Taking Aim

Severus' hands trembled as he cleared his throat to speak. Hermione looked at him with wide eyes. He lowered his head to avoid the new-found happiness he could feel radiating from her. He didn't want to crush her... but what he wanted had never mattered. He spoke in a whisper refusing to meet her large, open eyes again.

"Eight years ago, there was a surprise birthday party thrown in my honor at Avery Manor. Avery had procured a woman for me, and I saw her locked in a cell with her head covered in a muslin bag. Unbeknownst to her, she had been selected to be my present. I had no clue as to her identity, only that she had been branded. I violated her."

Severus swallowed his words that he wanted to desperately to say. I was forced to use her...to rape her. He covered his mouth and bowed his head. When he could find his voice, he continued, forcing out each word from his mouth.

"I knew what was required... but I could not finish. She was crying...I made excuses that I am sure humiliated the woman even more. I'd said, 'I could not get satisfaction from a virgin.'"

Severus stood up and paced slowly around to the back of the couch, not wanting to appear threatening to Hermione. He clasped his hands behind his back and took a deep breath. He didn't know how he was going to form the words, but he forced them out.

He stood ramrod straight and carried on, fixing his eyes on where the wall met the ceiling. "I was incensed, and I wanted revenge on Avery who had orchestrated this. His daughter, Idina, was there, and she had been after me to be her lover. I-I took her, spent the night with her, trying to forget the woman I had destroyed."

He forced his eyes to reach Hermione's. She was so still she looked as if she'd been petrified. He saw confusion, rage, humiliation, and fear all at once. He figured he had one minute left before she either hexed him or threw him out... or both.

He moved slowly to sit down and speak to her softly in a low, soothing tone. "When I saw you after the battle and noticed you had all your hair, I felt immense relief. Cutting the hair of the victims was customary for each branding victim." He bowed his head and felt the stabbing pain in his chest and bile rise in his throat. He thought of Hannah Abbott and how he had shed so many tears for her. He tried hard to not be weak, but he couldn't. The tears gathered in his eyes, and his voice faltered as he continued.

"I worked obsessively to find this unknown girl's body. Miss Abbott's body was discovered a year ago in a shallow grave at Malfoy Manor, but the bones indicated there had been no branding on any part of her body. I was devastated. Of course, this news came after her burial, which I attended, mourning the loss of such a brave witch."

He paused, waiting for Hermione to say something, anything, shooting quick glances at her, but not able to meet her eyes, but watching her all the same. He saw Hermione wipe a tear that had escaped from her eye onto her cheek, and he dropped his head to look down at his hands, but could still see her through the gap in his hair. She sat there, as if in a trance, unable to move further. Severus decided to slowly continue as he tried to voice the words that were so difficult to speak.

"I received an owl from Avery who was in Azkaban awaiting the Kiss. He wanted to confess his sins to me. He told me about the girl in the muslin hood. He claimed her skeleton would be found in his dungeons. I went to investigate with two Aurors, and we found nothing. I believed I would never know who that poor girl had been."

With that final remark, her face reanimated, and he felt a lump in his chest that threatened to strangle him. She opened her mouth to speak; her face was so pale...she looked faint. She tried harder to speak, and the inability to do so made her eyes look increasingly tortured. At last, she managed a broken whisper, "... Was me." Her hand clutched her chest, and she held onto herself tighter and tighter. She couldn't speak anymore, and Severus began again with more caution.

"The Longbottoms came to Hogwarts with their daughter. I noticed she had a dimple on her cheek, knew she could not be their biological child, but I hadn't an idea as to whom her real parents were. Potter came to me with some information about Alice's birthday. He told me Alice's conception would have been around the eight, ninth, or tenth of January. He also said he knew you had lied to him about Greyback. Lupin told us of Greyback's constant movements just before he died. We all knew you had lied, but no one wanted to push you. I certainly did not! You were alive...obviously you had not crossed the Dark Lord's path...or so I believed." He sighed and pressed on. "Potter came to me after you'd left for Kiev. He was convinced during those missing days you had been violated and impregnated with Alice."

Without warning, Hermione jumped up and screamed. Her body was shaking terribly as if she were having a fit. When she stopped, she dashed into her kitchen area and vomited into the sink. She stood there, hunched over the sink, shaking her head, her body trembling, but kept silent.

Severus felt his facial tick start. He wanted to go to her, but uncertain it was the right decision. He looked at his hands. They were trembling. That scream was more of a wail, something that sounded like she had trapped it inside her in order to keep her mind stitched together. Severus couldn't let it end like this; she might be unhinged. He spoke again, more fervently. "More information came my way, tidbits here and there, and I started putting the puzzle together. I know now it had been you that night."

He watched her as she wiped her mouth with a kitchen towel. She threw it down on the counter with force. Hermione began to pace back and forth, her breathing becoming more labored, and her posture increasingly hostile.

Severus raised his hands, itching to hold her to him, to prove he wasn't the monster she believed him to be. He tried to let his emotions show in his eyes, so she could see how he felt, but after years of being so carefully guarded, it was difficult to do. "I want to make one thing quite clear. I did not know who you were. When I sought you out, it was curiosity... a-an a-attraction for this young... stunning upstart. Half the Moscow Symposium were up in arms. I understand you want nothing... with me." His voice cracked and felt as if he was a small boy again, just wanting to be something to someone, knowing he would always come up wanting.

He held out a hand to reach her, to make her see him. "We are parents, and I feel she should know she is loved by us, and she was not just 'thrown away'. I've said my peace; now I am ready to face the consequences," he finished slowly, his hands falling helplessly to his sides, waiting for his sentence to be handed to him.

Hermione stood still and stared at him with unblinking eyes. Just when he was about to shout at her to say something, she cleared her throat and wrapped her arms around her body.

"I knew it was you," she spat at him with hostility in her tone as her breath quickened. "I knew it was you when you first came to my store! I knew when you took me to lunch!" Her tone was venomous, but she was shivering, and her body was one large tremor as she continued, half-mumbling to herself, the other half raising her voice to direct it at him, all the while pulling on her hair roughly. "The muslin was thin enough with these little holes...I saw your face all contorted, heard your gasps and your groan. I was repulsed and humiliated you could do... do that to me."

She raised her hands in admittance as tears began streaming down her face. "It was my fault for getting caught. I should have been more sensitive to the noises around me. I was on point...it had been my responsibility...my fault..."

Severus was becoming angrier as she spoke, trying to assume the blame. He finally had his fill and cut her off. "...Enough!" he roared. "You have nothing with which to blame yourself. You were inexperienced...not even in the Order! Why the Order allowed you D.A. children to go out and defend the castle from grown, ruthless fighters...I could never understand! Of course, I have never understood Albus' reasoning for half of the asinine things he did." He lowered his head to center his mind, covering his face with his hands.

Severus looked up to her. "Why did you not tell me? Why?" he whispered. "She is my child!"

Hermione's eyes blazed, and she began to shriek, "Your child? YOUR CHILD?" She stepped closer to him and continued. "I was the one who carried her inside my body and went through pain like you can't even fucking imagine, only to give her away so she wouldn't be labeled and ridiculed!"

She stepped back unevenly, faltered, and slumped back into her seat, crying as she hid her face. "You ruined me...you destroyed me...and then all I heard was about you fucking that woman, touching her, kissing her. I should have had my dream...to be loved and realize my first time with a man I loved and who loved me too!" She slammed her fists on the glass table in front of her and choked on her sobs. She looked up and all he saw was rage and self-loathing – two emotions he knew very well. She bolted straight up from her chair and began to shake her fists at him in rage, advancing as she railed against him.

"I can't bear for a man to touch me! I can't even imagine being with a man! You just took me without a word and shattered me!" she continued to scream. "You left me on the floor bleeding and went off to fuck that bitch as if nothing had happened. What? Is that all you can stomach...whores and sluts? Because I know that screaming virgins don't do it for you!" She jumped up from her chair, picking it up and throwing it across the room in uncontrollable fury.

Severus had watched her as her fury grew stronger. She had forgotten the two wands, his and hers, while she unleashed her wrath on him. He knew he had to remain calm and diffuse the situation before she remembered she was a witch and blew him straight to hell.

Snape advanced on her and whispered sharply, "Correct, Miss Granger, because I do not care to force myself on women. Believe me, I hated myself more than you could imagine. You may have had to live with the consequences of that fateful night, but I alone bear the guilt!"

He made one error and turned his back to her. He didn't want her to see him cry, and he heard her scream, "Stupefy!" He crashed into a bookshelf across the room as she advanced on him. With a slash of her wand, she brought him to consciousness and forced him to look straight at her.

"YOU WILL NEVER TURN AWAY FROM ME AGAIN!" she howled in her anguish. "You could have made it better...you deliberately made it painful. You could have made it bearable, but no..." She stopped talking as she waved him away from her sight. She was sobbing violently now and clutching her head in pain. She looked so small and alone, Severus couldn't leave her in such a condition.

"Hermione," he said as he rose from the rubble of her books.

"SHUT UP!" she screamed, her face twisted in pain. She stood up and pointed her wand at him. She looked deranged as she spat in her disturbed condition. "You owe me! You have owed me for taking everything I was and what you stole from me. I should have been loved! I should have been cared for! I should have borne the child of a man I loved! YOU took it all away from me, and now you have nothing to say to me except shame on ME for not telling you I was carrying a baby you put inside me because you raped me! Then you go off with no emotion at all and have a bloody fine time with that...that slag!"

"Hermione," Severus whispered as he inched closer to her, "that is not it at all. What occurred between me and that witch was not what you think."

Hermione laughed bitterly at him as she scoffed. "From the way I heard it, it was highly enjoyable for you both!"

"Only if you get off on pain," he replied, revolted with what he had revealed about himself.

"What?" she whispered as she snapped her head towards him.

Severus brushed off his robes as he spoke. "That witch was Avery's daughter. She had been after me for ages to shag her. She loved pain; she needed abuse to enjoy sex. I don't care for that. I was just so angry with Avery for placing me in that position to hurt an innocent and for placing that bag on your head to humiliate me. After all, what witch would shag Severus Snape unless she couldn't see his hideous face, right?"

Hermione looked at him with tired, yet calm eyes. "So that whole thing was just a..."

"...Lark to make me feel even shittier than I normally feel on my birthday. So, I took his daughter and shagged her with all the rage and humiliation I felt because of what I'd done to you and humiliated him by using her...in his own bed! She loved it, the bitch, and it burned Avery to know his daughter was getting reamed by the wizard he thought was beneath him!" he seethed. "And what burned me was the next morning, after I had beaten her and whipped her bloody with my belt, she was happy!"

Hermione looked horror-struck at his revelation.

"I looked for her...the woman I violated...for you, Hermione," Snape continued, struggling to find the right words. "I thought I had found the girl when Hannah Abbott's body had been discovered. I never knew it had been you, and I never imagined I had fathered a child."

"You left me," she whispered as she sank onto her sofa. "They took me into the dungeons and left me there to die! I was there for three days until the doors swung open. I was half-starved and frightened. I saw your face when it was all over...the relief on your face. You thought it might have been me, right?"

"Yes," he admitted, his fear and terror finally bursting through that controlled wall of protection. "Any female Order or D.A. member that was missing, I thought could be the one. She haunted me; I couldn't forget her screams. I could hear them, I could hear her in my haunted dreams and in my waking hours. All I had to do was close my eyes, and I could hear her!" He closed his eyes, his face contorted in pain, gripping his arms wrapped around himself to force the pain in his chest to go away.

"I used to have nightmares," Hermione whispered. "I always thought, 'He owes me. He owes me for what he took from me.'

"I just don't understand, Severus, why did you have to come into my life?" she asked while a haunted look gripped her face. "After all, you deserted me once before."

"I didn't know she was you," he ground out. Severus stood with his hands still clenched at his sides. "You were becoming something of a legend. I heard wizards talk about you as if you were a goddess while they derided you for beating them at their own game. I knew this Huntress...this beautiful witch...had to be you. I couldn't stop the images of you assailing my mind. The idea of what you looked like would not leave my mind. You've captivated me, utterly."

Severus sat down and ran his hands through his hair, sweeping it back from his face. "I had to find the girl I had hurt, and then I could be free to live. I thought I had and then I set my mind to find you out...to see for myself the incredible witch you had become. The moment I saw you...the first day I walked into your shop...I knew I would never want another woman. I never knew, Hermione. I swear, I never knew it had been you!"

She recoiled from him. "My assets, for lack of a better word, set the tongues of decrepit old wizards wagging?" she asked in disgust. "Pregnancy hormones that never let me return to what I had been...plain, thin, scrawny Hermione...my body working to accommodate the baby you put inside me. What in the world made you think I would ever let the man who brutalized me touch me?"

"I am not asking you to." His tone more harsh than he'd intended, sounding ashamed and chastened. "I hope now we can have some sort of relationship for Alice's sake. It's not her fault. I just want my daughter to know me and for her to know her mother...her real mother...who, as you said so aptly, had been robbed of her dreams to live."

He stood to leave, and as he started to descend the stairs, Hermione placed a hand on his shoulder and handed him back his wand. He bowed his head as he sheathed it and made to turn again, then stilled. He balked, but finally intoned deeply, "For what it's worth, Hermione, I will always think highly of you as a businesswitch and as an honorable woman. Even if you can never forgive me, you gave birth to my child, and your pain and suffering deserves my everlasting admiration and respect."

He walked down the stairs, hoping she would stop, forgive him, and allow him to love her. He would work gladly the rest of his days proving himself to her of his love so that night would be just a distant memory. He loved her, but she had been right. He had deserted her. He'd left her to fend for herself. How could he ever make it right? Walking down the narrow stairs to the store, he realized he would love her for a very, long time. That thought alone devastated him.

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A/N: Whew! That was a rough chapter! Kudos to Maria, Beth and karelia who helped this mangy chapter into something meaningful. Now, I'm not naming names, but to the reviewer who who told me I couldn't have a biscuit for my evil cliffie last chapter, do I now deserve a biscuit? Please review! We all worked our collective keisters off for this one!