Miss Granger, Miss Granger," he squeaks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "The terribly clever Miss Granger. Who would have thought that Kraken might be bored, that he enjoyed the challenge of picking the wards apart, and that we just had to give him multiple Bounding Wards as entertainment?"

For the first time that week, something yellow and warm lights up inside her and it floods through her blood, bright and beautiful like sunshine. "Oh, he still hasn't escaped?" she asks.

"It's the fourth day, now, Miss Granger," Flitwick says, beaming at her. "He managed to break through the first layer yesterday, but that's what it's there for, is it not?" Flitwick clucks his tongue. "We never gave him enough credit before, you know... I think Kraken is rather more intelligent than just raw calamari."

Hermione nods enthusiastically. "I'm so glad I could help."

Flitwick sighs. "Well... I repaired the first ward this morning and he's back behind that now; it's still a little labour intensive but at least the rest of the lake is better protected. Professor Snape and I are most grateful to you, young lady."

Despite the tendrils of relief that light through her body, Hermione's mouth twists into a wistful smile.

She leaves the Great Hall and stares up at the staircase with a soft sigh. It's Saturday morning and the empty, tempting hours stretch ahead of her like infinite, flickering filaments.

Determinedly, Hermione marches up to the third floor before her legs become heavy and the stubborn set of her jaw eases. She stands frozen on the stairs, her eyes screwed shut with frustration. "Arrrgggghhh," she snaps. "Bloody hell, dammit, fuck!"

"Language," murmurs an old-fashioned looking portrait, pressing her fan to her bosom as she adopts a highly affronted-looking grimace in a blush of florid brushstrokes.

Righteous anger flushes to Hermione's cheeks...a whole week's worth of exasperation boils over like red-hot lava. "When I grow up and get my own house, I'm not having any portraits because the lot of you just stick your noses in where they don't bloody belong!"

"Well, I never," mutters the painting, and she turns her rounded shoulder on Hermione, sniffing disdainfully.

Hermione gives the painting the two-fingered salute along with an acid smile, and then she turns around and marches down the stairs again. "Just wanted to help, to say I was bloody sorry," she mutters to herself. "It's not like it's my fault that Syrena and Hagrid talk too much... secretive, snide, sarcastic selkie..."

She strides determinedly into the DADA classroom, bumping her hip painfully on a desk on her way to the practice room.

Snape is there, practicing against the Rebounding Charm, and he ignores her arrival even though she's made enough noise to rouse the dead. The hexes that sizzle off the wall are orange and red and angry, and the wash of magic that surrounds Snape makes her hair stand on end.

"Go away, Miss Granger," he warns, not pausing for a singular moment in his solitary assault.

Hermione's fists clench at her sides. "I just wanted to say that I was sorry," she shouts above the snarling and whining magic.

Snape ignores her, ducking, twisting, hexing, cursing...a savage and vicious magical dance.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she shouts in Mermish, a high-pitched shriek that strangles through her anger pierces the air.

She catches Snape by surprise... his body stiffens, falters in its fluid defence, and a jagged, maroon streak grazes his side, making him grunt with pain, double over as he tries to catch his breath.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," Hermione cries as all the anger bleeds from her in a rush.

Snape straightens up, his face tight and strained. "So you said," he says, wincing. He's wearing a tight black t-shirt today, and it hugs the corrugation of his ribs, moulds to the swell of his pectoral muscles. He lifts the edge of his shirt to reveal a bright red welt painted across his ribs; a flat and nearly convex stomach; a dark line of hair that runs from his navel to the waistband of his pants.

A flush heats Hermione's cheeks...it's a juxtaposition of mortification and attraction...and she puts her hand over her mouth. "Sorry," she mumbles again.

Snape scowls as he touches the tip of his wand to the angry burn and hums a Healing Dirge. He sighs as the inflammation recedes, and then his black eyes snap up to hers. "Say you're sorry again and I will hex you." He pulls his shirt back down and slides his wand into his holster (perhaps to avoid being tempted into that hexing, she thinks).

"Well, I am," she says, frowning. "Very."

Snape folds his arms across his chest. "Fine. Apology accepted. Now, go away, Miss Granger."

Hermione mirrors his expression and his pose. "Why are you being so horrid to me?" she asks.

"I'm Professor Snape," he says with a wicked twist of his lips. "It comes naturally."

"But..."

"Look," he snaps, "I am not your friend, Miss Granger. I am your teacher. I have office hours... you should never have felt that you could just pop down to my office for a chat at any time of the godforsaken night..."

"But I did," Hermione interrupts, throwing her hands into the air. "We were becoming friends," she says, her voice becoming more shrill and indignant with each passing moment. She is angry, furious, that he would discount the tentative bond that had fostered bets and smiles and duelling practice together.

"And because of that," he shouts, contradicting himself in one fell swoop, "you almost died! Because of me! Because I was careless enough to leave my office unlocked on one night out of the entire year!"

Hermione shakes her head vigorously. "It was entirely my fault. I went into your office, I touched the book, and I got myself trapped in that tunnel and you saved me..."

"And in the process, you saw what I am," he finishes for her, something grim and bleak climbing into his voice, tensioning the lines of his jaw. He turns away from her, his entire body stiff and taut.

Hermione frowns, watching the way his arm muscles bunch as he clenches his fists, how static magic sends stray, black strands of his hair floating into the air like he's underwater. And she remembers the bright fan of his tail, the light that seemed to pulse from under his skin, and the dance of his hair in the water. "You're a selkie, and I thought that you were beautiful," she whispers.

A/N: Thank you as always, to Gelsey.

Thank you to everybody who reads and reviews The Silvering Divide. Writing this story has been a shining and silver experience.