Chapter Four

Chapter Four.

'I... beg your pardon?' Hermione answered, her priggish reply an attempt to regain some control and the appearance of dignity.

A month ago when she had stood before him, dressed as some glamorous beauty begging for approbation, Hermione would probably have complied, with little hesitation, if not complete willingness, had he asked her to get on her knees for him. But since that evening, she felt that they had reached a level of uneasy regard. She had confided in him, shown him her vulnerabilities, and he had listened, if not with sympathy, at least with some degree of tolerance, perhaps even understanding. He had been guarded with her; that was to be expected, but he had stopped responding to her every question and attempt at conversation by wounding her with unreserved relish. He had begun to listen to her, respond to her, as if she were not the irritating child he took pleasure in deriding, but another adult, an equal... a friend. Or had it all been an illusion? Nothing more than a fanciful construct of her own making, based on little more than the absence of scorn?

He downed another glass.

'Do I have to spell it out to you?' he said, his lip curling with his contempt. 'Perhaps you need to consult the library? If it can't be cross-referenced in a book, it's hardly worth doing, is it? I wonder how you got as far as you did without consulting The Hermione Granger Guide to Life, available in hardback and recommended for "insufferable know-it-alls" everywhere.'

It took several deep breaths and more digging of fingernails into flesh to overcome the urge to flee from the room, sobbing like her eleven-year-old self. However, she folded her arms across her chest protectively instead.

'Fine,' she replied loftily. 'Where would you prefer it? In the bedroom, or will just here do?'

His black eyes pinned her to the back of the chair – seemingly scrutinising her face for signs of surrender. She tried not to blink or gulp, but, as the saliva in her mouth had dried up anyway, she doubted her ability to perform the simple act of swallowing. She could see the uncertainty in his eyes, as cold and mocking as they were. His bluff was being severely tested. Seconds turned into minutes as the two of them played the game of "chicken", until finally, he let out a long breath, which seemed to physically deflate him. He turned his head away from her to stare blandly into the fireplace once more. 'Perhaps not,' he said. 'You're not my type.'

'And what,' she demanded, 'exactly is your type?'

'Reasonably priced, with a fertile imagination,' he scoffed, but the conviction was no longer in his voice.

'Well, I'm glad you have standards.'

He turned back to face her and she noticed that as he lifted his glass to take another sip, his hand shook and he almost missed his mouth. 'While we are on the subject,' he drawled, 'I plan to call upon the services of a prostitute this evening. Were you intending on staying to watch?'

Hermione grimaced, but held her ground. 'You aren't capable of doing any such thing,' she said. 'I doubt you could manage to make it to your bedroom, let alone remain conscious long enough to perform. You may as well stop trying to shock me into leaving, Professor... I'm staying! You're not fit to be on your own in this state. You're likely to set yourself on fire attempting a Lumos charm!'

She saw the resigned glare and considered herself the victor in this particular battle.

She was not wrong: he was unconscious within ten minutes. She watched his eyes close and his head roll forward. The half-filled glass began to slip from his fingers, and she raced forward to prevent the spillage. She removed the tumbler from his wavering grasp and placed it gently on the table beside him before carefully manoeuvring his head into a more comfortable position.

Trembling fingers brushed the hair from his eyes, and she was startled to see that the deep fissure between his brows remained there even in repose. But still he looked more peaceful than she had ever seen him in the absence of a scowl, sneer or intimidating glare. She had never noticed thick dark lashes, distinctive now that they lay closed against his pale skin. He was even thinner than she remembered him to be: all angles and jutting cheekbones. And that nose! She had never really dared to stare at it for too long, fearing retribution of some form or other, but now she couldn't tear her gaze away from the grotesque, hawkish beak, which did nothing to enhance his looks.

Feeling a sense of inevitability, as if nothing could stop her, not even the dread of the sleeping dragon waking from his slumber, Hermione reached out her hand and traced her forefinger along the bridge of his hook of a nose. She continued slowly down until she reached his mouth: fuller, somehow, when not contorted into some spiteful smirk or forming a biting insult. Lightly, oh so lightly, she ran her finger across his lips, and fleetingly considered the idea of pressing her own to them before wondering what the hell was compelling her to act so gratuitously. A sudden involuntary jolt from him brought her back to reality, and she sprang backwards, startled. She needn't have worried; he was past wakefulness at this point. She could have straddled his lap, run her fingers through his hair and planted a passionate kiss on his lips, and still he would barely have stirred.

She managed to get him upstairs using a Levitation charm and a great deal more care than she recalled Sirius Black using in the tunnel of the Shrieking Shack fourteen years previously. Once she had safely deposited him in the room which had the most inhabited look about it, Hermione stared down at Snape's unconscious form lying prostrate on the bed and pondered on her next course of action. The idea of going home and leaving him to sleep off his inebriated state alone did not present itself as an option. She had seen him fall into unconsciousness before. She had watched while blood had flowed like a river from his carotid artery – his face the colour of chalk, his body motionless, and she had done nothing but stare at his still and broken body before turning and leaving him for dead. Hermione did not intend to leave him comatose and alone again, no matter how ruthless his insults were likely to be when he awoke in the morning to find her keeping vigil.

She looked around the bedroom and located a wicker chair by the window. She would Transfigure it into something more comfortable, sleep there and accept his wrath, regret or dejection in the morning. But first was the task of removing his clothes and finding something for him to sleep in. A quick scan of the neatly ordered room found a pair of pyjama bottoms folded over the back of a chair. Hermione laid them out on the bed next to his inert body and shook her head. Did the man have no imagination when it came to colour? Even his night-time attire was an uninspiring shade of dark grey. A simple Replacement Charm removed his daytime clothes and dressed him in the pyjama bottoms without compromising his privacy. In the absence of finding a suitable top for him to wear, she concluded that bare torso must be his bed-time wearing preference. She used her wand and a muttered incantation to fold his clothes neatly and placed them in a pile on top of a chest of drawers next to his bed.

He barely moved as he slept, but his breaths were shallow, and he emitted an occasional guttural moan as if his dreams were preventing him from absolute rest. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, as pale and absent of colour as his hands and face, the only evidence of flesh she had ever been privy to before today. The sight of so much of it at once: a whole expanse of arms, shoulders, chest and abdomen, seemed slightly immoral, as if she were crossing a forbidden line and would be punished for her voyeurism. Hermione looked, nevertheless, hypnotised by the sight of her semi-naked professor: the scattering of black hairs across his chest, forming a pathway down to his navel and beyond, the jut of his under-nourished hips, the taut skin, muscles and sinew of his arms. She had imagined his teaching robes to be the cover for a body too puny to withstand the exposing effects of a tight sweater. She was wrong.

Her eyes fell on the scar positioned just above his jugular, its serrated edges a blatant reminder, as if she needed one, of injury incurred by an animal attack rather than a weapon or a spell. It did not look like the kind of injury from which one usually stands and walks away; she wondered how his survival had been possible, or if he would ever tell her. This time, Hermione managed to overcome the urge to reach out and draw a finger along the contours of the ugly blemish desecrating his marble-white skin. Instead, she gripped her wand and flicked it in the direction of the bed sheets, so that, instead of lying on top of them, he was now lying comfortably beneath the covers.

Once she had satisfied herself that she had done all she could for him, she wandered onto the landing in search of the bathroom, easily located across the hallway. Her Lumos charm revealed that the spacious room was lined with various shelves and cupboards in addition to the usual fittings. The shelves were crammed with bottles, vials and jars of varying sizes and colours. Like Snape's bedroom, all were neatly labelled and ordered – the room had the appearance of his old Potions store cupboard back in the dungeons of Hogwarts. Hermione was captivated by the profusion of potions and ingredients adorning the shelves and any other available surfaces.

On the wall opposite stood a large cabinet. Hermione made her way over to it, curious to know what Severus Snape kept for his personal use. Many of the students of Hogwarts had accused him of poor hygiene, but Hermione doubted that to be the case – his teaching attire had always been immaculate, if unvaried. The cabinet, too, had the appearance of a Potions supply cupboard; it was almost as tall as she was, and she was surprised to find that, on opening it, the inside door concealed a full-length mirror: Snape did not present as the kind of man who liked to see all of himself at once. Her reflection peered back at her with a disapproving frown.

'You shouldn't be snooping around other people's bathrooms!'

The loud and reproachful voice resounded around the room and seemed to emanate from the air about her. Hermione gasped, but her recovery was quick as the voice continued to chide. 'And do something with your hair, it looks terrible!'

'Be quiet,' she hissed at the mirror. 'He's sleeping – you'll wake him.'

'Well!' replied the mirror haughtily. 'If you are here to pilfer from his stores, I may as well warn you that my voice can carry down to the cellar. I won't hesitate to shout for him.'

'Don't you dare!' said Hermione. 'Of course I'm not here to steal anything. I'm looking for a Hangover potion. I have the feeling he's going to need it in the morning.'

'Again?' answered the mirror, its voice loaded with disapproval. 'Third shelf from the top, four along. And tell him he needs to brew some more, he's getting through it faster than he gets through Calming Draught.'

'He takes Calming Draught?'

There was a pause during which the mirror seemed to reconsider its rash declaration. 'None of your business!'

'But you just said so,' said Hermione.

'No I didn't!'

'You did!' insisted Hermione.

'I most certainly did not!'

'Oh! For heaven's sake!' Hermione replied, frustrated by the obstructive attitude of the mirror. 'You just said he takes more Hangover potion than Calming Draught.'

'He does. He also gets through more Hangover Potion than Babbling Beverage, Shrinking Solution and Wolfsbane but he doesn't take those either,' the mirror replied smugly.

'You're being deliberately obtuse,' Hermione retorted. 'I'm only trying to help him.'

The mirror did not reply.

'Did you hear what I said?' Hermione demanded.

'I'm exercising my right to remain silent,' replied the mirror after a moment's pause.

'You're a bloody charmed object,' hissed Hermione furiously. 'You don't have rights.'

'And you,' replied the mirror, 'are a very rude young woman, and you're not as pretty as they usually are. Look at the state of you. No lipstick, no blusher, no mascara. And your hair is ... brown. You're hardly going to appeal to him wearing jeans and a cardigan. Are you from an agency? He ought to ask for his money back.'

Hermione studied her reflection. The purple semi-circles under her eyes looked like smudged mascara against the almost grey tone of her skin. She noticed how tired and drab she looked, like a woman who has not experienced enough frivolity in life to claim the right to fresh-faced youth and perky prettiness. Hermione looked older than her years – she could have passed for someone ten years her senior from the expression in her eyes alone – eyes which seemed to have a perceptiveness about them, which was no longer as a result of quick intelligence and eagerness of mind. They had the sort of look which declared that nothing else could surprise them again. No wonder she wasn't his type; she doubted she was anyone's type.

'I'm not from any agency,' she replied calmly. 'I'm not paid to be here. I'm here because... ' She was about to confide in a mirror. Had her life really come to this? Looking for empathy from a cantankerous bathroom cabinet?

Apparently it had.

'Professor Snape was my teacher many years ago. He wasn't a nice teacher, but I think he was a good one in some ways. At least... he taught me a lot. And not just how to mix asphodel with sopophorous beans to produce Draught of Living Death. Anyway, the point is, I never really understood that as a child, or even as a young adult. I owed him a great deal as it turns out, and I let him down. Badly. I want to make amends if he'll let me, and I don't really know how to do that, but I do know that whatever he needs, if it is in my power, I will try my best to provide it; and right now he needs someone to watch him while he is vulnerable and I intend to do that. So I suppose I am here to provide a service of sorts, but not the kind you are referring to.'

'A simple 'no' would have done,' the mirror remarked disdainfully, and Hermione couldn't help but smile at the resemblance between the mirror's unaccommodating attitude and its owners.

'I have some questions for you,' said Hermione. The mirror was silent. 'Are you exercising your right again?'

'No, I'm deciding whether or not to trust you,' sniffed the mirror.

'My name is Hermione Granger, I...'

'Hermione Granger?' repeated the mirror, a note of incredulity obvious in the tone. 'The insufferable know-it-all?'

Hermione sighed. Snape, too, had confided in the mirror then. She could imagine the scene at the end of a difficult day of double Potions with Gryffindors and Slytherins: an angry Professor Snape venting his spleen at his bathroom cabinet. The image would have made her laugh out loud if it wasn't for the fact that she had obviously been featured quite prominently in his rants.

'You stole ingredients from his stores. He was very angry about that.'

'Yes, but I...'

'And you set his robes on fire.'

Shit. Snape knew about that? 'Well, yes but I thought...'

'You turned your wand on him and knocked him out cold,' the mirror persisted.

'That's true, but there was a good...'

'You were the cause of a great many of his headaches.'

Hermione was thankful that the mirror did not seem to know of her most recent abuse of its owner. She was surprised that Snape had kept that little nugget of information to himself. But as no accusations of perfidy or desertion were hurled at her, she felt confident enough to continue.

'I made mistakes,' admitted Hermione. 'And I want to make up for them. If you'll just answer my questions instead of accusing me of things I am perfectly aware of, we may get somewhere. I presume you are loyal to him? Know him better than anyone? I bet he's told you things he would trust no living soul with.'

'Of course he has my loyalty. I have been with him all his life. I belonged to his mother before him. He has spent his life trusting no one, quite rightly. Everyone has let him down: his parents, his childhood friend, his mentor, his colleagues... you.' Hermione cringed while the mirror paused to draw imaginary breath. Either that, or it was exercising its right to remain silent again. Hermione did not interrupt the uncomfortable pause.

'But you are the only one who ever bothered enough to make it past the front door,' the mirror admitted before lapsing into silence again. Hermione waited for her approval or rejection.

'I have decided to trust you,' the mirror replied. 'Because everyone needs a chance.'

'Thank you,' said Hermione. 'I appreciate you giving me one.'

'I meant him, not you. He's the one who needs a chance.'

'I can ask you some questions then?' she enquired, ignoring the slight.

'You may ask, I may not answer.'

'You really are extraordinarily like him.'

'Thank you. But flattery won't work on me. What do you want to know?'

'Does he seem... happy?' asked Hermione, unsure of where the question came from.

The mirror snorted. 'Of course not. But at least now he's not in a constant state of misery. He had started to take more care of his appearance until the last day or two. He's never been a vain man, despite being a handsome one.' Hermione chose not to argue that point; she wondered if the mirror had been charmed to flatter its owner, or to ignore his flaws. 'Recently he had seemed different.'

'In what way?'

'He just... checked himself more. I always reassure him, of course. "May I compliment sir on his choice of shirt this evening", that sort of thing,' the mirror replied, apparently taking pride in its deferential posturing.

'But he seems so... bedraggled tonight. Does he always get like this at this time of year?'

'What time of year?'

'Halloween.'

'Not that I've noticed,' said the mirror. 'He has periods of moping, understandably, but he soon pulls himself together and gets on with it. Halloween has never been particularly significant.'

Hermione was puzzled by this revelation; she had been sure that tonight's drunken binge had been in response to the reminder Halloween brought forth of Lily's death. Perhaps the mirror was wrong or mistaken. She could hardly take the word of a piece of bathroom furniture as holy writ. She decided to treat any information she learned from the object with caution.

'But have you noticed the very recent change in him?' she continued.

'Of course. He stopped... bathing. He only dropped by the cupboard for, ahem, mind-altering potions of which I will not speak. Suffice to say that my master has seemed depressed these last few days. And before you ask, he has not given any indication for his reasons.'

'I see,' said Hermione, trying to piece together this new information and slot it into her "Lily-moping" theory. It did not fit. She decided to try a different line of questioning.

'You mentioned women. Can I ask...?' She felt compelled to pose this question, yet dreaded the answer, nevertheless. '... How often does he... have company?'

'Company?' The mirror sounded confused. 'If by "company" you mean the witches sent by the agency, I should say, once a week, not that I can imagine that to be any concern of yours.'

Hermione was staggered by the revelation that Snape apparently sought out the services of a prostitute with such alarming regularity. She hadn't expected him to live a life of monastic celibacy, and she knew she had no right to judge him, lonely and friendless as he must be. But somehow she was beginning to harbour feelings of possessiveness towards him – considered him her... project seemed too clinical a word to use, yet that's how it seemed. He felt like her responsibility, hers to nurture and soothe if he would only let her. She couldn't quite determine why the idea of someone else providing him with comfort, however sordid or fleeting, made her flesh crawl and her jaw clench.

She identified these new and strange sensations as manifestations of weeks of sleep deprivation, and declared herself done with the mirror as she thanked it, without enthusiasm, and took the vial of potion she had been looking for. She was about to exit the room when a voice called her back.

'I suppose the invitation might be something to do with it.'

Hermione stopped and turned back to face the half-closed cabinet. She crossed the room quickly, and opened the door to face the source of the voice once again.

'Invitation?' She knew perfectly well what the invitation was because she had received it too. The annual Victory Day Ball invitation arrived by owl-post every year, and this year happened to be an important one – the tenth anniversary of the fall of Voldemort.

'There's to be some celebratory ball,' said the mirror. 'He was muttering to himself about it yesterday.'

'Is he going?' asked Hermione.

The suggestion of weary boredom in the mirror's tone implied that the object would have preferred to make a non-committal shrug rather than the unhelpful verbal response of, 'How should I know?'

Hermione returned to the bedroom and placed the vial of Hangover potion on Snape's bedside cabinet. She took out her wand, pointed it at her makeshift bed for the evening and Transfigured the wicker chair into a size and shape that could easily accommodate her. The chair now had the appearance of an oddly manipulated contemporary sculpture, as she stretched out her tired limbs and pondered on her new knowledge – vexing and illogical as it was. She recalled how angry Snape had seemed when she dared to accuse him of wallowing in misery. Surely it was for his dead love that he pined? There was no other conclusion, no way of piecing together all the information and making it fit neatly together. Harry had revealed the contents of Snape's bequeathed memories: he had loved Lily; his wretched, drunken binge was evidence of the fact. Hermione could work with that. She could be the listening ear, the comforter, the empathiser, the missing piece of lint in his marred and thwarted life. The relief she felt on realising that she finally had an objective was only slightly diminished by her recent bathroom conversation. Determined not to let that spoil her new sense of purpose, she reminded herself that the mirror was just a mirror, after all, not a purveyor of great insight and shrewd counsel.

Hermione thought of Hogwarts as she lay in wait for fatigue to kick in: of the Yule Ball during the year of the Triwizard Tournament. She remembered her beautiful blue ball gown, and how relieved she had been to be escorted by Viktor Krum. He had seemed like merely an adequate substitute for a blind and senseless Ron at the time. But that was a lifetime ago; another world, another girl. Cinderella did not have hair that eluded even magical management, and Prince Charming did not have the mark of a skull and snake magically carved into his left forearm. She positioned herself so that she could see Snape's sleeping form as she gradually drifted into sleep. A vague feeling of elation managed to inhibit, for a moment, the expectation that the morning would bring fresh accusations and wrath from the black-haired, sleeping enigma. Her last thoughts were of dancing couples, a rousing waltz, and a tall dark man with the biggest nose she had ever seen.