In The Mind To Suffer

...In the Mind to Suffer

Chapter 3 – Part 2

Severus Snape sat in his elaborate rose garden and breathed. He concentrated on the oxygen going into his lungs and rushing back out. He focused on the smell of the petals wafting through the air. He pondered the feel of the breeze on his cheek.

This was his hideaway, a place where he could relax, find solace and above all – it was a place about which nobody knew. If it were ever learned that Severus Snape needed and enjoyed his rose garden... he shuddered.

But everyone needed their own hideaway, their own private spot for relaxation and contemplation. He especially needed it nowadays.

It had not been a good year.

Not that, reflected Severus, many of the years which made up the sum total of his nearly forty, had been particularly good. He brushed off his thoughts of the past. Severus was not a man who enjoyed dwelling on past things.

He only liked to think of Lily.

It was both a treat and a punishment: the one he could not resist; the other he knew he deserved.

The year had been very quiet for Severus, and intentionally so. He ignored the owls from the Ministry, refusing to accept his status in society as war hero. He did not want accolades or parades; he certainly did not want to travel merrily along with the Golden Trio (just the thought of that ridiculous title produced a satisfying smirk), proclaiming the gospel of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

No, he had got his legal affairs taken care of as tidily as possible and had packed himself off to the hills of Ireland. There, he had started a small business as a private Potioneer, his credentials as one of the few Potions Masters in the western world enabling him to specialize only in the more complex, difficult, and therefore rare, potions, and to have few clients.

The rest of his time he spent reading, walking the hills and thinking.

He wasn't sure when it had happened; he rather thought it had been about three months after his short, though no less distasteful, conversation with Miss Granger. He had been in the midst of an extra counter-clockwise stir in the Wolfsbane when he realised he was stressed. He couldn't think why. Wolfsbane was a complicated Potion, but not so complicated he couldn't do it in his sleep. He was not overworked. He had nothing pressing.

Six months later, he thought about going to a Healer, but decided against it. He chose instead to rely on Occlumency until such time as greater need presented itself. Until then, he would resort to a nightcap before bed and, not being a stranger to pain or discomfort, would muscle through that which he could not ignore.

Another three months had brought him to today. There were potions he needed to begin, but the night before he had not been able to block the anxiety and stress; consequently, it had kept him up all night, in spite of the nightcap. Therefore, he sought refuge in his rose garden, breathing their soothing properties and resolvedly emptying his mind, blocking the strain and tension which sought to beleaguer him.

"I'll be damned," he muttered, eyes closed, "if, after everything... I'm to be brought down by a girl."

"You... prick," said an astonished, disgusted voice. For one insane moment, Severus thought it was Lily's voice. Its oddly sweet and melodious tones at odds with the words it pronounced was quite typical of Lily, especially when she was talking to him. He whipped his head around, seven thousand emotions warring in him for primacy, as his orbs detected... Hermione Granger... who was standing behind the iron gate.

She whipped open the gate so that it bounced off the brick wall behind her and marched towards him.

"How dare you come here?!" Severus shouted, enraged at her intrusion into his sanctum. He rose wrathfully and stormed to meet her in the middle of his normally peaceful garden.

"No! You don't get to talk," Hermione said in a low voice, shaking her finger in his face. "First of all," she said, shaking, "I'm not a girl... anymore. I'll remind you," she blinked back a few tears, "I'm a war hero, just like yourself, who just so happened to save your bloody war-hero life."

Severus, though still intensely angry, blanched.

Hermione backed away, lowering her finger. "Yes... and... and... and... I'm a woman," she finished somewhat anti-climactically, turned on her heel and left.

Severus sat down again, attempting to calm himself. "Nicely handled," he muttered, smoothing his robes.

Suddenly, a jolt shot through his brain, then through his body. He must find her. And he must apologise.

"Damn."

0o0o0o0

He had searched every pub, inn, and bed and breakfast in Doolin. Granted, there were precisely two pubs, one inn and one bed and breakfast in Doolin of the wizarding kind. He sighed, exiting the last pub, bitterly wondering what in Merlin's name he was supposed to do next. He frankly resented the fact he was chasing after a girl – no, he thought resignedly, a woman - with whom he candidly did not wish to associate. However, he was compelled to apologise.

"Ah-ha," he said, stopping in his tracks, "of the wizarding kind..."

0o0o0o0

The next day, he entered the second Muggle bed and breakfast on his list – Dubhlinn House. Approaching the front desk, Severus said, "Pardon me. I am looking for a young woman. A Miss Hermione Granger." He hardly knew what to do with his hands. What was one meant to do with them, in Muggle clothes, anyway? He missed his voluminous robe. Finally, he settled for folding his arms and raising his chin, looking down at the clerk from under his eyelids.

"Is that her, sir?"

He turned round and saw Miss Granger, poised on the middle of the stair, bags in hand, looking as though she were thinking about going back up. Finally, she pursed her lips and exhaled grimly. Coming purposefully down the stairs, she said, "Wait one moment," as she passed him, then seemed to negotiate the minutiae of her departure with the clerk.

He stood by the stair and waited, stiff as a ramrod.

A few minutes later, Miss Granger turned round, looked him in the face and said, "Well. Let us talk then, shall we?" With that, she led the way out of the door.

He followed her at a sedate pace to a picnic table across the small, provincial road from Gus O'Connor's pub.

After Miss Granger had positioned her bags by the table, and settled down, she folded her hands and sighed, looking past Severus to the massive incline of land behind him. Severus sat sideways at the end of the bench, spine straight, as always one arm on the table, palm flat, as he turned his head slightly to examine the Muggles who milled in and out of the pub.

It was a damnably uncomfortable situation.

"Miss Granger..."

"Before you say anything," she interjected, "I must apologise. I completely lost my temper yesterday. I'm really not certain what came over me."

"You are a Gryffindor," Severus said helpfully.

Miss Granger bit back a laugh.

"Yes, well... I just wanted... to apologise."

"If you have quite finished," Severus said smoothly, "I also..." He became uncomfortable again. "I also must... beg your pardon. If nothing else, I do owe you my life – I ought to have exhibited a greater degree of respect than I did," he finished stiffly.

There was an uncomfortable pause. Finally, Severus said in a half-exasperated, half-amused tone, "I suppose we should discuss why you have come to Ireland, presumably simply to find me."

Now she looked uncomfortable.

0o0o0o0

Hermione was frustrated. It was just like Snape to ask such an abrupt, jarring question without giving her any time to think or to regroup.

"I... well... I think I've been having symptoms."

"Symptoms?" Snape repeated, frowning.

Hermione told him all about her year. When she finished, he murmured, his brows knit together fiercely, "Yes... Very similar..."

"Similar to what?"

"To some... ah, 'symptoms' of my own. To a much greater degree, however."

Hermione put her head in her hands. "What are we going to do, sir?"

"I shall be fine," Snape said stiffly. "However, I do practise Occlumency." He paused, swallowed as though he were choking down a hairball and said, "How have you been?"

She didn't want to tell him. She didn't want to let him know how weak she was, especially not when he seemed fine, if a little tenser even than normally. What she did want was to run far away and pretend that no man such as Snape had ever existed.

On the other hand, something deep within her marrow compelled her to tell him. There was also the logical voice in her head which never slept, telling her that things weren't going to get better without Snape's help.

Finally, she said in the calmest voice possible, yet without meeting his eyes, "I can't take it much longer."

Startled at her unequivocal statement, Snape snapped his head to look at her penetratingly; she could feel his gaze upon her, but she couldn't meet it for more than a second.

There was another long, uncomfortable pause. Fortunately, Hermione was getting used to them.

Finally, Snape relaxed and stood up, turning to look at the hills behind him as the sun slowly sank in the sky. Turning his head over his shoulder, he asked, "Are you certain?"

"Yes," Hermione said quietly. "If I go much longer without sleep and in this level of pain, I'll end up in St. Mungo's. I've already been to the Healer, and there was nothing he could do for me besides prescribing Sleeping Draughts. I don't..." she choked a bit, "I don't know what will happen."

Snape nodded, slowly. Then, seeming to resolve himself, he said in his usual silken but commanding manner, "You shall board with me for," he paused, knitting his brows in contemplation, "six months or so. If your condition remains the same, we shall know it is not the Lifebond. Otherwise... we must cross that bridge when we come to it."

Hermione couldn't decide if she felt more relieved or disappointed.

"Very well. I'll owl Kingsley, Ron and Harry immediately. And... thank you."

"Please don't consider it," Snape said shortly. "I owe you my life."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "'You're welcome' would have been sufficient."

Ignoring that, he picked up her bags and said, "Let us sort out this puzzle of our lives and see whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them."

"You know Shakespeare?" Hermione demanded, bewilderedly following him down the road.