Consequences

2: Confrontation

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She awoke screaming from pitch-black darkness, from an ocean of pain, and continued screaming in the light of the hospital wing. She didn't stop screaming when soothing hands held her, and she fought against these hands even after she had seen that it was only Poppy.

But she couldn't stand those hands, any hands, on her skin.

When Poppy finally stepped away from her to give her space to breathe, Hermione stopped screaming and just cried. Silent tears ran down her face, and she hugged herself, rocked herself, tried to soothe herself, but failed. Every bone in her body ached. Breathing ached; crying ached, as her eyes were bruised from the beating. The insides of her thighs were sore, her most intimate parts felt as if they had been burned with a hot iron, her back muscles were hard as knots from fighting against...

"Severus," Hermione whispered, and her voice was hoarse from the cries she hadn't been able to utter. "It was Severus. He... r-raped me. Beat me. Unconscious, he beat me unconscious, and he raped me. It was him, I couldn't stop him, Severus..." Her head snapped up. "Did you catch him? Did you kill him? Tell me someone has killed him for what he has done!"

Only a moment ago she had been at the edge of hysteria; now there was nothing but cold hate in her voice when she asked about her tormentor.

Poppy shook her head gently. "He's with Albus, Hermione," she said, trying to calm the young woman, but her words only caused the horrors to jump back into Hermione's mind.

"What?" she whispered and couldn't stop her beaten body from shaking with fear at the thought that Severus... that he was even in the same building with her.

The pity the matron felt for the young professor showed clearly in her eyes. "He's been under the Imperius Curse, Hermione," she explained as gently as possible. "It wasn't his doing; Albus verified this as soon as Severus brought you here. At the moment, he is in the Headmaster's office. His state is nearly as bad as yours."

Hermione bared her teeth and got up. "Now, is it, really?" she managed but found it was too much to bear. That that monster had touched her, had even dared to carry her to the infirmary, after... after what he'd done to her was simply far too much to consider. Hermione fought against the spinning, dizzy sensation in her head, lost, and fell back into blackness.

Poppy was only just able to catch the woman's falling body; otherwise, Hermione would have landed on the floor.

*****

The following days were a nightmare.

Hermione had recovered fast and was about to be released from the hospital wing, as her physical wounds from the rape, though serious and painful, had been quite easy to heal. Three days passed, and Poppy considered her fit to be up and about again. She had confirmed as well that Hermione wasn't pregnant, and she had sworn that no one apart from Albus, Severus, Hermione, and herself knew what had happened that night when the first snow had fallen. "As long as you don't tell, no one will know about it, Hermione," Poppy said for the tenth time in five minutes. "But you might like to consider visiting a Healer at St. Mungo's; there are some especially trained for your..."

"No," Hermione said and heard the panic creeping into her voice again, which happened nearly every time she opened her mouth. "I don't want to talk about it."

She sat on her bed and refused to get up. She didn't want to leave. She didn't want to go out into the corridors, into the normal world outside the infirmary, ever again.

He was out there. She might bump into him whenever she turned a corner; she would have to sit near him at meals. She might even see him in the library...

"You might consider a Memory Charm, then..."

"No!" Hermione screamed, her voice cracking. "No Memory Charm! Just think, Poppy – I would forget this, wouldn't remember what he's done, would even greet him with a friendly smile! Don't ever mention it – he would win, and that is intolerable." She had gone white with the words and was shaking. Again.

Poppy sighed in despair. Hermione was beyond reason and refused to accept the fact that the Potions master hadn't raped her deliberately but had been forced to do it. She focused all her hate on him – Poppy didn't know how to deal with that.

The door opened. Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts headmaster and a genuine friend of Severus Snape, came in, his spectacles sitting slightly lopsided on his nose. The look on his face was very concerned: he had heard the last few sentences. "Would you leave us alone for a minute, Poppy, please?" he said, taking his youngest staff member's hand and looking into Hermione's eyes. What he saw troubled the old man deeply, as he had seen the same look in Severus's eyes only an hour ago when he had visited the Potions master in the Dungeons.

Hate. Deep, scarlet, burning hate.

"Hermione," Dumbledore whispered. "I must beg you to forgive. For the sake of the both of you..."

"He raped me. And he beat me nearly to death after he raped me," she said coldly, and Dumbledore cringed under the words. They were true, of course.

"He had been cursed, Hermione," he pointed out gently as if he knew that a woman who had gone through such a horrible experience would be quite unable to think straight.

Hermione looked at her employer. "I don't care," she bit out. "And if you think I will leave, leave Hogwarts and my job, you are mistaken, Professor Dumbledore. That bastard will have to pay for what he has done to me, even if it is only by seeing me every morning over his porridge." Slipping off the bed, she snatched up her wand and headed for the exit. Now was a good time to leave the infirmary, she decided. She would face Severus; she would stalk him, and she would bring him down.

A thought crossed her mind. With a cruel little grin she turned round to the Headmaster and asked, "I assume Professor Snape didn't ask you to Obliviate him from the memory of his precious little... adventure?" Each word dripped with sarcasm – she would have bet her soul on the answer. And yes, she would have won.

Shaking his head sadly, Albus answered, "No, Hermione, he hasn't asked me for that favour, although I strongly suggested it to him. As I strongly suggest it..."

She was no longer listening as she left the infirmary.

*****

After that, after she had been thrown back into the real world, she tried to meet up with Severus face to face but didn't manage to see so much as a corner of his robes. Wherever she went, he wasn't there; wherever she looked, she couldn't find him. He wasn't in the library, he wasn't in his lab, and as it was the break for Christmas, she didn't even have the chance to corner him after classes, as there were simply no classes to be held. Fortunately. She couldn't have faced her own students.

But she needed to see him. She needed to look into his eyes, and she needed him to know how much she hated him, how much she despised him. She needed to make it clear to him that, in her eyes, he was worth less than nothing. She needed for him to hear from her own lips that she would never, ever forgive him.

Except that he seemed to be gone.

Christmas came and went without her even noticing it. She stayed in her room until the festivities were over, she ignored the owls that tried to deliver parcels and letters, she refused to open the door to anyone who knocked.

A few days after Christmas she cornered Dumbledore. She had lost a few pounds, she was pale, her hair was even wilder than usual, and her eyes bore a haunted look.

"Dear Merlin, Hermione," Albus exclaimed, shocked at the sight of her. Gently touching her shoulder, he continued, "You really, really need to talk to someone. If you would please let me take you to St. Mungo's..."

"Is he here?" she snapped, involuntarily wrapping her arms round her waist. "Is he here at Hogwarts or did he sneak away?"

"He is in his rooms, Hermione," Albus replied calmly. "I have not seen him in days, as his wards are up and I don't want to break them, but I know he is here."

"Fine. All I wanted to know. Easy to find him, then," she replied dryly and was gone.

Dumbledore shook his head and, not for the first time, thought of casting Obliviate on them both without their permission.

*****

Banging on the closed door of Severus's rooms turned out to be a hopeless cause. Either he wasn't in, or he was in and had put a Silencing Charm on his door so he wouldn't hear anyone requiring entrance or – the most likely possibility – was amused by her attempts to get in contact. And as his wards were strong enough to keep out even Albus, she didn't bother to try taking them down.

After another few days she gave up. Once the holidays were over, he wouldn't have any choice but to leave his rooms, and then she would be there, waiting. Until then, she only had to survive and stay sane.

She didn't go to meals anymore but wandered round Hogwarts' empty corridors during the night when she couldn't sleep. And when she slept she dreamed horrible dreams; haunting the school was the better option in her opinion. She declined all offers from Poppy and Albus to talk and for several days now had been avoiding them in order to prevent further attempts to help. She didn't want help. She didn't need help. She only needed to see him and curse him for what he had done to her.

During the day she went outside, fled her colleagues – she didn't want to see anyone. They knew something was wrong but didn't know what nagged at her and left her alone following Dumbledore's explicit wishes. Still, she didn't want to see anyone, so at first light, Hermione usually snatched her coat and went outside. She would wander aimlessly for hours, but always in fear that a dark figure would jump out at her once more. This fact, that she feared him and yet searched for him at the same time, tore even more at her fragile mental state.

A habit occurred in her daily routine that disturbed her, but that she nevertheless couldn't control. At first she had thought it to be an accident, somehow, when she had found herself near the Forbidden Forest, as she had been avoiding that area.

The second time it had been dark, and well, one couldn't see that clearly when the sun was down.

But when it happened again, and again, and still again, sometimes several times in one day, she realised that she did it on purpose or that at least her subconscious did it on purpose.

She was seeking out the clearing. She was drawn to it as the tongue is always drawn to the aching tooth, as a bystander of an accident is drawn to watch the victim die, and she could do nothing about it but to go there, day and night, before the breakfast she had stopped attending and after the dinner she now refused to eat.

She had turned haggard and bony, and her face was as pale as the Grey Lady's clothes. Ron wouldn't have recognized her had he bothered to contact her personally after she had refused to open her window for his owls.

Although drawn to the place where she had been raped, she never set a foot into the clearing itself but lingered under the trees, circling round and round in endless patterns. Sometimes she thought she could hear her own screams in the still winter air, and although she knew she was fantasising it, the screams were there; they followed her back to her rooms, into her bed, and into the few minutes of sleep she managed to grab now and then.

She stopped reading. She stopped talking. She hadn't listened to either Poppy or Albus, who had tried to help her, but now, over three weeks after the incident, as she called it, she had stopped even thinking. She wasn't herself anymore, and the mixture of fear and hate was eating at her, devouring her, without her even realising it. A little bit longer and madness would claim her.

*****

One day before the deadline Dumbledore and Poppy had set for her to come forward, to ask for help, one day before they would have put a Memory Charm on her whatever her opinion about it might be, she sneaked out to the clearing again but found it occupied this time.

There he was.

She had run there this time, hair flying, robes clutched tightly round her fragile figure. The ground was still frozen; the last leaves had fallen from the branches. The new year was young, just a few days old. It was almost as if he had waited for her in the near-darkness of the fading day. It felt as if she had know that he would be there, finally, after so many days when she had wanted nothing more than to put her hands round his throat and simply strangle him to death.

But when she saw him, Hermione's face became ashen, and her breathing stopped at the sight of him. She clenched her teeth, balled her fists, and welcomed the pain from her cramping stomach, as it reminded her to go on, to do what she wanted to do.

Time to crush him under her feet, with her wrath and her righteous accusations and her loathing of the very sight of him.

She got her wand out but hesitated, for some reason unknown to her, in the shadows of the trees. It was late afternoon, just bright enough to see that it was him; soon, it would be too dark to shout at him and still see his face whilst doing so.

But instead of facing him, she continued to observe him for a very long moment.

He sat on the cold ground, ignorant that the wet snow that had fallen the previous night soaked his clothes. He hadn't bothered to bring a blanket; he didn't even wear a cloak. He just leaned against the tree under which he had raped and beaten her, his back pressed to the bark and his arms wrapped round his knees. Staring into nothingness. He didn't move, didn't even seem to breathe. He was paler than usual, and with bitter triumph, Hermione saw that he quite obviously had given up food as much as she had: the hands that stuck out from his sleeves were not only slightly blue from the cold but also far too bony for a man who ate regularly.

Hermione was by then very close to cursing him, as hate bubbled up inside her like boiling water, burning her heart, her soul, and her mind. She already had her wand out when Severus gave a low cry and, with a sudden, brutal jerk of his neck, smacked his head against the tree, once, twice, again and again, with sickening thumps.

Hermione nearly dropped her wand; the cruelty and casualness of his actions shocked her more than she would have considered possible. She had expected joy at the sight of him getting hurt, even if he was doing it to himself. But she didn't feel joy, and that fact caught her off guard. She stared – and stayed where she was.

He buried his fingers in his long hair, pulling his face down to his knees, wrapping his arms round his head, cradling and rocking himself in utter despair.

Are we feeling a little downhearted? Hermione thought, pushing the shock aside quite easily. That he might suffer as much as she did hadn't occurred to her until this very moment, and the knowledge that he did suffer was very much unwelcome. She had wished for him to be here but not truly expected it. She had thought... well, it didn't matter what she had thought. He was here, and now he would face her. She would force him to face her and to listen to her.

A few steps and she stood in front of him. At the sight of his black robes, sudden fear began rushing through her body, but she ignored it. She was a Gryffindor; she could handle fear.

He hadn't heard her. His arms were wrapped round his shaking shoulders, and his hands were clutching his back. For a brief moment, she couldn't take her eyes off his long fingers, pale from the cold.

Damn fucking hell, she thought, looking down at him. How dare he look so vulnerable, so human, so sad.

Then she kicked him, as she would have kicked a pile of rags lying in her way.

Snape ripped his head up, saw legs in front of his eyes, looked up, and was on his feet an instant later. His eyes were huge with shock at the sight of her, and she saw with satisfaction that he looked every bit as lousy as she felt. Under his eyes were deep purple shadows that were the twins to the shadows under her own eyes.

"Good evening, Severus," she said with a sweet smile, and for a moment she looked every inch as mad as Bellatrix Lestrange on her worst days. "It's been a while since I saw you. Have you been feeling unwell?"

Severus just stepped back from her, turned, and walked away without a word.

She screamed after him, disbelieving and furious, "Don't you dare turn your back on me!" Rushing after him, she thrust her wand between his shoulders hard enough to rip his shirt open. Her wand bent; a little bit more force would have broken it.

Slowly, he turned round but refused to look at her. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice strangely lifeless. "There is nothing I can say other than that I'm very sorry."

She cracked there and then. He was sorry? That was all?

With a swift move, she slapped him hard across the face; a moment later, she balled her small hand into a fist and hit him again. He didn't hinder her.

Her hate and fear took over, and she lost control of her actions. All she could think of was how marvellous it felt to beat the man who had beaten her. Blows to his chin; punches to his stomach. She used her fists and her feet to pound and kick him, his chest, his shoulders, anywhere she could reach. Repeatedly, her fist found its way to his face, and she was delighted at the sensation that she was actually able to make his head fly under her punches. She didn't feel the bitter sobs that emerged from her throat or the tears that ran down her cheeks.

He didn't raise his arms in defence nor did he say a single word. He just stood there and endured her attack.

When she saw his blood on her knuckles, she suddenly stopped, out of breath and sick to her bones. Her eyes widened in horror, her stomach cramped once more, turned over like an hourglass, and she rushed away to vomit into the bushes. She cried hot tears at the same time, wishing that this nightmare would end, wishing he had killed her that night.

He stood under the tree that once had been hers, rooted to the spot, and when she was feeling fit enough to get up from the snow again, when she had vanished the mess, she came back, staring at him.

He still didn't look at her. Blood ran down his chin from his mouth and his nose; she had cracked his lips several times and might even have broken his already crooked nose, and she chuckled, remembering how blood tasted that came from such wounds.

She came even closer and tried to catch his eye. She was shaking with fear and rage, but she would rather die than budge, than flee from him. She wouldn't allow her fear to take over and make her run.

When he realised that she wanted him to look at her, he straightened his back and lifted his head.

His face wasn't just pale anymore but drained of blood, whitewashed, dead. His eyes, still black, were as dead as stones. All mockery was gone, all sarcasm, every bit of the black humour he had owned; the sparkle that had made him Snape was no longer there. Those eyes betrayed him: he was as broken as she was, and it wasn't because of her pitiful attempt to pay him back the beating he had given her.

Her heart stopped for a beat at the sight of it, but she didn't listen to it; she refused to acknowledge what she saw.

Hoarsely, she asked, "Did you enjoy beating me up as much as I just enjoyed beating you?" But her voice was unsteady and faint. This wasn't going as planned.

"You didn't enjoy that," he stated quietly. "Nor did I enjoy raping you."

Hermione paled. The evidence that he suffered as much as she did was too overwhelming for her. She didn't want that. She wanted him to be himself so she could put her burden on him, so she could blame him, so she could make him pay. If he was as broken as she was, how could she expect him to be strong enough to cope with her hate? And if he couldn't cope with it, who else should she blame? How could she find her way back into normality, into life, if the man who had done this was as scared – and scarred – as as she was?

"Why have you been hiding from me?" she whispered and lowered her wand, something she had considered impossible only a moment ago. She had believed that she would never again be able to face him without her wand aimed at him, and now, a mere breath later, she had already stopped using it to keep him at bay.

He sighed deeply and pressed a thin wrist across his lips, wiping the blood away. "What else could I do but to spare you my presence?" he asked. "In another week term starts; until then, I considered it best to stay out of your way." How silken his voice had once been; now it was vacant and just emphasised his bone deep fatigue.

She barked out a laugh. "Why, Severus, thanks for your thoughtfulness, but if you were so eager to spare me the sight of you, you should have handed in your notice immediately after you... raped me!"

He flinched at her words. "I did that; Albus refused to accept it."

Stunned by that statement, she shed more tears; she felt as if she were made of water, not of flesh and bones. "Why would he do that to me?" she whispered in disbelief. "I wish you were dead, and he knows it but refuses to fire you?"

She started pacing, following the path her feet had made earlier in the snow. Her feet were freezing, but she didn't notice.

Severus said quietly, "He considers me to be as much a victim as you are."

"Oh, does he, now? And I suppose you agree with him!"

"No."

"What?" Hermione stopped pacing. To see his face in the dwindling light it was necessary to move close to him, and she didn't waste a single thought on the fact that she should actually be too scared to be in the same school with him, much less standing only a foot away from him. "If you aren't a victim, what are you?"

He didn't flee from her accusing eyes. "I'm the man who raped and nearly killed you. That is unforgivable."

The wand in her hand developed a will of its own. She pointed it at the Potions master and whispered, "I want to see."

For a long moment, Snape looked at the woman in front of him. Her lips were blue from the cold, her face white, her eyes filled with tears. "Do what you must," he said. "I won't hinder you."

"Legilimens," she breathed and was drowning in his memories a moment later.

*****

Why pity? "It was my fault," he said, hate and self-disgust in his voice. "I did this to her; I was not strong enough to fight the Dark Lord's demand."

*****

Trembling, Hermione lowered her wand and looked into a face as ashen as her own. The bitter, hateful, self-accusing words she had just heard were still ringing in her ears. "You were Imperiused!" she whispered and wiped the tears off her face.

Had she just said that? Was she actually defending him? Hermione swallowed. For the first time in weeks, her brain didn't feel as if it contained only wet cotton. Silently, undramatically, it had taken up its work again and allowed her to think coherently. Maybe talking about this wasn't such a bad idea after all, although Albus certainly hadn't had this partner in mind for the conversation. "It was Voldemort... He forced you."

"So what?" Snape growled bitterly. "I should have killed myself rather than succumb to it."

"You know that's impossible." Since when had her voice sounded that calm?

"I should have just run away..." Severus whispered, his voice hoarse. "If only that had been an option."

A memory jumped at her. "You tried." She remembered it. "You tried, afterwards, but he made you come back and beat me."

Clenching his teeth, Severus turned half away from her.

"Albus has told you that there is no way anyone could have withstood him," Hermione pointed out – she'd seen the memory in Severus's mind only moments ago. "No one stands a chance against Voldemort."

"I shouldn't have given my word not to harm myself," Snape said nearly casually. "I regret having given my promise; I constantly think about breaking it. For the both of us it would be an easy way out of this horrible situation."

Hermione felt a rush of horror wash through her at his careless mention of suicide, and watched as the different emotions crossed Severus's face. Quite unexpectedly, her hate melted like the snow under her pacing feet. It was gone in the blink of an eye, and the sudden relief to be rid of it, to be rid of the madness that had poisoned her heart and her mind caused her to start crying again. For several minutes, she just stood with tears streaming down her face, next to the Potions master, who was caught in his own private hell. For the first time since that night, she was determined to end this without cursing or killing the man who had done it.

No. Who had been forced to do it.

She looked at his back and saw that every muscle was tense. "What do you do to escape the memory? Albus told me you didn't want a Memory Charm, so how do you... how can you manage..."

Severus just shook his head and tried again to leave.

Again she held him back. "You owe me!" she cried after him, and he stopped, hanging his head. A long strand of hair was blown across his face by the winter night wind. Closing his eyes, he tried to speak, but couldn't bring his lips to part.

She came after him. "You owe me an answer! Tell me why you didn't want to be Obliviated; tell me how you can sleep at night!"

"I can't," he bit out. "Whenever I close my eyes, I see... It's impossible to sleep. And even if the Dark Lord didn't expect that memory to be in my mind, even if he wouldn't search for it the next time I am summoned – I would never flee from my guilt by simply getting my memory adjusted. That would be... it would not be right. Now, would you please let me go?"

What? she thought, thunderstruck. It occurred to her that he would have to live with those memories for the rest of his life, whilst she had the liberty to just go and get rid of them.

Suddenly, her refusal to get Obliviated seemed stupid, even cruel.

Hermione needed to know every detail he could tell her. "Why did he do that to you? Voldemort? Why... this? If he was thinking of torture, why...?"

Severus was silent for a long time. Then he said slowly, "The Dark Lord has quite a sick sense of humour. This... wasn't meant as torture; it was meant as a reward. For me." He turned and looked into her eyes. "A few weeks ago, the Dark Lord found in my mind a little piece of information that made him laugh for an entire afternoon." Snape spoke hesitantly, as if the words caused him pain. "And as I'm his most devoted follower, he decided to take matters into his own hands and force me. He decided that, as I had never lain with a woman, he would push me a bit to give me a taste."

His voice was so bitter as to be barely recognisable. "And as he likes to combine a favour with a lesson, he chose you to be my partner in the hope it would break you – one less brilliant mind to chase him. He sensed that I was unwilling, thus he made me beat you on top of it to remind me who gives the orders and who must obey. And he only allowed me to take you back to Hogwarts alive because a dead witch can't suffer from nightmares."

It was completely dark now, and the wind was about to become a storm. Hermione couldn't see Severus's face anymore, but she was close enough to hear him breathe. A loose strand of his hair brushed her cheek.

"Raping me... was your first time...?" A slight feeling of horror crept into her heart, a heart that had already seen enough horror to last a lifetime. But for a change, in fact for the first time in weeks, she felt pity not for herself but for the man she had hated most in the world until about two minutes ago.

His voice was a disembodied whisper in the darkness. "I have only loved once in my life, Hermione. When she gave her heart to someone else, I saw no reason ever to fall in love again nor to get intimate with a woman I didn't love." He said this as calmly as if he were talking of potions, but Hermione was certain that it ripped him to pieces to tell her that. For the last time, he turned and walked away.

"What would you do to right what you have done to me?" Hermione's voice called through the darkness.

She could barely hear his words when he whispered his answer. "I can never right it. But whatever you ask me to do to ease your pain, I will do it, if it is within my power."