The Poison

Thanks, as always, to s and h forever for her constant support. I couldn't ask for a better friend and beta.

Thanks to all who have reviewed. I'm thrilled to hear that you're enjoying this. Keep them coming!

"I can be pensive, you can be so sure. You'll be the poison, you'll be the cure. I'm alone on the journey, I'm alive nonetheless. And when you do your very worst, it feels the best." (The Poison, by The All American Rejects)

Hermione found Ron and Harry still waiting for her in the common room when she returned. Normally, it would have pleased her to see how much her friendship meant to them, but now they were the last two people in the world she wanted to see. She was still reeling from Severus' belittling of her intelligence and the way he referred to her emotions as juvenile and misplaced. It had been why she cursed him, in the end. The way he spoke to her was so reminiscent of their previous relationship: the one in which he spent his classes ridiculing her, and she loathed him with all her being for it. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was being treated like a child. And before Ron could even mutter his first syllable of greeting, Hermione lost control of herself once more.

"Do you two seriously have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for me all night? Read, or even do homework, for God's sake! No wonder I end up doing everything for you! Do you realize how much smarter you both would be if you stopped being lazy or talking about Quidditch and just studied? A day is going to come when I won't be there to hold your hands; you might as well get ready for it now."

All Ron and Harry could manage to do in response was stare at her. They were used to Hermione's frequent outbursts but usually knew why they deserved them. Completely bewildered and slightly hesitant, Ron finally asked the only question that he could think of that would explain her tantrum.

"Um... so I guess your whole self-sacrifice theory was wrong, then? I'm sorry your potion didn't work, Hermione. It sounded pretty cool... even though I don't know what it was supposed to do... or anything about it... but I guess the fact that you were making it was cool."

"No, Ron. The damn thing worked. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. And yes, it's very, very cool, as you managed to so eloquently articulate."

If Ron had been perplexed before, it was nothing compared to the uncertainty was experiencing now. Normal Hermione would have been bouncing up and down, hoping to share her good news with them, but this was clearly not normal Hermione.

"Uh... correct me if I'm wrong, Hermione," Harry began, realizing that Ron had given up hope in trying to get sensible answers from her, "but isn't that a good thing? Shouldn't you be thrilled? I mean we're thrilled for you, but you're kind of killing all the joy."

"Of course it's a good thing, Harry. It's bloody fantastic; it's just that the potion decided to work at the wrong time." She clenched her fists as she felt her resentment for Snape stir again.

"Care to elaborate? What's the potion do anyway? You can't keep us hanging. And since you're working to help me out anyway, I think I'm entitled to know what's going on."

Hermione laughed darkly in response to Harry's claim of self-importance. "You never stop thinking about yourself, do you, Harry? Your scar doesn't entitle you to anything you want, but I guess you do deserve to be filled in. I've created an Anti-Cruciatus Curse Potion. I'll need to work on the name, won't I? Anyway, Snape took the potion and asked me to curse him. When I couldn't bring myself to do it, we started fighting. It got to the point when I wanted nothing more in the world than to cause him pain. That's when I cursed him and discovered that the potion worked. That's why I'm angry. He didn't feel anything. Not a fucking thing."

"Hermione, that's brilliant!" Harry hugged her quickly before adding, "Although I can see how you'd be angry that you couldn't hurt Snape. I'd pay money to watch you Crucio him. Don't let it get to you, just be happy that you've done something completely amazing! Can I tell people?"

"NO, HARRY!" Hermione screamed before she was able to stop herself. "I wasn't even supposed to tell you and Ron. If word got back to Voldemort that we have this potion, the results would be disastrous. So just please don't tell anyone until we decide how to distribute it in the Order." Hermione finally smiled as Ron and Harry agreed before encouraging her to get some sleep.

As Hermione shut the door to her room, a long, harsh wail erupted behind her that sounded almost exactly like a Muggle classic rock song she liked to listen to when she went back home to visit her parents. She turned around, shocked to see Crookshanks stuck in the door, trying to figure out a way to free his tail from its wooden prison. Hermione reopened the door to release him and felt him rub up against her legs as if communicating that he understood her feelings and was trying to comfort her. After changing, Hermione finally climbed into bed, quickly followed by Crookshanks, who lovingly curled up beside her. Hermione realized that she had been spending far too much time neglecting her cat and was thankful that he was still willing to give her some much needed cuddle time.

"God, what did I make him do? What have I done to him? He's probably worn the carpets in his bedroom down with his incessant pacing. Well, either that or he's drinking himself into a coma," Hermione noted as she remembered the vast collection of alcohol in his study. "Nothing can be easy when it comes to that man, can it? He's a walking contradiction! It's almost as if he's been building some mystery that I'm not supposed to be able to figure out, as if my discovery of his truth would be too painful. If only I could see what goes through his head; I'm sure it would be fascinating. Too bad I don't know Legilimency. What have I gotten myself into, Crookshanks? Perhaps you have some better idea about how I should handle my little problem with Professor Snape?" Hermione rhetorically asked, signaling the end of her ranting monologue.

Crookshanks immediately hissed in response, recognizing the name of the Golden Trio's least favorite teacher.

"Ha, my thoughts exactly!" Hermione smiled, petting her cat. She knew that getting Snape to reveal how he really felt would require her to release her inner Slytherin. She would have to be careful and sneaky to make sure that when it happened, Severus wouldn't know what hit him. Then, as if suddenly inspired by Salazar Slytherin himself, Hermione knew exactly how to corner Severus Snape. She resolved to execute her plan the following night and was looking forward to watching him be the one under duress for a change. She fell asleep quickly, eagerly awaiting the morning.

If Severus Snape was building a mystery, she was about to tear down its walls.

*******

Hermione woke the next morning, tingling with delirious excitement. The thrill of implementing her plan was fresh in her mind, and she practically skipped down to breakfast in the Great Hall, ecstatically humming to herself as she went to meet Harry and Ron.

"Wow, Hermione," Ron stammered, his mouth still fairly filled from his last bite of breakfast, "I haven't seen you this happy since the first day of school! It seems like ages ago! Are you sure you're okay? Last night seemed pretty tough for you." As quickly as his head had shot up to speak to her, his face was back into his food, eating as though he had been starved for days.

"Thanks for interrupting your breakfast to notice, Ron. I'm great, actually. I've come to terms with a lot of what's been going on and got a full night's sleep for a change! God, I love weekends, don't you? No classes, just all day to do whatever you want. It's a glorious thought." She smirked as she looked up to see Snape enter the Great Hall and take his seat at the head table.

"Uh yeah, Hermione, it's great... are you sure you're okay?" Harry asked her, completely astonished at her change in attitude. He was accustomed to her staying holed up in the library on the weekends, getting ahead in her work so her overloaded class schedule wouldn't completely kill her, but something in her had changed. In Harry's estimation, she was a little too perky for comfort.

"Oh, I'm perfectly fine, Harry. Never been better." She continued to watch Snape as he ate, unsuspecting of the event Hermione was about to set into motion. She certainly hoped he was enjoying his day. He wouldn't know what hit him when she was through. The butterflies in her stomach began to flutter with a renewed vigor as Hermione thought of all the answers she was finally going to get. He wouldn't be able to help himself. It wasn't her intention to vex him terribly, but she was going to enjoy watching him struggle. Her inner self chuckled as she excused herself from the table and headed down to the dungeons to prepare for that evening.

She knew that she would have enough time. Potions was her first class of the day, and she was sure that Severus would wait as long as possible to arrive; he would, no doubt, want to avoid her. Her assumptions were correct. She managed to make it through the class without so much of a word to or glance at Snape, giving him the false sense of security that she was going to take his advice and ignore what had happened between them. If those were, indeed, the thoughts of Severus Snape, he was dead wrong.

*******

Later that night, after reassuring Harry and Ron for what seemed to be the millionth time that she was alright, Hermione descended to the dungeons once more. This time, however, she knocked hard on the door, fully intending to have a little run in with her professor. Snape opened the door, quickly hiding the surprise of his countenance before addressing Hermione, snarky as ever.

"Well, Miss Granger, I had anticipated the inescapable reality of your eventual visitation, but I must admit your timeliness in returning to the dungeons has found me quite unprepared."

"Oh, so it's back to Miss Granger now, is it?" Hermione answered, taken aback by how much her voice was beginning to adopt the very same tone of the Potions master himself. "Surprising change in demeanor, considering our last meeting involved your tongue being shoved down my throat." She glared at him as she entered the room, shutting the door behind her and silently locking it.

"Her...Miss Granger, I've already admitted my mistake in regards to last night, and you know very well that's not what happened at all. I at least deserve more credit from you than that. You certainly weren't acting like a victim then. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business to which to attend." He turned from her again as he always did, walking towards his chambers.

"Professor, wait! Are you really such a coward? I expected so much more from you than this. You're really not going to talk to me about what happened, are you?" The look in Hermione's eyes begged Severus to stay, while her grip on the wand at her side tightened.

"No, Hermione. I'm not going to talk about this. I told you it would never be mentioned again. I'm a man of my word, and my promise will be kept."

"I thought as much."

Severus ignored the hushed reply of Hermione's disappointment and turned again to leave. Before he could yell "Protego", spells began swirling around him, strong ropes materializing and binding him to his office chair. The rage that raced through him was apparent as he struggled to release himself. Hermione chuckled, knowing there was no chance of escape for him now. He was at her mercy, and she hoped to make the best of it.

"You will not laugh at me, you insolent, little witch. Let me go this instant, and there will be no punishment in return!"

"You're hardly in a position to be making demands, are you, Severus? I'll let you go when I'm done with my little experiment, so you might as well accept it and relax. You won't talk to me of your own volition, so an act of coercion is clearly required. You've brought this all on yourself, you know." She watched in enjoyment as he continued to strain against his bonds. She was gaining confidence, now that it was proved the ropes were doing their job. "Still fighting, Severus? Perhaps you could use some Firewhiskey to make you more comfortable before we talk; I know how fond of it you are. I've never seen such a vast collection of liquor in my life. Would you like that, Severus?" There was a dangerous sparkle in her eyes as she continued to taunt him with his own vices.

"Yes, Miss Granger, I would value that greatly," he curtly responded, hoping she would take his hint that it would take some great miracle for her to force any meaningful sentence out of him.

"This one will do just fine, I think." Hermione murmured as she chose a bottle from his shelf. "Drink up, Professor." She lifted the glass to his lips and watched silently as he drank in appreciation, the familiar burn trickling down his throat into the pit of his stomach.

"Alright, Severus, time for warm-ups. I plan on getting some serious answers tonight, but we'll start with something easy. From what I've seen, I feel as though I can safely conclude that you're a heavy drinker. Why is it that you turn to alcohol to solve your problems?"

His mind told him to scream "none of your fucking business", but as he opened his mouth to speak, an entirely different answer came.

"Something wonderful happens to me under the influence of alcohol, Hermione. When I'm blind with drink, I somehow like the world I see. It's as if the world's the way it ought to be, the way I'd like to imagine it. My pain seems to disappear, if only for a little while, and for me, it's well worth the cost." His head shot up, and his eyes locked with Hermione's in disbelief. He suddenly realized what she had done to him.

"Fuck you. Fuck you to hell. That Firewhiskey. You... you..."

Hermione interrupted his ramblings scathingly. "Fuck me to hell? That's a new one, Severus; feeling creative, are you? Oh, and if you're thinking that I came in here this morning and spiked your beloved Firewhiskey with Veritaserum in some twisted plan to force you to answer my questions, good call. I'm astounded that you weren't more suspicious of me before. My little scheme actually worked; I'm quite proud of it, actually. To be honest, I'm surprised that the Slytherin poster-boy would have accepted a drink, once my intentions for this evening were made clear. How does it feel, Severus? Relinquishing your control to a Gryffindor? It must be terrible for you. I'll admit that this situation pleases me; not because you'll have to completely surrender to me under the Veritserum, but because I'm finally going to get the answers I want. The effort of trying to figure you out has been plaguing me for too long. But it ends tonight. Now, where were we?" She smiled menacingly as she pulled up another chair in front of him and sat down. Completing her dialogue and confirming her victory over him, Hermione allowed her features to soften, coming to the realization that she was most likely going to inflict a great deal of pain her professor, forcing him to reconcile with his own emotions. Her reflections were cut short however, as Snape began berating her again.

"You should have been sorted into Slytherin, you damned, manipulative know-it-all. If you had been, you would know just how dangerous fucking with me can be. Don't make me take this matter to the Headmaster. Drugging a teacher? I doubt that would look very good on your record, Miss Granger." Despite Severus' best attempts to match Hermione's threats with his own, he knew the last thing he would want to do was consult with Albus. Snape hated talking to the old wizard enough as it was, and their meeting would just end with him being force fed lemon drops.

"Oh right, Severus. You go tell Dumbledore. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear that I had to tie you up because you wouldn't talk to me about a particularly steamy kiss that we shared. A student-teacher relationship? I doubt that would look very good on your record, Professor. Stop trying to get out of this, I can tell you right now that nothing will work."

"What we have is not a relationship, Miss Granger," Snape corrected as he finally leaned back in his chair, acknowledging his compromised position.

"But you'd like it to be, wouldn't you, Severus?" Her gaze narrowed as she focused on his reactions. It looked as if he were about to vomit, trying to keep the words in his heart from escaping through his lips. He let his head fall to rest on the back of his chair and closed his eyes in defeat before he verbalized the strained word fighting its way to life.

"Yes." His fists clenched as he heard the single syllable echo through the room and the painful silence that followed. He lowered his head to look at Hermione, noticing how her eyes began to water.

"I knew it," she whispered, talking more to herself than to him. "But why, Severus? When did it happen? I thought you hated me." Her heart ached as she saw a change in his expression. She had seen it before. It was the look: the look that had haunted her dreams and nightmares, but this time, it was different. She always knew it must be a tortured look of pain, but never until that moment did she think of associating his turmoil with her.

"God, Hermione. I honestly don't know when it happened. One day I just looked up, and there you were, sitting with those two idiots you consider worthy of your friendship. It angered me. They don't deserve your attention; they have no idea how brilliant you are. Your intellect may be wasted on them, Hermione, but I assure you that it was never wasted on me. You have so much courage, Hermione, so proud of all that you are. Everything you do has a purpose, and you're not happy until that purpose is achieved. Your determination is astounding. You're going to do great things, and I'm honored to be a part of your journey. When I saw all this in you, my feelings turned into something different. I don't know what to call it, and no matter how hard you press me for an answer, I won't be able come up with one. All I know is that I want you to be happy. I'm sure that you could never find that happiness with me. I'm not a nice man, Hermione. The life I've known has ruined me. My world is one of despair and loathing, a place in which you don't belong. You deserve someone perfect, someone so much better than me. So I chose to make myself as appalling as possible for you. I wanted to make you hate me, to push me as far from your mind as possible. I sought to ensure that what we're going through now would never take place. Obviously, I failed. You can thank Albus for that. But even still, with me tied to this bloody chair, I don't regret any of it. It has brought me closer to you, if only in bettering your poor opinion of me." He paused as he saw the tears flowing freely from Hermione's eyes, hating himself for admitting everything to her, even though he knew there was no way he could have prevented it. "Hermione, stop. I am not worth the tears you waste." Severus closed his eyes, signaling the end of his monologue. He hoped it would suffice.

"My God, Severus, I had no idea. That was truly the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. I really don't know what to say to you right now; I have no more questions. You've told me what I want to know. I've already made it clear how I feel about you. I want this, Severus. I know that it will be hard, but I want your happiness too. I can make you happy." She gazed at him as he opened his eyes.

"Hermione, please don't torture me any longer. Knowing you feel something for me in return is a pain entirely on its own."

"It doesn't have to be. I know you're hurting, Severus. I'm hurting too. We need to think about this. I realize that your life has been harder than I could ever imagine, but I'm willing to take the risk of entering into it. Just let me try. Let us try. I'm going to leave now, Severus. I'm sorry that it had to happen like this, but I think, in the end, it will do us both a world of good. Please think about what I've said. I meant every word. Goodnight." As she left the room and shut the door behind her, the magic surrounding him was lifted.

And for the first time in fifteen years, the first time since the night he had given up on love, hope, and happiness, Severus Snape was moved to tears.