Twelve for a Lie

Chapter 14: Twelve for a Lie

Hermione wasn't quite sure how she managed the journey back to Hogwarts Castle. She arrived in the dungeons after what had felt like an eternity, her thoughts jumbled. Entering the living quarters, she was unsurprised...but nonetheless disappointed...to find the sitting room empty. She felt a surge of anger over the way Snape had left her at the party: he hadn't even allowed her a chance to explain. Then again, she doubted there was any possible way her encounter with Lucius could have appeared more compromising. She recalled the innuendo-laced words Lucius had spoken, shuddering to think of how easily her struggles might have looked like encouragement. It was little wonder Snape had misinterpreted the scene he'd witnessed. She had to find a way to convince him her feelings towards her former employer involved nothing but loathing. The truth about her research at Arglist would explain everything, but she fervently hoped it wouldn't come down to that. Since the beginning of their relationship, she had been mentally debating whether or not to reveal the details of her past, but she'd always held back, fearful of what his reaction would be if he learnt of her monstrous activities.

Hermione remembered the look on his face when he had found her on the terrace and realised there was something worse than being seen as a monster. Even his anger wouldn't have been so bad: fighting with Snape was familiar territory. She could have handled that. It was seeing that detached look in his eyes...that utter lack of emotion...that had left her feeling cold all over.

She walked to his bedroom door, relieved to see light spilling out from the crack on the bottom. She knocked softly. "Severus?"

No answer. She listened carefully for movement. Nothing. She knocked again, louder.

"Severus, please open the door," she said.

She thought she heard something at last, the springs on the bed perhaps. But the door remained shut.

Raising her hand, she pounded on the door this time, saying, "We need to talk. I know you're in there. Open this damn..."

The handle was yanked open, and he filled the doorway, looking impatient. "We'll talk tomorrow, Hermione. It's late, and I'm tired. I just want to sleep now. I suggest you do the same. Good night," he said, moving swiftly to swing the door shut.

Hermione panicked. She had to explain; she couldn't just leave everything as it stood, knowing he'd got it all wrong. Without thinking, she stuck her hand in the door to stop it, howling in pain when the slab of wood slammed down hard on her knuckles.

He threw the door open wide and thundered at her, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I must speak to you," she said, cradling her injured hand.

"Let me see it," he ordered and held out his hand for hers.

She ignored her throbbing fingers and stuck her hand behind her back. "It can wait. We need to talk first."

Looking distant again, he said to her, "There's nothing I wish to discuss with you tonight."

"Right... I'll talk, and you can just listen," she offered before he could return to his bedroom.

"I have no desire to hear the details of your affairs, Hermione."

"But you have to understand that there was no affair! Not with Lucius Malfoy...never with him!" she spat.

"Pray do not insult my intelligence. I was on the terrace the entire time."

"Good! Then you heard him threatening me!"

"I heard the whispers of lovers." He spoke in a hiss, and there was disgust in his voice now. He took two steps towards her, leaving the threshold of his room, his lips curling into a snarl. But then he stopped abruptly, as if angry with his inability to remain aloof.

"Not of lovers, Severus," she said, shaking her head. "Believe me, that's not what you heard."

"I heard you gasping in his arms... It happens to be a sound I'm familiar with."

She was confused for a moment: Had she gasped? Then she remembered. "The wall was cold," she whispered.

Disgust had moved from his voice to his face. "Am I to believe you were merely trying to stay warm?"

"No, apparently you're just going to believe the absolute worst of me, no matter what I say!"

He paused, jaw muscles flexing over clenched teeth. "Your past lovers are no concern of mine...," he said, completely ignoring her continued protests, "but I will not tolerate being made to look like a fool." Shaking his head slightly, he closed his eyes for a moment and emitted a deep, fast sigh through his nose. "And to think I actually believed your reluctance to attend the ball was due to your past trauma at Malfoy Manor."

"It was!" she cried. At least part of it was. Her stomach clenched with the acknowledgment of the lie...it was a lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless. He snorted in disbelief, and guilt clawed at her insides. They both knew she was hiding something.

"I should have known your attempts to distract me had nothing to do with desire...you simply wanted to avoid having your history with Lucius revealed." There was no escaping the bitterness in his tone.

"That's not true," she whispered, hating she couldn't deny it with more vehemence. Her desire had been real, but so too was the fact she'd been willing to use that desire to convince him they should skip the ball. His assumption on the nature of her relationship with Lucius was false, but it hardly made her actions any less despicable. She had hidden the truth from him and lied to him. Worse, she had used their newfound intimacy to manipulate him. Tears of frustration stung her eyes. She had thought she could bury her past, had imagined it was her safest option. She had never intended to spawn more secrets, or to cause pain and doubt. Snape had only recently revealed some of his insecurities to her, and she had reason to suspect there were more lurking within him. Seeing her with Lucius tonight had to have been an enormous blow to his self-confidence.

"I know it must have looked dreadful, but I promise you: there is nothing remotely intimate or personal in my history with Lucius."

"No?" he asked doubtfully. "I suppose you just randomly chose tonight to make up for that oversight?"

"No!"

"Are you forgetting I was there the entire time? I heard what he said... I saw you in his arms. You were all over each other. You looked like a common..." He stopped himself before the insult was finished, but she could guess what he had been about to say. She didn't care to examine the look that crossed his face as he turned to walk away.

"Severus, please listen to me," she pleaded, following him into his bedroom. "I was pushing him away."

"Oh, really? Is that what you call it?" he asked, rounding on her.

"He's stronger than I am," she tried to explain. "I was trying to get away from him."

"Yes, I saw how hard you were trying. Did you lose your wand? Or perhaps he was helping you find it..."

"I didn't want to create a scene... at the party," she said.

"Why?" he asked. "If what you say is true, why would you care to spare your host the embarrassment of a scene?"

"I... I..." Her mouth worked to form words, but none came. She knew her arguments seemed shallow without the reasons why she'd been avoiding a scene. She was asking him to believe her on blind faith alone, a task that would have proved difficult for even the most trusting of men in a well-established relationship. Her mind wrestled with telling him more, and she searched for a way to convince him she wasn't lying without revealing everything.

As her reticence continued, he gave her a look of utter contempt and walked past her, leaving his bedroom as if unable to abide being in the same room with her.

She followed him once more, trailing behind as he stalked to the kitchen.

"Severus, please. You have to believe me." She heard the trace of hysteria in her voice, but didn't care.

He turned to survey her, his gaze scornful. "Hermione, stop this. You're going to embarrass yourself," he said with quiet disdain.

"I'm telling you the truth," she said desperately. "Let me prove it. I'll take Veritaserum!"

There was a brief flicker in his eyes, a moment of consideration, but then he looked away and walked passed her again, out of the kitchen. She turned and followed him, knowing she was losing him. The sight of his retreating back confirmed her failure. She had to stop him, had to think of something, anything...

"Please... give me the serum!" she suggested again. "Or you can use Legilimency to..."

"Legilimens!" he shouted, spinning around to face her with his wand already drawn. She didn't even have the chance to finish her thought before she was hit by a powerful force, knocking into her so hard she stumbled backwards. Then she was aware of nothing but the feel of her head being split open.

He approached her quickly, his wand still drawn, dark eyes holding hers. Against her will, she felt herself sinking to her knees on the floor, overcome with the searing pain in her head but unable to break eye contact. Images and scenes seemed to flit through her mind, beyond her control. The dizzying speed made her stomach lurch.

Then the images ceased their movements, and she was watching her entire encounter with Lucius tonight, beginning with the moment he approached her in the drawing room and ending shortly after Snape's exit from the terrace. She tried to steer her mind in another direction, away from the fact she'd worked for Lucius, to show there was nothing intimate in their past. But it was too late: he'd seen everything. A part of her felt relief. Surely, this proved she was telling the truth about her relationship with Lucius. She waited for the pain to abate, but Snape appeared to be in no hurry to end his exploration.

Her mind was spinning again, zooming past years of memories before stopping abruptly on that fateful day at Arglist Industries. She recognised her cramped vantage point from inside the cupboard and watched once more as Henri Garnier, the Director of Arglist, stood with Lucius Malfoy. She listened as Garnier explained to Lucius how she'd combined science with magic to travel a path that had begun with researching the effects of potions on Muggles versus wizards and ended when her team had successfully isolated the gene responsible for magical children being born to non-magical parents. She nearly retched when she heard Garnier explain how they'd begun the complex process of mapping the gene behaviours. It would be the final roadblock to Lucius's ultimate plan: the development of a vaccine to prevent the birth of Muggle-born witches and wizards. She recoiled once more from Lucius's twisted delight in the irony that she...a Muggle-born witch...had created the means to wipe out her own kind.

Another pain tore through her head as her mind left the broom cupboard. She was vaguely aware of the fact that she was sobbing, but she couldn't determine whether her tears came from being forced to remember the horrors she'd created at Arglist or if they were merely the result of the tortuous Legilimency session. It hardly mattered, as her crying seemed to have little impact on Snape. Nothing seemed to compel him to release his connection to her mind. They sped from scene to scene: one moment she watched herself destroying her lab with Acromantula Venom and Dragon Bile, the next she was once again setting Garnier's office aflame.

Her head was beyond agony now. She was certain it would burst apart at any moment. But the blur of memories flying around inside her brain didn't stop: it was almost as if he was searching for something. Her recollections of Lucius were coming faster and shorter: random images from the day the Snatchers brought her to Malfoy Manor and long-forgotten bits from encountering him at the Department of Mysteries when Harry had retrieved the prophecy.

Then the images changed entirely, and rather than thinking about Lucius, she found herself concentrating on Snape. Disjointed memories flew through her head in a haphazard fashion. If the pain hadn't been so debilitating, she might have wondered why these thoughts were so scattered compared to the relative organisation of the previous images. Her recent trysts with Snape sped by quickly, like fanning through the pages of a scrapbook. Then came her childhood memories of him: she felt the old, impotent anger as she watched him bully Harry; she was flooded with mortification when he called her an insufferable know-it-all; and her heart raced as she watched herself stealing the ingredients for Polyjuice Potion from his private storeroom. There were other quick scenes from school, then the longer, more ghastly picture of him lying prone on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Next, she was in the headmaster's office, listening to Neville ask why his portrait was missing.

And then, terribly, she saw herself removing his memories from the Pensieve. He seemed to linger on this: the image remained in her head for several long seconds, her body shaking as her mind fought to think of something else...anything else. Again, there came the burning pain and the horrible motion as he sped past images, stopping to watch her and Harry discussing what should be done with the memories, and her eagerly volunteering to keep them safe. With a sinking certainty, she realised what was coming, knew where his precise mind would venture next. She fought against the invasion with every ounce of control she had, desperate to stop his probing, until her head felt as if it would explode and the distinct taste of blood permeated her senses. More pain, more spinning, and then finally, inevitably, she was watching herself commit the treacherous crime of entering his memories many years later, watching them, alone in her room.

The pain in her head began to fade. She felt him leave her mind, and she gradually became aware of her surroundings again. She was still kneeling on the floor, just outside of the kitchen. Now that she could move, she sat back on her heels and bent forward, cradling her face in her hands. A relentless drumbeat pounded at her temples. She used her fingertips to massage the area while her palms wiped away the hot tears coursing down her cheeks.

"Where are they?" he asked. His voice sounded strange, eerily detached and distant.

She turned away, unable to meet his eyes. "Please... Let me explain. I only looked once..." she began.

He moved fast...faster than should have been possible for a human...and crouched over her. Rough fingers grabbed her chin, jerking her head around and forcing her to look at him. His face was almost unrecognisable, contorted into a mask of rage that would have immobilised even the bravest of recipients. When his voice came out in a whisper, it was more terrifying than if he'd shouted. "Where are they?"

She was shaking uncontrollably, but she barely noticed. "Wait, you have to understand..."

"Legilimens!" He cast the spell again, without warning. She felt her head being torn asunder once more, the pain no less excruciating for its familiarity. An image rose in her mind: she saw herself placing the phial of his memories into a small mokeskin pouch. One final, horrible stab of pain, and she watched herself setting the pouch in the drawer of her nightstand.

He flew away from her. She fell forward, wrapping her arms around herself tightly and rocking back and forth. Tiny red spots appeared on the floor beneath her face, and she realised her nose was bleeding. From her bedroom came the sound of wood splintering, and then he was back, tossing the pouch at her.

"Open it."

She straightened, retrieving the material with trembling fingers. Her hands were shaking so violently she fumbled her efforts to unfasten the knot securing the drawstring. Compounding matters were the tears blurring her vision, making it difficult to see what she was doing. Panic bubbled up inside her.

As Hermione wondered how the act of proving she hadn't slept with Lucius Malfoy had led to this, a fresh flow of tears sprang to her eyes, blinding her. It was little consolation that he now knew she wasn't Lucius's lover. The price for that simple revelation had been the discovery of her two darkest secrets: that she'd unwittingly found a way to wipe out all future Muggle-borns, and that she'd trespassed on Snape's most intimate memories at a time when he was helpless to object. She truly was a monster.

"Open it," he demanded again, fury rising in his voice.

"I am so sorry," she said, looking up at him miserably.

"OPEN IT NOW!" he thundered, advancing on her in a flash. His wand lifted from his side, and he slashed it towards her threateningly, stopping when the tip was no more than an inch from her temple. Angry red sparks popped from the end of the wand, a manifestation of the rage pulsing through the wizard whose knuckles had turned white from gripping its handle so hard.

She fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut as sparks sizzled and jumped near her forehead. Slowly, she moved her gaze to his wand, staring at it transfixed. He was an immensely powerful wizard: one fast curse could cause her excruciating pain. Or even death, if he hated her enough. The moment stood frozen in time, stretching into the silence with neither moving. She held her breath, waiting for the curse to come.

But it never came: the wand slowly lowered from her head, and she shifted her eyes to his face. He appeared to be visibly shaken, as if shocked by his own actions. She bent her head and returned her attentions to the pouch, concentrating on the drawstring closure.

Reaching into the worn fabric, her fingers closed around the cool glass phial, and she spoke as she extracted it. "I've done two things in my life that I've regretted every single day." The shaking in her voice was mirrored in her hands as she held the bottle towards him. "This is one of them."

He snatched it from her fingers, making no reply. His gaze travelled over her face briefly, surprise still evident as he surveyed her. Then he straightened and walked away, leaving her on the floor. She heard his bedroom door slam shut, and she closed her eyes as the sound echoed through the living quarters.

Clutching her stomach, she bent forward again. Guilt flooded into her as she recalled the day she had viewed the private filaments of thought, so many years ago. She'd been about to leave university and begin her job at Arglist, which should have been a happy time. But her three-year relationship with a fellow student had been unravelling at breakneck speed, and they'd just had their final, terrible row.

She would never understand what had compelled her to do it. She had known it was wrong, had known that entering into someone's memories without their permission was inexcusable, unforgivable. But she had somehow justified her actions, convinced that Snape would never regain consciousness. She had told herself she had just needed to see proof that real, true, gut-wrenching, soul-shattering love had existed in the world.

She had remembered what Harry had said to Voldemort during their last battle, how he'd told him of Snape's love for Lily Evans. And afterwards, when Harry had pulled her and Ron aside and had explained what he'd seen in the Pensieve, it had all sounded so tragically beautiful somehow. Through the years, she had romanticised the memories into a sort of poignant montage of infatuation.

The memory of Harry's words had ceased to satisfy her, though, and she had insisted on having her precious proof. And so she had looked: She had seen Snape's deep love for Lily, had felt the intensity of it along with the hopeless yearning. But the memories didn't end with unrequited love. There had been more, so much more...things Harry hadn't told them about...things she hadn't ever wanted to see, and yet she'd been unable to look away, as if she were watching some horrific train wreck of a life. She'd witnessed first-hand his infinite, overwhelming grief when Lily was murdered and the inescapable guilt of knowing he'd provided the catalyst for the act. Very quickly, the images had become too much to bear.

These were not the storied memories of a fairy-tale love. Instead, she had seen the images of a miserable upbringing. She had watched him being humiliated by James Potter and striking back at Lily, and she'd been carried along on his spiralling trip into darkness with its irrevocably tragic results. She'd served penance alongside him as he'd switched his loyalties and spied on Voldemort, only to be manipulated by Dumbledore and then hated by Harry even as he had worked to save him.

She had always regretted her impetuous decision to enter his memories, and it all came crashing back on her now as she knelt on the floor, crying. She had seen betrayal before, but she had never been the one to commit it. Part of her brain was working like mad for a solution, searching for a way to fix the damage she'd created and make it right. But her heart knew too well that some things were beyond repair.

"Get up."

Hermione looked up with a start: She had not heard him return. He gazed down at her, his expression unreadable.

"Get up," he said again. There was very little emotion in his voice: he sounded mildly impatient at best.

She did as she was told, standing ungracefully while forcing her wobbly knees to lock.

"Wipe your face," he said, holding out a handkerchief. He spoke in curt, clipped tones.

She swiped the cloth over her swollen, wet face, noting that her tears had stopped at his reappearance. Apparently, she was too stunned to cry. Judging by the abundant amount of red staining the handkerchief, the nosebleed had not been similarly affected.

He unscrewed the cap from a small jar in his hand and stepped towards her, raising it to her face as he approached. She stumbled back from him instantly, automatically, and his hand froze in mid-air. A strange look crossed his face at her reaction.

"For nosebleeds," he said tightly, turning the label towards her as his jaw clenched. She studied the bottle closely, seeing the sprayer apparatus on the end. He moved the jar towards her again, and this time, she did not flinch, allowing him to squirt the liquid into her nostril. It smelled like warm summer roses, and when she wiped the handkerchief across her nose once more, she found that it had stopped bleeding.

"Thank you," she offered quietly.

"Show me your hand," he said, ignoring her gratitude.

She held it towards him, unsuccessfully willing it to stop shaking. There were angry red marks across her knuckles. He traced his wand over the area but never once touched her hand.

"It's not broken. Use the Essence of Crystalwort."

She dropped her hand and watched his face. The medical attention had been a surprise, although she suspected it had come more from a sense of obligation than anything else: His extended use of Legilimency had caused the nosebleed, after all. Of course, she had been the one to suggest he probe her mind for the truth, and some part of her had to have known he'd discover more about Arglist while doing so. She had never intended for him to learn of her other treachery, though. But considering the nature of her crime, anger over his lack of permission would be the ultimate in hypocrisy. Their actions had been similar, but at least Snape had made no attempt to hide his trespasses. Considering her betrayal, she was amazed that he had returned, and even more amazed when he continued to stand before her, staring.

"You had no right," he told her at last.

"I know. It was incredibly wrong," she said.

"Did you enjoy the show at least?" he asked with a bitter smile. "Did you invite friends over to watch?"

"You know I didn't: you just saw it!" she said. His expression quelled at the reminder of his recent exploration of her mind, and she elaborated, "I was alone. I had just ended a bad relationship."

Dark eyelashes swept down to his cheeks; he held his eyes closed for a moment, lips twisted in disgust. "And did it cheer you to learn that your life would never be as pathetic as the one you were watching?"

Hermione took a quick second to wonder where her newfound ability to say precisely the wrong thing had come from. "It wasn't like that at all... I had only wanted to see what love really looked like."

He opened his eyes, and she stumbled back from the raw pain reflected in their darkness. "It's not pretty, is it?"

She shook her head.

"You had no right," he repeated. "They were never meant for you...or for anyone! I never would have given them to Potter if I hadn't been certain I was dying."

"I understand."

Her agreement only seemed to anger him further, but she could think of nothing else to say. There were no excuses that could justify her actions. It had been a mistake: unforgivable and impossible to undo.

The anger drained from his face, but the torment that replaced it was worse. "I thought they'd been destroyed. When were you going to tell me you'd kept them...watched them?" he asked, his tone accusatory.

Her eyes filled with fresh tears as guilt and shame pressed down upon her, making her shoulders slump. She shook her head, unable to explain how she'd struggled with precisely that question. In retrospect, she should have handed them over on Halloween when he had first returned to Hogwarts. But she hadn't thought of it then, and their relationship had been so rocky that she'd delayed the inevitable, thinking the perfect opportunity would present itself eventually. Once they'd become intimate, she had found more excuses to wait, knowing he would be furious, hating that she would ruin their tentative trust.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"I... I don't know," she answered. She could be honest with him now, for the first time. It was little consolation.

Several moments passed with neither speaking. "Those were pieces of my soul," he told her at last. "Not a therapy tool for a foolish girl."

"It wasn't therapy...it was curiosity," she tried to explain. "Unforgivable curiosity," she quickly amended at his glare.

She could tell she was once again saying all the wrong things. There was nothing left to offer. With a deep breath, she bolstered her courage and said quietly, "I wanted to know what it was to be loved like that."

His expression darkened at her confession. A muscle near his eye twitched and his nostrils flared like a bull catching its first sight of a matador. "You will never know that," he stated, "because you will never be Lily."

She looked down at the floor, trying to hide the tears. As his words washed over her, she felt herself growing colder and colder until at last she was numb.

"Of course not," she mumbled in agreement.

She had told herself his heart was beyond her reach, but somehow, his words sliced her anew, settling deep inside where all the darkest thoughts liked to play. She felt foolish for having fostered that faint hope of discovering some sort of a future together. He loved Lily. Always. And even if he hadn't, whatever chance they might have had for something more had just been destroyed by her damnable secrets and lies.

Biting her lip thoughtfully, she returned her gaze to his face. For a moment, she thought she saw her own remorse reflected in his eyes. Then his expression became guarded, and she blamed the sight on her overwrought imagination.

She said the only thing she could say to him, although she knew it wasn't enough. "I am very... very... sorry." Then she turned and walked to her bedroom, knowing he would not stop her, he would not follow. The certainty didn't keep her from listening for him as she slowly closed her door.

Waving her wand over the shards of broken nightstand, she felt sorrow descend upon her so heavily each breath she drew seemed to require more strength than she possessed. She stared at the perfectly repaired table, wishing a spell could somehow fix the damage she'd wrought tonight. But the disadvantage to having read practically every book ever written about magic was the knowledge that such wishes were futile and such spells did not exist.

With unbearable sadness, she removed her party dress and slid naked between the cold cotton sheets of her bed. Memories of their spontaneous tango danced into her mind, unbidden. Her thoughts tortured her with delicious reminders of what they'd be doing right now if not for her treachery. The certainty that she'd never again know the feel of his arms stole into her head and refused to leave, weighing upon her heavily, making her body feel as if it had been cast from lead.

Her ears strained for sounds, and finally, she heard the faraway click of his bedroom door closing. She turned on her side. A single tear slid to the bridge of her nose, clinging there for several heartbeats before finally falling onto her pillow.

The room was quiet except for the occasional hiss of embers dying in the fireplace. Her gaze moved to the clock perched atop the mantle; her eyes focused and then closed. Somewhere amidst the pain and betrayal and heartbreak, midnight had passed them by, unseen. Christmas had arrived.

A/N: Thanks to everyone for leaving reviews on my story... I've been remiss in responding, and for that, I apologize. I'll be anxious to hear what you think of this chapter. It's a tad tragic, but we all know that life and relationships are rarely smooth, and the real test lies in how people move beyond the rough patches. Many thanks, as always, to my lovely betas, ladyinthecloak and little_beloved, and my fab Brit-picker, lettybird. Those girls ROCK!!