Four

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of J.K. Rowling. I intend no infringement and am making no profit.

***

When I emerged from the memory, Professor McGongall was standing in the office waiting for me. I don't know how she sensed that I had been facing a particularly difficult experience, but it seemed to me when I took in the expression on her face that she had simply known it was about the right time for me to witness the true horror of the Death Eaters' atrocities.

I staggered through his living room and bedroom and into the bathroom where I lost what little I had eaten at lunch. She wiped my brow with a cool cloth and fetched me a glass of cold water, but it sat heavily in my stomach and only served to make me feel all the more queasy. I could not erase the girl's screams from my head. The sound of her voice, haggard and barely audible as she'd prayed to God to take her before he could do that to her, ran through my mind like a broken record.

And his face... I had never seen anyone look so haunted, so utterly lost to the world and dead inside. I supposed that if anything were sufficient to turn even a bitter man like him away from Lord Voldemort and compel him to seek forgiveness from Dumbledore, it would be the memory of that night, the sudden and bitter realization of the depths to which he'd actually sunk.

I couldn't think about him. It hurt...made me physically ill...to recall what I had fantasized about for so many years. I knew he hadn't truly gotten off on it; it couldn't have been more evident that it was difficult, nigh impossible, for him to perform Voldemort's bidding. Yet that didn't make it any easier to contend with the memory of him driving into her as she screamed and begged for him to stop.

I leaned back against the cool porcelain of the toilet and felt the tears streaming down my face. McGonagall was staring at me with a depth of sadness I'd never before seen.

"Hermione," she murmured, "I cannot tell you how sorry I am that you have to witness what is contained within those memories." She cleared her throat and closed her eyes momentarily before opening them again and saying in a stronger voice, "The Wizengamot would have me held in contempt for asking you this, but I assume that what you just... endured... was the night Severus returned to us?"

I nodded numbly, feeling my stomach roil again. I clasped my hands against it and doubled over, forcing myself to inhale and exhale deeply and rhythmically until the queasiness had subsided somewhat.

"Severus is a very private person." She refused to let her gaze leave mine, and I found myself caught in it. "I do not know for certain what happened on that night, but he alluded to it once. I am not a naïve woman...nor, I suspect, are you. I can fill in the blanks appropriately."

A sob burst forth from me.

She knelt in front of me. "I know what you just saw, Hermione. I know what he did, and while I cannot discuss it with you, I want you to hear his side...the side that you won't see in that Pensieve because it happened after he confessed to Albus and turned himself over. Albus sent him to me for the night, and I arranged for him to have lodging here at the castle rather than returning to Lucius' home, as was customary after their... meetings."

I nodded again. I hadn't yet seen any memories of these after parties, so to speak...apparently he hadn't deemed them noteworthy, as he hadn't put them in the Pensieve.

Tears were filling Professor McGonagall's eyes now, and I realized that I had never seen her without a single hair out of place. She rarely looked at all flustered or harried, but now her hair, more liberally streaked with gray than I recollected, was falling out of place and her eyes were bright and glassy. She was caught up in a memory, as surely as I'd been in the Pensieve, and she was shaking with the force of it.

"He came to me that night sobbing like a young boy." The first tear fell and ran slowly down her weary, lined face. "He had nightmares that night like I cannot even describe to you. What he did to that girl... He will never forgive himself for it. He cried himself to sleep and then screamed himself hoarse until he woke again. He relived that moment again, and again, and again, and I can assure you that despite what you may have seen...despite how he may have acted in front of the others...it brought him no pleasure." She cleared her throat again, her voice having become croaking and inconstant. "And he has never deemed himself worthy of a woman's love since that night."

Somehow, that was what finally broke me. I fell into her arms and sobbed until the force of my grief put me completely to sleep.

***

I awoke half an hour or so later, around three o'clock, and plodded with heavy steps back into his office to glance at the Pensieve. Severus had placed precious few memories in it. Already, I noted, memories I'd previously viewed were returning to the surface, the cycle revealing how few he'd put in there. It was a testament, I felt, to the monumental importance of each one.

Professor McGonagall intercepted me before I became lost in the next tragedy and insisted that I take the remainder of the afternoon off. She promised that she would ensure the Wizengamot never found out that I was relaxing rather than submitting to my duty. I went for a leisurely stroll throughout the castle grounds and Hogsmeade, and I was shocked to find, when I stopped after feeling the chill creeping into the air, that I'd been walking for nearly four hours.

On my way back I stared up at the battlements while approaching the castle. I recalled quite vividly one particular evening toward the end of my sixth year when I'd sought solace in the silence and moonlight, sitting up there alone and thinking about the enigma that Ron Weasley had become. I had always hastily judged boys as being too immature to truly hide their feelings, and thus I'd assumed ever since his blatant display of jealousy during the Yule Ball that he cared for me in far more than a platonic fashion. However, his egregious flirting with just about every other female member of my year had made me doubt that repeatedly until I couldn't handle the force of my insecurity.

I had known, as I'd sat there, that we could never be anything but good friends. There were moments when I felt that no one could possibly offer me the understanding and comfort which he was capable of extending. Perhaps it was the product of being born one of a large family and empathizing with the need for one-on-one attention...a true friend who would simply listen and refrain from judging. In any case, during the lulls between our notorious fights, he had always been able to offer me such immense emotional comfort. I remembered Dumbledore's funeral, when I'd given in and leaned against his shoulder because my shaking no longer allowed me to remain upright without swaying.

I'd felt it then, too...he was a comfort, like an older brother, but the sexual confusion was not genuinely due to him. I was growing up, noticing the male half of the species and the odd fascination they provoked in me. Ron was simply an easier target, having been even less brother-like than Harry, for whom I could never imagine harboring any kind of romantic feeling.

I wandered back down to Severus' dungeon office, wrapping my cloak tighter around my body. During the evenings it was horrendously cold in the Hogwarts dungeons, and it had always made me wonder if his many layers of clothing were due more to necessity than to any twisted desire on his part to appear intimidating. I risked a peek at the topmost memory in the Pensieve and caught a flash of firelight and the amber glow of liquor in a glass. It was not a memory I'd seen yet.

Judging it to be relatively tame, I thrust my head into the Pensieve and hoped for the best.

***

It was him as I'd always known him. He had to be at least in his early thirties; he was sitting before the fireplace in his living room, and it looked precisely the way it did presently. He was in a white dress shirt and his habitual black trousers, and his Death Eater robes were carelessly strewn on the sofa beside him. I was momentarily surprised by what I judged to be a risky indiscretion, but then the Headmaster emerged through the flames of the fireplace, and I surmised that he'd just returned from a meeting and was giving a report of sorts.

"How many?" Dumbledore asked quietly, sitting in a nearby chair and summoning a glass of the liquid for himself with a graceful wave of his wand. I leaned over and took a quick sniff of the bottle as it drifted in midair on its way back to the liquor cabinet, but I couldn't recognize its identity.

"Seven." Then Severus snorted. "All girls, but Lucius had the magnanimity to inquire if I would prefer a boy."

Dumbledore spluttered in his drink, but Severus' eyes remained glued to the fire. I allowed myself a small smile at the sight of the normally imperturbable Headmaster so thoroughly disconcerted.

"Would you?" Dumbledore asked with obvious amusement.

He shot Dumbledore a glare of absolute malice, and I couldn't prevent myself from giggling. Clearly the idea didn't appeal to him in the slightest.

"I am not... alone... because I cannot manage to find a member of my preferred gender," he snapped, returning his gaze to the fire. "Lucius just can't bring himself to understand why I don't... partake unless it is demanded of me. Obviously he has reached the conclusion that the girls do not appeal to me." His lip curled scornfully.

The years had hardened both his face and his voice, I noted; it was the professor I remembered from my schooling, not the determined but uncertain young man who had brutally raped that poor young woman whom I had seen earlier. I wondered at the enormous gap in time and if perhaps he had neglected to put many other such occurrences into his Pensieve.

"It is a source of constant amazement to me," Dumbledore remarked softly, his voice holding a gentle reproach, "that after so many years they have not caught onto the fact that you're the straightest wizard alive." He chuckled and shook his head. It was my turn to be shocked and feel a little out of my element. I'd never thought to witness a conversation involving either of these men and the discussion of sex or sexual preferences.

Severus glowered. "I am no different than any other man," he grumbled, downing the remainder of the liquid. "I simply have less tolerance for other men because they are not..."

"Women?" Dumbledore supplied with a hearty laugh. Severus didn't speak; the assent didn't need to be verbalized. "You're growing soft in your old age, my dear boy, favoring women simply because you find them so alluring."

Severus' lip curled in half a sneer and he refused to answer.

"Have you thought"...Dumbledore forged ahead with a more serious expression on his face..."of what you will do when this comes to an end? Harry has been making excellent progress in our lessons, and I have no doubt that even with my inevitable absence..."

Severus' fingers tightened on the brandy glass, but I only noticed it peripherally and paid little attention, as I was suddenly dumbstruck. This was during our sixth year! There were no windows to afford a view by which I could judge the season or time of year, but it had to be our sixth year. During fifth year Harry had taken lessons with Snape...that disastrous introduction to Occlumency...but he'd only ever visited Dumbledore for regular lessons during sixth year.

"...he will certainly be capable of locating the remaining Horcruxes." I tuned back in to find Dumbledore still talking softly, and Severus doing his best to bore a hole through the fireplace with the power of his concentration.

Definitely sixth year, I thought, still astonished to be viewing something which had happened so recently. I watched the play of expressions across Severus' face, so easily readable...shockingly so...now that he was safely in the Headmaster's company and secluded from all unwanted society.

"You can survive this, Severus." Dumbledore's voice was deathly quiet, and there was no humor whatsoever remaining in his tone, only absolute gravity. "You are capable of surviving this, and you are a young man yet. You have the rest of your life ahead of you. I don't want you staying locked up in these dungeons when I'm gone."

It was clear that Severus didn't want to discuss anything relating to a time when Dumbledore was gone, but the Headmaster, ever the leader, continued. "You and I both know what Draco has been charged to do, and you have made a Vow to me. You cannot break it. My end will come, and it will likely be at your hand. I know that you're not happy out there...you make that quite obvious to all of us as you well know...but you will not be any happier in here if you remain by yourself. There is nothing stopping you"...his voice rose in force and pitch as Severus started suddenly and moved quickly to his feet, beginning to pace..."from meeting someone, perhaps a good friend..."

Severus put his glass back on the liquor cabinet and continued to pace back and forth behind the couch, looking tense, as though he were repressing his true opinion.

"You know I don't want just anyone, Albus." He sighed, a deep, discontented sound, and clasped his hands behind his back. His shoulders relaxed somewhat when he turned his back toward the Headmaster, as though he were mustering the strength to make a confession he considered weak or shameful. "I don't want to change my lifestyle. I want someone who will be content with me here... A woman," he finished, his tone suddenly raw with loneliness and longing.

"I know that," Dumbledore murmured softly and sympathetically. "But there is nothing stopping you from having that now."

Severus snorted, the unpleasant Potions master once again filling his shoes. I immediately pined for the human being who had been standing before me only seconds prior. "You know I cannot put anyone at that kind of risk," he shot back in an irritated voice. "Besides which, no such woman exists."

"You don't know that." Dumbledore had finished his drink and was regarding Severus with a wistful expression, as though they'd covered this territory many times before, and he was rapidly losing hope that he could ever convince Severus otherwise.

"I do!" Severus insisted with surprising emotion and vehemence. "You've met them...sniveling, gossipy, vacuous witches who spent all their time focused on everything in life that is sordid and unfulfilling. I do not favor them simply because they are women, as you so eloquently put it." He turned suddenly and strode back to the liquor cabinet, pouring himself another generous helping of liquor. I grimaced when he downed nearly half of it and found myself speculating, not for the first time, whether the Potions master frequently drowned his unhappiness and sorrows in alcohol. "I despise them all equally."

"And yet you claim you would prefer a woman's company," Albus joked gently, and Severus shrugged.

"Only for one activity." The corners of his lips quirked slightly, and Dumbledore threw back his head and laughed loudly. Severus' scowl remained in place, but I noticed the light flickering in his eyes and realized that despite his apparent isolation and misery, he found a certain bizarre humor in his own eccentricities. It made me unbearably happy.

"Be sure you put that in the advertisement," Dumbledore remarked with a grin. "Give the poor witch a warning." He rose to leave. "Is there anything about the gathering you require me to know, Severus? Or was it simply...?"

"Hedonism, pure and simple." Severus put his glass back down and began unbuttoning the cuffs of his sleeves. I felt my face burn when I realized that I was paying little attention to Dumbledore's next words and far more attention to the glimpse of dark hair across his muscled forearm.

"Be sure to alert me before you leave next Saturday," he murmured. "If I am not there, it is due to my lessons with Harry. I had planned to take him out..."

Severus nodded a little too quickly and forcefully, and it was clear he did not care to know about the progression of Harry's lessons with Dumbledore. "I will do so."

"Thank you." Dumbledore bade him a quiet but affectionate good night and disappeared through the flames, leaving Severus standing his living room, staring broodingly into the fire. After what felt like hours, he turned on his heel and left the room quickly, heading for his bedroom. I caught only the barest glimpse of his broad, pale back as he began to strip off his clothes before the memory ended, and I was deposited once again on the floor of his office.