Discontent

Disclaimer: Still hers!

* * * * * * *

'How was your date?' He sneered down at his worktable, not pausing in his chopping.

She dropped her bag and perched on a stool across from him.

'Lovely! Marvellous!' she said. 'Seamus and I are planning an August wedding.'

Thwock! Thwock! went his knife. He felt his shoulders creep up towards his ears. Not. Amusing.

'Oh, Severus, how do you think it was? It was horribly uncomfortable. You were right: I shouldn't have kept the appointment. I ended up being cruel when I'd hoped to be gentle.'

Good, he thought.

The iris corm on his table was now mangled and unusable. He scraped it into a bowl and laid down his knife and finally looked at her.

'No surprise then.'

She looked away.

He cleared his throat and changed the subject. 'Did you find a ring?'

'I did. At Porphyry and Smythe. I'd never been in there before.' She reached into her pocket and produced a silver ring with a large hinged bezel set with a moonstone. 'Will this do?'

He took it from her and flicked open the bezel to reveal the tiny chamber beneath. 'Yes. Silver and moonstone are good. A very... preservative combination. Very neutral.' He scanned it with his wand. 'It's clean.'

'I know,' she said softly.

He reached for her right hand and slid the ring over her third finger.

'Come into the sitting room,' he said. 'Let's get started.'

* * *

Between Hogsmeade and the school gates, the road crossed a meadow full of yellow-flowering broom studded with purple thistle. The air throbbed with birdsong and the buzzing of bees.

Lavender glimpsed a flash of bright hair around a bend in the road and her heart leapt. She sped up a little. When the road straightened out, though, she saw: It's just Ginny. She felt angry at herself, and she felt like crying.

When will this stop hurting so much?

She slowed, letting Parvati, Padma, Seamus, and Neville catch her up.

Seamus was glum. 'I don't know why she came to Madam Puddifoot's at all. She wouldn't even stay the hour.'

'Well, she came because you asked her, didn't she?' Neville said.

'But if she's so busy she can't even think about dating anyone, she could have just told me so at the castle and spared herself the trip.'

'Ha!' She couldn't help it. How blind could everyone be?

'"Ha," what?' Seamus asked.

'You're not her type.'

'Oh, right, Lavender,' he said. 'Hermione's already dating someone and nobody knows it but you. In fact, she probably doesn't even know it herself.'

'It's McLaggen,' Padma chimed in. 'She just doesn't have the heart to tell anyone because he's so horrible.'

Seamus said, 'But that's not the worst of it. You see, she's dating McLaggen but she's actually in love with Blaise Zabini.'

Padma pounced. 'Oh, no, no, it's worse than that. She's pining for Zabini and Malfoy. But sadly they only have eyes for each other.'

Neville said something very quietly, his face reddening.

But Padma heard, and she screamed with laughter. 'He said "Pansy Parkinson"! Neville, you dirty-minded little boy.'

Seamus whistled, eyes wide. 'Now that... that I could respect. I'd gladly stand aside for that. If they'd let me watch sometimes, you know.'

'Fine,' said Lavender. 'Laugh. You wouldn't laugh if you knew what I do.'

Parvati, silent until now, raised an eyebrow. 'Well, so tell us. I can't understand why you won't just tell us.'

Lavender felt her face grow hot. Gods, how she longed to knock that prissy cow off the pedestal that Seamus had her on. That Ron had her on.

But she couldn't bring herself to blurt it out. She was terrified of Professor Snape. There was no telling what he'd do to her if she crossed him like that.

'I know what I know,' she said airily. 'Watch her and draw your own conclusions.'

* * *

They sat facing each other, knee to knee.

'Comfortable?'

She nodded.

'Good. This will take a while. It will be best if we do it in one go, but if you need to stop, close your eyes and we'll take a short rest.'

'Okay.'

He rested his forehead against hers while he spoke the incantation. Then he breathed to ready himself, and plunged in.

But it was he who had to stop, not long after they'd started. He'd not made his walls strong enough, and the flood of her feelings...passion and devotion, but also the painful loneliness of a secret life...wrecked his concentration. He closed his eyes.

Locking down was... difficult. As though his feelings no longer fitted into their proper place. This is getting harder to do... a problem... for later... FOCUS. He felt himself lift up into the cold light of intellect, free of the dark muddle of emotion.

He opened his eyes and ranged again through her mind with the dispassionate precision of a surgeon, sifting, sorting, taking up some pathways and leaving others. There were a few surprises...a map... ah, that's how they do it...and these he filed away neatly.

A shadow clung to some of her thoughts and memories of him, subtly distorting them. He knew that shadow and, when he had gleaned everything else, he moved towards it, seeking out her dreams.

Now she stopped him, closing her eyes and whispering, 'Not there, please, do you have to go there?'

'Yes,' he said. 'Dreams are part of the whole, and sometimes the most important part.'

She shuddered. 'They are awful dreams.'

'I'll go quickly,' he growled, impatient, strained with the effort it took to hold in his head what he had already collected.

Still she averted her eyes. 'There's... I just... oh, bother.' She looked at him pleadingly. 'I don't want you to think I'm weak and cowardly. They're just dreams, and if I seem weak in them, well... they're just dreams,' she finished lamely.

'Yes. May I?'

She settled back and gazed into his eyes.

The dreams started as searching dreams and ended in terror. Little licks of dread would build as she tried to find him. Sometimes she was in the castle, lost in a maze of corridors. And sometimes she was in the woods, embayed in a tiny clearing, the surrounding trees webbed with menace. Sometimes she was struggling on the surface of a dark lake, dragged down by her clothes and... other things.

She called for him. She searched and searched and could never find him in time, never save him.

Malignant shadows crossed the sky and leaked from doorways. Harry was dying, Ron was screaming in pain, Severus was covered with blood, her parents were dead, Dumbledore was dead. She was alone, exposed, seconds and inches from the horror that was always coming...

Enough. He broke the contact. He didn't have to see every single one. He just needed to locate the pathways so that the potion could reach and deaden them root, stem, and leaf.

Touching his wand to his own head, he drew out a twisting rope of silver mist and dropped it in a bottle. He stoppered the bottle, then moved to the sofa to collect her where she lay slumped sideways and weeping.

Heart still shuttered, he knew rather than felt that he should hold her. It would take him a little while to return from the cold place.

She sat in silence for some time after her sobs subsided, her head on his shoulder. Fat tears still dropped off the end of her nose and chin and splashed onto his waistcoat and their joined hands.

'That was overwhelming,' she finally said.

'Yes.'

'You saw the map.'

'I did.'

'It's... I can explain...'

'Later,' he growled. 'Not now.'

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'Did you... was that enough?'

'It was.' He glanced at the stoppered bottle, which lay on the coffee table. 'The potion should be ready by tomorrow. The base is already started.' He nodded towards the door of his laboratory. 'In fact,' and he made rather a show of looking at his watch, 'I shall need to get back to it in about ten minutes. Do you need some tea?'

She shrank into herself. 'No, thank you. No tea. I'll just, if I could... um... stay here until I've collected myself?'

He hesitated. Really, she needed to leave, both peaceably and soon. On one hand, he couldn't eject her if she was going to wander distraught through the corridors. On the other, if she was still here when his feelings returned from exile, he might not be able to answer for the outcome. They would not be gentle feelings. Not after what he'd seen.

He forced himself to kiss her forehead. 'Hermione. I am a bit undone by that effort. It will be some time before I am... myself. Time alone in my laboratory is what I need now, rather urgently. May I say I will meet you at midnight, in the usual way?'

It worked. 'Oh, Severus, of course. Are you... will you be all right?' She caressed his cheek, wide-eyed with concern for him.

'Yes, quite all right,' he ground out. Go. And he kissed her hand. 'Midnight, then?'

'Midnight,' she said, chin up.

And off she went, to lie to her friends and eat her heart away with loneliness and fear. The door had barely clicked shut behind her before he began to work out his feelings quite vigorously against the sitting room furniture.

* * *

Even before his door shut behind her, Hermione had decided she'd go for a long run.

By the time she returned to the castle, she had mastered her upset at being ejected from Severus's rooms. If he needed time and space, she could certainly let him have it. And for her own part, it was probably better to be out in the sunshine and fresh air than huddling up on his sofa while he worked in the other room.

Worrying is not planning, he'd told her. This afternoon's tour of her dreams showed she'd been worrying more than she'd thought she had. Worrying about what would happen after Severus did... that thing he had to do. Where would he go? How could she see him, and where, and when? They had not really spoken about these things in detail, and clearly, she needed to. Maybe tomorrow...

She spent a bit more time than usual on her hair after she showered, trying to bolster her spirits. Just before dinner, she sent him a message: Better now. You? He returned, Quite well, and then after one or two seconds, Thank you.

'Ready to go down to dinner?' she asked her roommates, brightly.

'I am,' said Parvati, pushing back from her desk. 'Lav?'

Lavender looked up from the parchment she was writing on. 'In a minute. Go ahead, I'll follow you.'

'So, Hermione,' said Parvati as they descended the stairs towards the common room. 'Lavender has this idea that you are secretly seeing someone, but she won't tell us who it is. Are you?'

Thank Merlin Parvati was a little in front of her, because there was no way Hermione could completely hide her shock.

'Huh,' she said, hoping she sounded normal. 'Lavender has some odd ideas sometimes...especially about people's love lives. I mean, remember how she was so sure Susan Bones was gay, just because Susan touched her hair once?'

Parvati snorted. 'That was classic Lavender. But you didn't answer my question.' She turned at the foot of the stairs and looked up at Hermione. 'Are you secretly going out with someone or aren't you?'

'Well... no. Of course I'm not.' She paused, praying her heart would stop racing so fast. 'I think, um, well... I know Lavender's your good friend, Parvati, and I don't want to speak ill of her. But... I think she doesn't like me and saying, um, things like that is her way of showing it. I don't really understand it, but I can't think of any other explanation.'

'I think you're right about that. Though if you claim not to understand why she doesn't like you...' Parvati shrugged. 'You know she's completely shattered about Ron, don't you?'

'I, um, yes, I know. But what's that to do with me? I didn't make Ron break up with her.'

Parvati stared. 'You're kidding, aren't you? You don't think it hurts her to see Ron mooning over you while you toy with Seamus?'

'While I what? Nobody's mooning! Nobody's toying! Ron is my friend! Seamus is my friend, and, and, and if he wanted more, well, we sorted that out this afternoon. I told him...that is, we agreed we'd just be friends, and Ron and I have never been more than, than friends...' She stopped talking, dismayed by the scornful, knowing look on Parvati's face.

'Hermione, don't think we're all fools just because we aren't as clever as you.' Then Parvati gasped, as if a thought had just hit her. 'Oh my gods! It's Ron, isn't it? You and Ron got together and you're keeping it secret! But why?'

'No! Parvati, I...'

'Shhh, she's coming!' Parvati looked up the stairs. The sound of a slammed door was reverberating. 'She's going to find out! Just stop pretending,' she hissed.

Lavender came round the bend in the tower stairs and stopped, looking sullenly down at her two roommates. 'Still here? Well, let's go, then.' And she pushed between them and into the common room passageway. Parvati followed and Hermione took up the rear, scarlet-faced and upset.

Could things possibly get any more complicated and miserable? Then she couldn't believe she'd asked herself the question. Of course they could. This business with Lavender and her grudges was nothing in comparison to what was to come. A living nightmare.

Hermione stood straighter and pinned a small smile on her face as she entered the Great Hall. She'd show him that she really was just fine, that the afternoon's distress had passed. There he was, at the staff table, talking to Professor Vector; she couldn't tell if he'd seen her little show. She took a seat at the Gryffindor table. Straight spine, small smile. Just fine.

'You okay, Mione?' asked Ron quietly, leaning in to her a little.

She started, then turned the little smile on him. 'Oh yes. Just fine.' But the concern in his eyes made her heart throb almost painfully in her chest. Gods. Lying to Ron. I hate this. 'Well, no. I'm... I'm having rather a rough day, all things considered.'

'Oh.' He swallowed. 'Anything I can do?'

'No. But thank you for asking.' My heart is just breaking, that's all. 'Ron.' It came out sounding choked. She tried again. 'Ron. You will always be my friend, won't you? No matter what happens?' And she seized his hand under the table. 'No matter what?' I cannot, cannot lose my friends. I couldn't bear it.

Now he looked really worried. 'Of course, Hermione. What...?' He stopped. 'Of course I will.' And he transferred her hand to his other hand so he could put his arm around her shoulders and pull her close. 'We're going to be all right, Hermione,' he whispered into her hair. 'We can do this together, you and me and Harry. And the Order. And Dumbledore. We're going to win.'

She nearly gave out entirely at the Headmaster's name...nearly started wailing right there at the crowded Gryffindor table. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed her despair, and let herself clutch his hand and curl for a moment into his side, so strong and warm. Dear Ron. How she loved him and Harry. It will be all right. It will; we'll make it through together. Somehow.

She pulled away from him and smiled up into his face...still a small smile, but a real one this time. 'Thanks, Ron. I needed that. What would I do without you?'

He blushed and muttered, 'I dunno.' And then, almost unintelligibly, 'Don't find out.' He ducked his head and started shoveling food into his mouth.

Buoyed, Hermione picked up her own fork. But within minutes she felt the tendrils of despair snaking back in to her mind. Nothing was solved. In fact, the problem felt even more starkly defined. She could not do without her friends, and would never abandon them. She could not do without Severus, either, and would never abandon him. They might learn of her relationship with him, but could never be told the whole truth. She'd always be in some lonely, uncomfortable place in the middle.

She dropped her fork.

Unless...

'Well, Hermione? Do you?'

Lavender was leaning across the table, pink-faced and insistent.

'I beg your pardon?'

'I said, do you know what "chemistry" is? It's a Muggle thing, isn't it?'

What the... ? She blinked. 'Um, well, yes. It's the Muggle science of understanding how the elements of the physical world interact. It's kind of, mm, I guess alchemy is the closest magical equivalent. Or potions would be like applied chemistry.'

Lavender smiled. 'I thought so. Thanks!' And she settled back into her place and lifted some salad onto her plate.

'Um, sure,' said Hermione, unheeding, already back in her own thoughts. It was a long shot, and probably just a bad idea all around. And Severus might not...probably would not...agree to it. But she'd ask. She had to ask.

* * *

'No, you're wrong. It's never Ron!' Seamus felt lightheaded. It couldn't be.

'Why are you so sure?' Parvati asked. 'It fits, doesn't it? She and Ron and Harry have always had this weird triangle-shaped relationship, but now Harry's with Ginny, I think Hermione and Ron have started something. I mean, if you'd seen her face when I asked her about it... And then tonight they were practically cuddling at the dinner table. I thought Lavender was going to climb across the table and stab them with her butter knife.'

'What? I didn't see anything.' Now he felt as if he'd been punched in the gut.

'You were sitting too far away. It was quite a display. Maybe Hermione decided to take my advice and just come out in public with it. I mean, that's the part I can't understand...why keep it secret? But maybe it's just been too new. You know how that is...in the very beginning you want to keep it to yourself.'

Seamus didn't know how 'that' was. He wanted to, but tonight he felt farther from 'that' than ever before. Every feeling he was feeling was a bad one. Except the anger. The anger didn't feel bad...just strong.

* * *

'Aughhh! Whadt... gah, Seamus! Why'd you do dadt?' Blood trickled out between the fingers Ron was holding to his nose.

'That was for being a sneaky, lying git and for laughing at me behind me back.'

'Seamus...'

Seamus punched him again, this time in the gut.

Ron staggered back, one hand still on his nose, one clutching his stomach.

'That was for being a right shit to Lavender. She loves you and she don't deserve it.'

'Lavedder? Whadt are you dalking aboudt?' Ron wheezed.

'You can stop pretending. Parvati told me. Secret's out.' Seamus looked at his roommate in disgust. 'You're bleedin' all over the place. You'll want to have your girlfriend take a look at that.' And he turned on his heel and stalked off.

* * *

'I am not seeing Hermione! You're all barking mad!'

Parvati shrugged. 'I'm sorry if I misunderstood the situation, but you were certainly cosy at dinner, and the way Lavender was talking...'

'What did that...what did she say? She said I'm with Hermione now? Well, she's mental, is all. Hermione is my friend, and Lavender's never been able to deal with that, and now she's got Seamus running around punching me in the face.' Ron gestured at his swollen nose. 'You tell that lunatic featherheaded bint...no, never mind; I'll tell her myself. Where is she?'

Parvati looked at him warily. 'Um. Library, I think? Or... yeah, library, she said.'

'Thanks,' he muttered.

She waited until he was through the portrait hole before bolting up the stairs to the dormitory.

Lavender was lying on her bed reading Witch Weekly. Hermione was, thankfully, actually in the library.

'Um. Lavender,' Parvati began. 'Ugh. Don't hate me, please. But... I told Seamus that Ron and Hermione are together, and then Seamus went and punched Ron, and now he's looking for you and he's really angry.'

Lavender sat up. 'Seamus is looking for me?'

'No, no, Ron is. He said... well, he said some really mean things about you and charged off to find you, just now...I sent him to the library because I wanted to tell you what had happened.'

'Wait. Did you say you told Seamus that Hermione's with Ron? Why'd you do that? And...what things did he say about me?' Lavender was on her feet.

'I told Seamus because I thought he should know. They're treating him really shabbily...god, she went through the whole charade of going to Puddifoot's with Seamus and a few hours later she's practically sitting in Ron's lap at the dinner table. Horrible, really, and why? Why would they? It's not like he wasn't going to find out.'

'Parvati! She's not with Ron! She's with...oh damn it, never mind. She's not with Ron, he's just,' Lavender gulped, 'he's just in love with her and hanging around and thinking she'll be his girlfriend, and she's using him and stringing him along or maybe she really doesn't know how he feels about her but it hurts me to see him wanting her when if he only knew... But what did he say about me?'

'It's not Ron? Who, then, Lavender? Who? Just tell me, for Merlin's sake!'

'PARVATI WHAT DID HE SAY ABOUT ME?'

Parvati tried to put her off. 'Lavender, he was angry...Seamus had just punched him. I'm sure he didn't mean it.'

'Doesn't matter. What? Tell me. I'll know if you're lying. I'll know, so don't.'

'Well, he said...' Parvati looked away. 'He said you were, um, mental.'

'What else?'

Parvati shook her head.

'I know that's not all,' Lavender said.

Parvati sighed. 'Lav. You're too good for him.'

Lavender reached for her wand.

'Okay! God! He said you were a lunatic featherheaded bint. Happy now? Did you really need to hear that?'

Lavender's knuckles whitened on her wand.

'Maybe I did,' she said after a minute. 'But we'll see who's the featherhead. And who's the bloody bint.'

* * *

He was waiting for her at the head of the stairs.

'I've been looking for you.'

'I heard.'

He took two steps towards her. 'I waited for you here because I knew that Parvati was lying when she said you were in the library.'

He opened a small door and gestured her inside the broom cupboard. It was a broom cupboard they used to use when they needed to go farther than they could go in the common room. Her heart hammered.

But he was not interested in that, of course. His beautiful blue eyes were cold in the wandlight, and he was extra careful not to touch her. She felt she could choke on the grief that filled her chest. She made her own expression hard.

'Why are you spreading stories about me and Hermione?'

'I'm not. Nothing could be farther from the truth.'

'So how do you explain this?' He pointed to his nose. 'Seamus has a hair up his arse about how I'm going out with Hermione, and apparently it's your fault.'

'My fault,' she sniffed. 'You bring me here to tell me how things are my fault? Parvati misunderstood something I said, and gossiped about it; Seamus blew a fuse and punched your fat face; all because of her dishonesty and your stupidity, not anything to do with me.'

He was looking at her so hatefully. This is not fair, not fair, not fair! Why wasn't that bitch Hermione suffering even a tenth as much as she was? Whoring around with that...ugh!

'You think she's so wonderful and smart and perfect and that she's your best friend but she's not! She's using your love and she's, she's fucking someone else and she doesn't even care enough about you to tell you. She's not your friend. She's a freak, a sneaking freak.'

Ron's face was no longer red...it was white with anger. 'Glanced in a mirror lately, Lav? You might want to, to learn what a freak looks like.'

'You ask her,' she screeched. 'You just ask her who she's having sex with whenever she can manage it!'

'I won't,' he said grimly. 'I'm not going to say anything to her. You are mental, and you don't have anything to say that's worth hearing, much less spreading around. You need help. And you need to get over... us, Lavender. You and me...it was a mistake. Just a really bad mistake.'

The door slammed behind him, and she was alone in the dark. Alone in the cupboard where she'd made him moan; where he'd shouted her name and covered her face and her breasts and thighs with hungry kisses, and grateful kisses. All, apparently, a mistake.

Well, she wasn't just going to sit here and cry and take it anymore. It was time for someone else to feel some pain for a change.

* * *

'Miss Brown,' said the Headmaster, lifting his brows in surprise. 'To what do I owe the pleasure at' he glanced at a clock whose hands insisted it was four-twenty 'nine-thirty on a Saturday night? I hope...' He peered at her rather sharply, and arose from his chair. 'Do sit down, my dear. Tell me what is wrong.'

Lavender couldn't believe she was actually here. It was as though she'd woken up from a trance and found herself in Dumbledore's office. And now he was sitting beside her, gazing at her keenly and waiting for her to talk.

This... this must be the right thing to do. It's wrong what those two are doing; it needs to stop; Dumbledore needs to know; what if Snape does this sort of thing all the time? The idea...a new one...gave her courage. She gulped and said, very low, 'I'm afraid, sir. I'm afraid of what will happen if I tell you. Will you... will you protect me?'

The old man seemed to be listening with his very hair, so intent was he. 'Of course, Miss Brown. I will protect you to the limits of my ability. Tell me. What is it?'

* * * * * * * * *

A/N: O.o