Realisation

Disclaimer: She wrote it, she owns it, amen.

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'A Prometheus curse? Are you sure?' Poppy looked from her patient to the Headmaster, brow furrowed. 'I've never dealt with one before. Perhaps St Mungo's...'

'No,' Severus interjected. His voice sounded like it was being scraped over jagged rocks. 'Not necessary. The potion I have been making for...' He stopped and closed his eyes. 'I have a quantity of... Iecur Fortis potion... in my quarters.' He breathed in shallowly. 'It will prevent further injury to the liver and will... repair the damage that's already been done.' He grimaced. 'In time.'

Albus rose. 'Private stores, Severus?'

Severus nodded.

'I'll fetch it myself then. Is there anything you would like to tell me about your wards before I venture upon them?'

Severus smiled slightly. He looked ghastly...his drawn-tight skin had the appearance of old, used, and rather damp parchment, and his eyes were shadowed and sunken.

'You won't have... any difficulties, Albus.' The Headmaster...being the Headmaster...could of course Floo directly to Severus's private quarters. There were a couple of areas in his rooms Severus had warded thoroughly against even Dumbledore, but his private laboratory and stores were not among them.

'I'll return in a few minutes,' said the Headmaster, his hand on the doorknob. He gazed searchingly at Severus for a moment before he left. A plan had already formed in his head. He's not going to like it a bit, he thought. Too bad.

* * *

It was not yet dinnertime, but darkness had fallen, and the diamond-paned windows of the dispensary were opaque with reflected light.

Harry sat in a wooden chair that he'd scraped next to Hermione's, and she sagged sideways against his shoulder, sniffling and clutching Ron's sodden handkerchief. Ron had pulled his chair up in front of Hermione's, and he sat hunched over, crossed arms resting on his knees, peering up at her through his fringe.

Harry and Ron were silent. Three times they had tried to get Hermione to tell them what was going on, and each time she'd responded with renewed sobs. They had given up; she would talk when she would talk.

Hermione was grateful for the space they were giving her to compose herself. She felt a mess: scared (on so many levels) and worried and emotionally exhausted and, now that she seemed to have cried herself out, a little bit embarrassed.

Finally, she pushed herself away from Harry's loose embrace and sat upright, wrapping her arms tightly around her own body. She looked at her friends, smiled wanly, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

'Thanks, you two. Sorry. I think... I really got a shock, is the thing.'

'What happened, Mione?' asked Harry gently.

She sat up straighter and dropped her hands to her lap, where they lay mangling Ron's handkerchief. She lifted her chin in her characteristic, unconscious gesture of fortitude.

'Professor Snape was... tortured. His face is cut up and his leg is broken and there's... there's spell damage. Internally. Professor Dumbledore... he said...or, well, he appears to think...it was probably He Who Must Not Be Named who did it.' There. She'd managed to tell them the relevant parts.

'But why?' Harry asked quickly. 'Did he...did Voldemort find out Snape is really working for Dumbledore?'

Ron cringed and mouthed a protest, but kept silent.

'That was the first thing I asked Professor Dumbledore,' said Hermione. 'He said...' (here come the tears again, damn it) 'he said he thought not. That if that were the case, You Know Who would never, would never, um, never have sent Professor Snape back alive.' She swiped at her wet cheeks.

"Wow," said Ron quietly.

No one spoke for a minute or two.

'What do you reckon, Harry?' said Ron. 'Why would, erm, You Know Who want to torture Snape?'

'Right, because I'm the expert on Voldemort's motives, what with all the time I've spent in his brain,' said Harry in a flat voice.

Hermione broke in hastily. 'Oh, Harry! Ron didn't mean that, I'm sure!'

'S'okay, I'm not actually all that offended,' said Harry with a tiny and unconvincing smile. 'I have spent some time sort of connected to him when he was doing awful stuff. And I can say that he, just, he likes to do awful stuff. To hurt people and frighten them, sometimes for no real reason you could name. He is evil, you know. And crazy.'

'Professor Dumbledore said something like that,' said Hermione. 'He was looking d-down at Professor Snape, and he said that...You Know Who...would do this sort of thing to one of his own, without provocation. He also said, oh...' Hermione's lip began to tremble. 'He said Professor Snape was brave and, and skilled, and that we are lucky to have him on our side, and that he trusts him completely and always will, no matter... no matter what happens.'

This time the tears came with a few quiet sobs, and Harry wrapped an arm around Hermione and pulled her in to his side again.

After a minute or so, Ron said slowly, "But Hermione. Why are you so, um, upset? He's fine, yeah? Safe now. And it's not like he's, I dunno...'

'If you say something nasty about Professor Snape right now, I will kill you, Ronald Weasley,' Hermione all but screeched, jolting upright. 'Do you hear me? You will be dead by my hand.' As soon as the words were out, she clapped her hand over her mouth and stared at Ron, horrified. 'Sorry! Oh, sorry, Ron!' Then she burst into tears yet again.

Ron's face had gone quite red. 'I wasn't going to say anything nasty, I swear,' he protested. 'It's just...Snape, he's got to know what he's in for, doing what he does. Working for an evil lunatic and everything...pretending! I mean pretending to work for an evil lunatic,' he amended quickly as Hermione's expression hardened through her tears.

She was really on an emotional rollercoaster, caroming between anger and tears every few seconds, it seemed. And underneath it all was an oceanic feeling she was reluctant to give a name to.

'Maybe,' she said finally and sighed. 'But you didn't see him, Ron. He looks so... broken. If that's what he signed up for, I just, I can't wrap my mind around it. It is sick, and horrible.' She fell silent, remembering something else the Headmaster had said, about dark times, and heartbreak, and the horrifying necessities of war.

Hermione closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She was really ready to stop crying...she was doing no one any good by carrying on like this. Exhaling and opening her eyes, she looked in turn at Harry and Ron and smiled her good, resolute Hermione Granger smile.

'It's getting late, isn't it? Let's go to dinner,' she said firmly, rising from her chair and holding her hand out to Ron.

'Oh, thank Merlin,' groaned Ron, seizing her hand and leaping up. 'I am one hundred per cent in favour of that. Starving!'

Harry, too, got out of his chair and trailed after his friends. He hadn't heard anything too surprising in Hermione's account of Snape's condition and Dumbledore's remarks, but the incident weighed on him. He had, as usual, a lot of questions he wasn't sure Dumbledore would answer, even in his new, more confiding persona. Still, he'd have to ask them the next time he saw the Headmaster.

As the three of them passed the door to Snape's room, Dumbledore opened it and stepped out.

'Miss Granger, Mr Weasley, Mr Potter. I'm so glad I caught you all.' Dumbledore smiled fleetingly. He looked very tired. 'I trust you are on your way to the Great Hall? Excellent. I shall walk with you for a moment. Harry, Ron, when you reach the Great Hall, would you do me the favour of asking Professors McGonagall and Slughorn to come up here as soon after dinner as convenient?'

Harry nodded. 'Yes, Professor Dumbledore,' said Ron.

'Thank you both. And Miss Granger, if you would be so kind as to join me in my office this evening at eight? I'd be most grateful.'

'Oh. Of... of course, sir.'

Dumbledore had stopped in front of the hospital wing's fireplace. 'Very good. I shall see you then. I hope you are partial to humbugs.'

He looked at each of them in turn as he spoke his next words. 'It is important that none of you speak to anyone else about what you've seen and heard here today. The situation is very sensitive. Do you understand?'

Their mumbled yessirs and solemn nods seemed to satisfy him. He grabbed some Floo powder in his good hand, flung it into the fire, and disappeared among the green flames.

'What do you guess he wants you for?' wondered Harry.

'I have no idea,' Hermione said simply. 'But do you know, I think I had really better go for a run rather than go to dinner. Could you save me something? I'll drop in to the common room before I go to Dumbledore's.'

'I don't know how you can do it in the dark and the cold. Doesn't your sweat freeze in your clothes?' Ron picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of Hermione's jumper.

Hermione rolled her eyes and pushed his hand away. 'Ugh, Ron, thanks for taking the conversation to that level. It's certainly not as cold as Quidditch in the snow, which you play all the time. And I'm not going to talk to you about my sweat.' But she felt a little better. Ron being Ron was something she could handle.

She turned at the next landing and disappeared up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower.

'That girl? Is moody,' remarked Ron.

'Yeah, she really is. I haven't seen her that upset in...I don't know how long. I mean, she cries sometimes, but she gets over it. That was just...'

'An epic snot-fest,' Ron supplied. 'Your robes got slimed, my friend.' He pointed.

Harry grinned and shook his head as he Scourgified the front and sleeves of his robes, which were indeed starting to crust over in places. 'And again, raising the conversational tone, Ron.'

'S'my job, mate. I do it well,' said Ron serenely as they entered the Great Hall.

The ghost of a grin lingered on Harry's face, but his thoughts were troubled. Something was going on with Hermione. Something she wasn't sharing. Something big.

* * *

The run helped. At least now Hermione didn't feel like she was going to break down into tears if someone looked at her oddly.

Food couldn't hurt. She didn't feel hungry, but she ate. The boys had brought her roast chicken and potatoes. Abstractedly, mechanically, she chewed and swallowed her way through half of the food on her plate, then pushed it away.

She couldn't stay in the common room. Her fellow Gryffindors were irritating her by their mere presence. By seven-thirty she was en route to Dumbledore's office. There was a little-used staircase in that part of the castle, one of whose landings had a deep-set double window overlooking the central courtyard. She sometimes sat on the window ledge when she wanted to read without interruption; with any luck it would be unoccupied tonight, and she could have a few minutes to herself.

It was. Hermione hoisted herself up on the wide stone ledge, noting with distaste that someone had left a little pile of cigarette ash on the floor under the window. Filthy habit.

Her mind was in a terrible tangle.

She had taught herself, over the years, to parse emotional states...her own and others'. She noticed things about other people; she was sympathetic, compassionate, loyal: she knew these attributes helped make her a good friend. And she tried to pay attention to and understand her own feelings. But this was just too much...too many strong feelings all at once and, worse, nowhere for them to go.

Hermione remembered something Ron had said last year when she had tried to explain to him and Harry what was going through Cho Chang's mind...he'd said that a person couldn't possibly have so many feelings at one time without exploding. She had teased him at the time, but it didn't seem very funny now.

Maybe if she could identify her feelings she could start to sort through them. She circled two fingers over the icy condensation on one of the windowpanes and stared unseeing at the darkness outside.

She had been seized with terror and dread as she raced from Hagrid's hut to the hospital wing. Just remembering it made her pulse jump and her stomach clench. When she saw Professor Snape was still alive, she had felt almost sick with relief.

Then things started to get complicated. In his infirmary room she had felt horror and anger at what had been done to him...and appalled disbelief that this was apparently his lot in the struggle against He Who Must Not Be Named. He was to do... whatever it was that spies had to do: learn secrets without giving any away, she supposed... while enacting absolute loyalty to a maniac who liked to half-murder him.

And then, when Professor Dumbledore had laid his hand on Snape's head and affirmed his trust in him, she'd been nearly undone by another wave of emotion. There was tenderness and fierce protectiveness and a yearning to hold Snape in her arms and somehow mend his hurts. A desire to defend and champion him, telling the world how brave he was and how clever.

But there was the rub: the world could not know what he was. Subterfuge was his shield and weapon...layers and layers of subterfuge.

And no one could know how she felt about him, either: not her friends and not him...certainly not him. She knew now, though. The knowledge was terrifying.

It was no wonder she felt insane and no wonder she had unleashed a tsunami of tears on Harry and Ron in the dispensary. They had caught her just a few moments after she'd realised...that she was in love with Snape. All her rationalising, all the distance she had tried to put between her heart and her libido...it was useless. She loved him. And she could say and do nothing about it.

Hermione screwed her eyes tight shut and banged the back of her head against the stone wall behind her. Damnation and bloody hell...just... ugh. Hell. This couldn't end well... could it?

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A/N: Huge thanks to ladyinthecloak for betaing this chapter for me, to lifeasanamazon for Brit picking and support, and to greenstuff for cheering me on. Glomps, ladies: big squashy hugs.