... and betrayal

I've never felt this before

See you dead on the floor

I can't recall a single day

That's gonna make this pain slip away

My senses have been so cold

Didn't know how to feel or hold

For a second I felt something in you

For a second I believed in you

~ The Verve, Feel

She opened her eyes wide and was suddenly and completely awake. Under her neck, the pillowcase was drenched in sweat and the sheet was crumpled at her feet. Her arms lay rigidly at her sides. Her body was sunk in the mattress, and her mind was racing. The clock said that she had had only two hours of sleep, but an impellent realisation had made its way through her slumbering self.

It wasn't Fred. It was Snape. Fred came afterwards.

She had believed that Fred's was the first image of death to stay fixed in her mind. That wasn't the truth. The image of Fred's body fixed in her mind only at the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, when she had been dragged back, almost senseless, in the Great Hall, where the bodies of the dead lay.

Fred's death shocked her – shattered her – and with that shock bouncing in her chest, she had entered into the Shrieking Shack. There she had witnessed Nagini's attack on Snape. And then the dreadful images started to stick in her mind.

She could not remember that night without feeling the air chill in her nostrils, screams thundering in her ears, and a black shadow falling on her and stretching out a hand to suffocate her.

There, in the Shrieking Shack. She stayed there, lurking behind Harry, listening but not watching to the dialogue between Snape and Voldemort. She peeped over Harry's shoulder only when she heard the snake's terrible hiss. A sparkle caught her eyes through the cracks in the wooden boards, and to her horror, she realised that it was a reflection of the light on Nagini's fangs. A moment later, those fangs sank into flesh.

Voldemort left the room, followed by his snake, as Harry sneaked inside. There were no obstacles to her sight. She watched.

Red. Black. Dust. Vapours emerging from the quivering black shape on the floor. Danger.

Harry shouted her to do something, and to do it quickly. She could do naught. She was paralysed against the wall. Her body did not obey her. It was frozen in panic, and her mind was frozen, too.

A snake and a body and blood and a neck and fangs and holes and Snape and over and over again.

Harry knelt by Snape's side and looked at him, and she looked at that scene while her legs refused to take a step onward or backward. Her mind was blank but for the plastered image and her voice had left her forever.

A snake, a body, blood, fangs, and I can't do anything, and I didn't do anything.

Seven years of magical education wasted on her. She, the brightest witch of her age, had been betrayed by her brains.

Hermione rose up from her bed and poured herself a glass of water. She approached the window and looked down in the street. Haworth Road slept in front of her under a misty blue sky.

So, Snape had been right all along. She was guilty. She felt guilty, at least. She hadn't helped him as he lay dying. She was able to leave the Shrieking Shack only because Harry clasped her arm and pulled her away. He had received some special information from Snape and couldn't waste a minute. He hoped someone would aid Snape, because he didn't know what to do. Hermione followed him like a mummy, unable to speak, to think, to understand. Her eyes could watch, though, and she had watched.

Obsessive images cemented over her remorse, on her inability to save them all from pain, to save herself from the irrational. Now she could see how she had felt responsible for what went wrong, how her errors had splintered her sense of being in control. She was Hermione Granger, after all. Everybody had told her she was the one you could count on for order, safety and planning. Everybody expected her to be highly efficient and resistant. If Harry had to deal with Voldemort, Hermione was left the task of controlling, so that everything else went well. And she had failed.

She looked back at her eighteen-years-old self, the one who thought herself superior to all the rest of the world because of her intelligence and skills and her amazing culture. She had stopped feeling superior after she spent four months crying. Sorrow had brought her down, together with all the little creatures suffering. The proud girl who believed in her super-powers seemed so naive to her now.

How ironic that she would be set in the right direction by the man who had started it all. The clues had been right under her nose all along, but she lacked the key to decipher them. Responsibility and control were indeed the reasons behind her disease. While the wizarding world proclaimed her a hero, she felt undeserving of that title. The pattern appeared so clear to her now, in that moment of nighttime revelation. Magic could falter and play tricks with those who were also not committed to Dark Arts. You cannot trust it to shelter you forever from mistakes and troubles. She had reverted to Muggle, to stay with people allowed to make faults and be imperfect.

Sorrow had increased her understanding of other people's suffering, but there was one person who hadn't elicited her solidarity before, and that person was Snape. After the Battle of Hogwarts, she was reluctant to meet him again. She refused to visit him in St. Mungo's – Harry and Ron did go – and kept at a safe distance from him during anniversary parties and ceremonies at the Ministry. Blame, fear and guilt intertwined in her reaction toward him at that time. She blamed him for becoming an object of her despised fixed images. She feared staring at him would create more images. She felt guilty for being unable to prevent all the former. Now she possessed a name for all those issues and she called them the effects of being there, in the Shrieking Shack, watching without intervening.

It wasn't irony. It was only justice that she would find the solution where her problems had started.

The things that seemed so clear during the night were messier under the bright morning sun, when she was not simply a stream of thoughts, but a social being committed to a job and to relationships with living people.

She felt unsure about the best way to deal with a very alive Snape coming to escort her home after work. Thank God he hadn't died that night in the Shrieking Shack. Otherwise, she would not suffer simply from fixed images, but of bloody psychosis. Thank God Minerva had found him before it was too late.

She had to ask forgiveness. She needed to be forgiven by him. She would be free then.

As she pondered her next steps on her way to work, Hermione remembered a few verses that used to soothe her in the past. In the library, she picked a worn-out paperback edition of Shakespeare's sonnets and read:

Sonnet 35

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are...

She had given them a different meaning then, but now they made even more sense.

"You seem silent this evening, Miss Granger. Already tired on a Monday? Or did bookworms eat your tongue, finally?"

"I don't know where to start."

"Speak a little bit louder, would you. I don't perceive infrasound."

"I have to tell you something, but I don't know where to start."

"Always with the most unpleasing part, please."

"I did you a wrong."

"You did a what?"

"I DID YOU A WRONG!"

"I'm not deaf; there's no need to scream."

"Are you listening to me then? I said I did you a wrong."

"Therefore you conformed to all the rest of humanity, that's what you mean?"

"I'm serious; I realised this last night."

"Why, I don't consider it a wrong yet that people think of me at night."

Hermione inhaled. "I remembered the Shrieking Shack. During the Battle of Hogwarts. I remembered as I was there, paralysed..."

"Ah, have you finally realised that you didn't lift a finger to help me, Granger? Belated apologies, aren't they?" Snape sneered in his nastier fashion.

Without a word, Hermione Disapparated.

How stupid, stupid had she been. Of course, Snape would bear a grudge against her. She was indeed the most naive of all women to expect comprehension from him. Maybe to accompany her home was just a way to inflict her punishment, to take a delayed revenge on her misdemeanours. He didn't want her to heal; he only wanted that she became aware of her past faults! He was cruel and mean and all the epithets she had refused to apply on him while she was at school. It was foolish of her to hope for a dignified scene of mutual understanding. As soon as she met him back in June, she had known he would do her no good. And it was absolutely rich to feel pity for him; he deserved none. It was absurd to seek peace in the reconciliation of their experiences, for she would get nothing but troubles from him. She had been a fool to give him leeway, to trust him, to...

And tea that night tasted foully of salt.

She wasn't pleased to see him again, on Tuesday evening. She hoped he got the message from her Disapparition and would disappear as well. Instead, he was there, set on the bench placed in the front garden of the library. The weather was awful as usual – thank you very much, British summer – and Snape was soaked from the rain. He had forgotten his umbrella, it seemed. Streaks of hair trailed down his brow, sleek with water, and under his frown, his eyes were cold and distant. He sat perched on the bench, elbows plunged into his thighs, his chin resting on his joined hands. As soon as he noticed her, he got to his feet and drew near her.

"Explain yourself," he said, crossing his arms on his chest.

Hermione closed the door behind her, clenching the knob as if it was guilty.

"Explain what?" she replied tartly.

"Don't treat me like a stupid idiot, I'm not; why did you Disapparate yesterday?"

If you were not stupid, then you would get it yourself. "Wasn't that clear?"

"Evidently not, or I wouldn't bother questioning."

"I apologise, all right? I know now that I failed you in the past, and you have every right to be angry, but there was no need to be that harsh. The memory of that night... it all clicked, finally. It was rather hard for me to put the pieces together and to express what I realized, what it does mean for my situation. It was important, for heaven's sake! There was no need to make it harder!"

"So that's it? I spoilt the big moment?"

"Of course! I wanted you to forgive me, and then to hear you with that revengeful tone..."

"Damn, Granger, you should know it better by now than to take my words to the letter. Mine was a joke, obviously."

It bloody didn't look like that. "I was in no mood for jokes." Say it. Say it. "You hurt me."

"And you hurt me by Disapparating," he replied gravely. "So now we are quits, Miss Granger." His frown deepened. "As for the matter in the Shrieking Shack, your apologies are useless."

Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could feel her cheeks burning while all the rest of her face went pale.

"They are useless because you did nothing wrong, that night. Listen. I have already tried to shove it into your stubborn head: there's nothing you can do that could seriously offend me, except, perhaps, leaving me looking like a fool in the middle of the street. Honestly, Miss Granger, did you expect me to blame you for what you may have or haven't done when you were eighteen? In that fucking situation? Nobody could hold you personally responsible, and surely I won't be the first."

"I should have done more," she said with a trembling voice.

"Dumbledore put you lot in that devilish maelstrom and you blame yourself? Seriously, that man has something more to answer for."

"Don't speak of Dumbledore! You!"

"Yes," he snarled. "Hello, Miss Granger, nice to meet you, my name is – "

"Oh, shut up! You and I, Severus Snape, we could never get along. I knew that. I shouldn't have agreed to spend time with you from the start. That was a bad, bad move."

"Very well," said Snape, a muscle twitching in his cheek. "I suspected that too. It was a lost cause."

"What?" I'm not a lost cause. Take back those words.

"It was ridiculous to take some good material out of you."

"Sorry to disappoint you," she pouted, disgusted.

"You should rejoice, Miss Granger," he declared with the same disgust. "You didn't make your way into the new Funnel instalment. Congratulations. I'm going to cross out all the parts containing you."

"What? Did you put me in your book?" she said, arching her eyebrows in bewilderment.

"An error that can be easily repaired." Snape pulled his Moleskine notebook out of his hip pocket, tore a page away and crumpled it in his palm. "Don't worry, Miss Granger. This time you got yourself freed of me; I'll choose another circuit for my night patrols." He turned and took a step toward the gate.

"Wait!"

"Ah, now you ask me to stay," he sneered. "The vanity of women will never cease to impress me."

"How would you think you could use my story for a book? I cannot believe it. What did you write? About a girl who went nuts after the war? Thank you very much! I'm flattered, indeed!"

"It would have been wiser!" Snape shouted, tossing his notebook on the chippings. The notebook opened and raindrops started to splash on the pages.

For a long moment, they stared at each other, sharply and unblinkingly.

"My editor wanted me to introduce a female character at Funnel's side," Snape sighed eventually. "I thought I could take some inspiration from you. That's why I insisted on our meetings. Sorry to shatter your theory of the Good Samaritan, Granger. It was as ingenious as insulting."

"Well, we are quits with insults, I believe. You took liberties with me you should be ashamed of," Hermione said, taking a few steps onward. When she arrived in front of Snape, she bent down and collected the rain-sodden notebook from the ground. She handed it to Snape.

"I will have no more scruples about asking your understanding, sir, for I know I'll get none. I hope I'll have no more occasions in the future to speak to you. I'm done with this story. Good night, sir." She forced the notebook into Snape's hands and walked away.

"Wait, Hermione!" She heard Snape begging behind her. She moved on. She could feel Snape's eyes on her back, but she wouldn't turn for any reason. A moment later, she heard a curse. The rain muffled the rest of Snape's words.

Liar. Liar. Liar.

Using me as a source of inspiration, pull the other one! He reckons I'm some kind of museum freak. Maybe he wants to describe how Funnel manipulated an innocent girl to go to the dark side of the Force. And I cared to ask for his forgiveness. And I felt guilty for him. When he made a fool of me. The way he mistreated me. He makes me sick.

I will never, never forgive him.

The visitors of the Emily Brontë Library all turned their heads and stared at her in reproach. They had never paid so much attention to the young, plain and usually quiet librarian, but Hermione had just broken the Libraries' Rule Number One: never raise your voice in a library. She flushed and returned an ominous gaze to her audience. Then she gracelessly shoved the book requested into the hands of a poor reader.

Am I not even allowed to be nervous? Because if you were in my place, you would.

The Twelve Patriarkes suffered her wrath as well. She threaded and needled like a sewing machine, until she decided it was better to cast a Calming Charm on herself before she did any damage to Brother Lucretius' precious tome.

She felt in no mood for a party. However, on Thursday morning she pushed herself out of her room earlier than usual to go buy a present for Harry and Neville. The choices for an original gift had run out years before, therefore, she resorted to food, lately.

Her Crammed Galaxy Guide to York suggested Monk Bar Chocolatiers and there she went. She could remember passing across the shop after she visited Jorvik. Snape had bid her goodbye so gently and the stony surface of the Bar had been bathed in her favourite yellow summer light. It had happened only five days before.

She couldn't understand. On Sunday afternoon, they had got on so well. Of course, there was the blue shirt and despite the Boddingtons' vocal charm, she remembered feeling a certain heat for the blue shirt even before entering the museum. And then the next evening – only twenty-eight hours later – he had hurt her in a most unjust and ungenerous way. He had even bothered to come again to her, just to insult and offend her beyond any conceivable measure. While she wanted to apologise. It was he who should apologise to her, now.

She felt so tired, and all she could wish for that evening was to go to bed early, possibly with a Dreamless Sleep Potion. But it was Neville's and Harry's birthday and she would go celebrate with them. She opened the door of the shop and her eyes settled on a mouth-watering extravaganza called 'Happy Birthday Chocolate Celebration Bottle'. She also asked the assistant to fill her paper bag with a dozen truffles, pralines and creams. When all is said and done, there's always chocolate.

At ten p.m., she switched off all the lights in the library, checked the windows, closed the front door from the inside and Disapparated to the south.

A/N: Say thanks with me to valady and RobisonRocket who betaed this chapter.

The Happy Birthday Chocolate Celebration Bottle is a real treat made by Monk Bar Chocolatiers in York. Check their website: http://www.monkbar.com/

"Unjust and ungenerous" from Pride and Prejudice, chapter 34.