Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Something changed after that day. There was a shift, although Hermione couldn't place her finger on it. The professor started joining Hermione and Eugene for dinner every night, and the three of them would play games together or Eugene would listen to Hermione as she told stories about Hogwarts. Hermione liked it best when Severus would tell Eugene his own stories about what a sneaky little girl she had been. It seemed nothing had escaped the professor's notice, much to Hermione's horror, Eugene's delight, and the professor's pleasure. She pretended to be insulted, but her eyes always gave her away. The truth was that she enjoyed seeing her sad, embittered teacher from her youth laughing and smiling without Lily marring the warmth of their laughter and fun.

The last days of summer came with the return of Archimedes. Hermione was excited when she saw him flying back from Godric's Hollow. However, her excitement was short-lived. She shakily opened the letter and sank down hard onto one of her chairs in the kitchen, unable to utter a sound, except for an occasional gasp here and there.

... you can only imagine the heartache Ron has endured. He has been a complete wreck since you walked out on him and us! Harry has been just as difficult; he did not take the news of Professor Snape's survival well at all. He wants desperately to give you the phial of memories; however, he refuses to allow anyone else do it for him. So that means he must face Professor Snape. I have put my foot down, Hermione. I won't go through another episode with him being committed into St. Mungo's again. You just don't know how terrible it's been! His anxiety and fear over all this nonsense has made him so ill, he has been in and out of St. Mungo's for the past three months. Because of this, we had to give up on rebuilding the old house in Godric's Hollow and move back in with my parents.

But you wouldn't know about that, would you? It seems all you are about is yourself and your new pet project: Professor Snape! So forgive me if I don't sound as excited as you'd have hoped. I will not allow Harry to do this. If you and Snape want those memories so damn bad, you'll have to come here to the Burrow and get them yourselves! I've enough on my hands as it is...

The letter went on in the same vein until Ginny's curt goodbye. So, it was final. Harry would not being coming to Grasmere. Even if he had wanted to, Hermione doubted Ginny would let him. Then there was the problem of Harry's refusal to let anyone besides the professor take the phial of memories from him. That meant the professor would have to go to the Weasleys', and he was just not stable enough to go face all of them. Hermione sighed. They all would have to continue on as they had been until more progress was made.

Hermione was not without hope. As long as Professor Snape talked and worked with Eugene at Garden Cottage, the saner he became. He still had his moments, especially if he were allowed to linger inside his bedroom at the old house. Slowly, his mind was becoming calmer, sharper, and Hermione believed happier at Garden Cottage. But ultimately, Hermione knew that only retrieving the professor's memories from Harry would make him completely well again...at least she hoped. She had no idea about long-term memory survival. Did memories deteriorate on their own over time? She only knew they needed to be preserved in a special way. She didn't want to think about what the fallout would be if the professor were never able to get his memories restored to him.

The fall arrived, and Eugene started his fifth and final year at Grasmere Primary. He would be eleven in March. Soon, much too soon, he would be getting his Hogwarts letter and leave them in only one year. He spent his day hours at school, so now Hermione and the professor had a great deal of time alone together. They began to take daily walks along the fells, and Hermione would listen as he spoke about his life.

It was always the same with them. The professor kept his body close to him; his hands clasped behind his back, deliberately keeping a wide berth between them. It was clear to Hermione that he either truly feared physical contact, or perhaps he didn't know how to handle closeness.

Physical proximity was not the only issue that seemed hard for him to manage. Talking about emotions, especially honest and vulnerable emotions, were almost foreign to him. Hermione recalled all too well from her school days what he had considered to be the accepted forms of communication: sarcasm, rage, browbeating, and just plain old verbal abuse. As long as she steered clear of such touching matters and spoke of intellectual pursuits and ideas, he conversed normally, civilly, and politely. Hermione had wondered during those first walks together when nothing was said between them if he must have been like that when not around his students and amongst his colleagues, just more easy and comfortable.

It didn't matter anyway. He probably would only ever see her as Hermione Granger, the annoying Gryffindor student. Not enough time had passed. Although they both had had major life-altering changes take place within a short period of time, she still looked as fresh and young as when she had been his student merely three years before when she had been in his Defense class.

One afternoon, she had been pleasantly surprised when he initiated a conversation with her out of the blue. She was shocked. Perhaps her silence had made its impression on the dour wizard

"Miss Granger," he said softly. "I never thought I would live to see the day when you could manage to keep that trap of yours shut," he said with only a hint of a bite in his voice.

Hermione lowered her head to hide a smirk from him. "You would be surprised, I think, at many things I am able to do now," she replied smoothly.

He turned his face to her. "Such as?"

She turned to him and smiled. "Well, I don't feel a need to prove myself anymore. After the war, I had felt just so tired, all I wanted peace and solitude to think about what it was I wanted to make out of my life."

He snorted. "Silly girl!" he snapped. "How on earth have you been able to manage? You don't seem all that different to me. You still are collecting strays. First with Potter and Weasley at Hogwarts..."

"...and you, Professor?" she interrupted. "Are you a stray in need of feeding and caring?"

"Cheek!" he bit out angrily. He stopped walking and faced her with the wrathful face she had grown to recognize since she had been a small child.

"I am not a dog, unlike your friend, Black, whom you all took to so well under your wing! If anyone had deserved the least bit of caring, it would have been that son-of-a-bitch," he snarled.

Hermione watched as he slowly turned his eyes from her to the side. She watched, her head cocked, and evaluated him. He was so tightly wound, so rigid, and unyielding. She wondered if he would never forgive her for seeing him at his worst.

"Who had deserved the best, Severus?" she whispered lowly.

His face snapped back towards her, and his eyes narrowed angrily. "Don't," he whispered in warning.

"What, Professor?"

"Don't you pity me," he snarled. "I have taken a great deal from you, you bossy witch! But I refuse to be pitied like some forlorn outcast in the cold!"

"But, Professor," Hermione said boldly, "isn't that what you have always been? Sirius and Professor Lupin had told us the stories. Harry, Ron, and I have heard both sides of it. Sirius would always take the stance of you being mean, vicious, and cruel, but Professor Lupin, well, he had told us a very different side of you."

"Like what?" he asked quietly.

"Oh, that you never really got a fair shake from James and Sirius. Professor Lupin had always spoken of his regret that he hadn't work harder to rein Sirius and James in. He had known you never had a real chance. They had a fixation on you that had bordered on the obsessive."

Snape grunted and continued to walk. Hermione quietly maintained the divide between them.

The time finally came when Severus began to really talk. He had asked her if she would care to join him for another walk, and she had agreed as usual.

They had started out normally, with the divide between them, like a glass wall. It had given Hermione hope, for glass walls could be broken easily, but until then, she could observe him and consider his body language.

"I thought of what you had said," he started abruptly as Hermione knelt to pick some wild flowers she had found.

"What was that?" she asked as she knelt in the midst of the tiny flowers.

He stood a distance away from her. "You are acting like a silly girl," he said but not with enough venom to make his comment believable. "I detest flowers, and here you are fawning over them like they will live forever."

"They are beautiful, Severus," Hermione said as she stood with the flowers she had gathered. "Nothing lasts forever. The war taught me that. So, I take my enjoyment in the here and now."

"I'm sure that's exactly what comes to mind when they begin to wilt. They are useless. Here I thought you were practical," he muttered.

He began to walk away, and Hermione shrugged and started to walk back to the cottage.

"Where are you going?" he barked suddenly.

Hermione whirled around on him and spat, "How dare you speak to me in that tone! I am not your student, and you are not one of my betters. You are a guest in my home, and in my home I happen to enjoy living things. If it offends you, by all means, return to that dilapidated pile of kindling you call a house and remain there. I will not apologize for being myself, nor will I stand on my land and allow you to insult me!"

His face contorted in frustration as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'm not good at these things... I wanted to speak with you after so many times walking out together, and the moment I start, you run off picking flowers!" he said petulantly.

He strode away, and Hermione knew he was returning back to the house on Red Bank Road, the house where he would find Lily once again and descend into madness. Hermione couldn't bear to see it happen to him again, not when he had come so far.

"Professor, stop!" she pleaded as she dropped the flowers and took a couple of steps towards him, ever mindful of keeping her distance. "I'm sorry. I didn't know today was going to be so important to you. Of course, I care to talk with you. All you have to do is tell me and be open and honest..."

He laughed. He laughed like a madman and then composed himself and focused his black eyes onto hers. "I will never be an open and honest man, Hermione. I am an old, vindictive, spiteful wizard that has spent the past twenty years of his life comfortably numb in the area of positive emotions and have clung to every slight against me since birth. I have had to fake happiness when I wanted to cry and feign exuberance when I wanted to retch. I doubt I am capable of producing an honest and open dialogue with anyone."

"That is sad," replied Hermione quietly. "However, I disagree with you. I think that a person capable of great anger and rage proves that he or she can produce the opposite of said feelings, such as, joy, passion, and happiness. I think it will just take time for you to feel comfortable with the idea."

He began to walk again with her, keeping the wall up between them. Hermione supposed he had to think and weigh her words. After a while, he spoke again.

"My parents were complicated people," he said. "My mum never hid the fact she was a witch. She was proud, perhaps too proud, and that caused me to run away whenever my father was home and they would begin to fight. I never knew anything of domesticity, happy families, things such as those."

"Hogwarts was your haven," Hermione mused.

"My haven and my hell," he muttered as the wind blew through his lanky hair.

"I hated my first months at Hogwarts," Hermione offered. "I had no friends. I was smart and worked hard, always had the correct answer, was basically an 'insufferable know-it-all,'" she said while smiling.

They walked on in silence for a long time before coming to a glorious sight of the valley and hills that surrounded them. "I never thought I would ever see this place," the professor said suddenly. "I don't belong here."

"Why ever not?" asked Hermione indignantly as she turned to face him.

He quoted, "Ah, dearest Grasmere!... Its little lakes and mountains were beloved by them all. Romantic yet manageable, it sprang from a kindlier planet."

"Mmm, Forster," Hermione replied.

He stood looking uncomfortable inside his black robes. "It's all so beautiful here. I just don't go along with beautiful things or people," he mumbled as he took in the scenery around him. "I've tried, but with only disappointment to show for it."

Hermione decided to take a chance and shatter that glass wall between them. She slowly sidled up to his side and allowed her side to press against his.

"You can belong wherever you wish, Severus," she whispered as she looked ahead. "I bet no one ever told you that." She turned her face to look at him and found their eyes and lips just inches from each other. He had been looking at her as she had gazed on ahead, talking about his possibilities.

He was looking at her strangely. "No. No one has ever," he whispered as they continued to face each other.

Hermione tried to press her luck. "What of Lily? Didn't she ever tell you that you were good enough to be what you wanted? To be where you wanted? Didn't anyone?"

Hermione could feel the relaxation in his body as the tension left him. His hands released from their closed grasp behind his back. He turned his head straight, closed his eyes, and said softly, "All I wanted was to be with her and where she was. That was all I ever wanted out of life," he admitted.

He turned his head to face her. "My life has been one long day of mourning. I was to have been released from this pain and be where she has been all these years. Now I find myself here, in this strange land, where I should find her, but everywhere I look, she is not there."

Hermione watched his eyes moisten, and she desperately wanted to comfort him. She stood in the silence with him and cautiously spoke tenderly. "Remember, here is manageable, and in it, the creation was kind. You will not be left destitute here," she reminded him as she paraphrased from Forster's quote.

Hermione felt his fingers skim along hers, and the warm contact from him made her heart race and her breath hitch.

There was a long pause before he turned his head back to look at her closely. "Lily isn't coming back for me, is she?" he whispered sadly.

Hermione tightened her hand around his around his, and he urged her soft frame closer to his rigid one. She looked upwards into his eyes more closely. "No, Severus," she whispered. "But you have to face the truth, not just take my word for it. Do you remember that you gave Harry many of your memories in the Shack?"

"No," he said strangely as he pulled his head straight up again. "Lily was there. I saw her eyes. I thought she was coming to take me home with her, but...but she left me," he said sadly.

"That wasn't Lily, Severus," Hermione whispered. "That was Harry."

His expression turned desperate. "But if I still keep believing that she's alive, then I never have to face the loss," he said urgently.

"You would be choosing a reality that is false, and it would rob you of anything good that could come your way," she whispered.

He lowered his head and massaged his temple with one hand. Hermione went to remove her hand from his, and he caught her wrist with his long, white fingers.

"I wish for my memories to be returned to me. Can you arrange that?" he asked softly.

Hermione sighed. Finally, the moment had arrived she was hoping for. "I have already started the process. I'm awaiting for Harry and Ginny to reply," she replied softly.

He loosed her wrist from his hand and clasped them behind his back. He turned his head straight, looking forward once again. "My head is hurting. I wish to be alone," he stated as he refrained from looking at her.

Hermione turned and silently walked back to Garden Cottage and yet couldn't help but glance back every once in a while to see if he was all right.

Hermione felt she had gone through hell trying to get Eugene to become officially her son. The obstacle was plain and simple. Hermione was simply not old enough. British Law states that only a person over the age of twenty-one can adopt or even foster a child. Hermione wouldn't be twenty-one until the next September.

However, Professor Snape could adopt the boy or at least foster him for the next year. It would be considered a medium level care, but he would be theirs. As they lived out the days of Eugene's final year as a Muggle, Hermione tried to figure a way to finally get Harry to communicate with her. She was still not sure if taking the professor to the Burrow would be good for his mental health. Until then, they all had to make the best of things. Hermione and the professor agreed the boy desperately needed a wizarding education. Since he had not been raised to live in the wizarding world, Hermione and Severus worked hard at his magical studies.

Hermione was most relieved when the professor focused on teaching. It kept his mind clear and from wandering into the dark areas that would suck him into a black hole. There were bad days when Hermione would find him begging Lily to come out of the mirror in the spare room and return to him, and then there were dreadful days that Hermione and Eugene both feared, for his temper and anger could be easily triggered. However, the delusional episodes were become less frequent. Hermione helped Severus with his lawn and the care of the outside of the house. Painting needed to be finished before it became cold again. That fall kept them all quite busy. The three of them fell easily into a pattern of life between houses. However, Garden Cottage was becoming more of a home for them all. Severus never said, but Hermione suspected he felt more in control of his mind and less anxious around the cottage.

Each night, Eugene would be kissed and hugged before bed by Hermione while Severus was content to shake the lad's hand, and afterwards, they would sit out on the deck together and watch the night sky. Sometimes Severus would talk, sometimes he wouldn't, just like he would stay overnight and sometimes he wouldn't, but he seemed content with the odd life they had made together. Hermione still felt at times like Wendy with her lost boys. She prayed Harry would come soon. She believed with all her heart that if the professor had those memories back, the delusions would finally leave him completely.

The quote was from E.M. Forster's A Passage to India