Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sure enough, Hermione found herself regretting her rash promise the moment she set out from the Ministry. Even Apparating was not easy with the huge, heavy rucksack she was carrying. Apart from a change of clothes and her toothbrush (this might be a rather unusual sleepover, but she was the daughter of two dentists and old habits die hard), Hermione had brought copious amounts of Honeydukes' best chocolate, large flasks of hot chocolate and several bottles of chocolate liqueur. She had spent a fortune on the stuff, and she was damn well going to claim it back on expenses.

Her spirits were further lowered by having to surrender her wand at the Azkaban gates. The Dementors were not happy at the prospect of one of their prisoners getting a fair trial, but let Hermione and her boss into Snape's cell. Hermione was trying to keep her breathing steady and her mind on the chocolate in her bag. She was feeling definitely sick by now.

Loitering in the darkness of the doorway, she stole a look at her former teacher. He looked dreadful. His hair was, if possible, even more greasy than usual. He had shadows under his eyes and his sallow skin had acquired a waxy pallor.

Trainees at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were taught the rudiments of Legilimency in their first month. Hermione was, naturally, top of the class, but even she had found it a struggle. In Snape, though, she had an easy target. She caught him off guard, and he hadn't the strength to protect himself, although he realised quickly that he was being targeted and employed Occlumency within a few seconds. Those few seconds, however, were long enough for her to ascertain his mood and see that he was furious. OK. Anger she could cope with. Anger was good. Indeed, for Snape, it was normal. At least he hadn't succumbed to the depression that overwhelmed so many in Azkaban.

She started as she realised Kingsley Shacklebolt was speaking.

'Your trial will take place tomorrow morning, Snape. I have brought your guard.' He pulled Hermione into the room.

Snape stared from Kingsley to Hermione in horror. 'Ye gods! Are the Dementors not enough? Would you torture me, Shacklebolt?'

Hermione snorted softly to herself. Azkaban clearly hadn't affected Snape too badly.

Kingsley took Hermione aside. 'If you can't cope, let me know. We'll abandon the hearing and get you out of here immediately.' He clapped her on the shoulder and left, looking immensely glad to be going and leaving Hermione wondering just how she was to contact him without her wand. She came to the uncomfortable conclusion that she was trapped.

'Right,' Hermione said, trying to keep her tone businesslike. 'Since I'm going to be here for quite a while, I'll unpack.' She took out the heavy flasks of hot chocolate and set them on the desk. It was a particularly inventive piece of cruelty, she reflected, to put a desk in the Professor's room and then deny him ink, parchment and books. She took out the slabs of chocolate. 'That should help us get through this.'

'You have not been here five minutes, and you have already attacked my mind, Miss Granger,' Snape snapped. 'Do not expect me to feel well disposed towards you.'

Hermione refused to be intimidated. 'And I'm getting paid triple time to be here, Professor, so do not think you can get rid of me.' She sighed. She was going to be stuck in this tiny cell with Snape for the next twenty-four hours. She had better make at least some attempt to get on with him.

'Professor,' Hermione began.

'I hardly think that title is appropriate any longer,' he replied with a faint sneer.

'Yes, it is. I'm going to get you out of here, and then you can return to your new job – your old job,' she faltered. Snape's employment history at Hogwarts had been rather confusing recently. 'Professor McGonagall's not very impressed with Kingsley Shacklebolt. She'll be delighted to have you back.'

'And is the school still standing without me?' he asked sardonically.

'They're managing. Harry's taking your classes.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'It was either him or Ron. They're Aurors now.' Hermione tried for a smile, but could only manage a weak twitch of the lips. How long could she last without a piece of chocolate?

'Hobson's choice,' he remarked wryly, and she was pleased to see her attempt at a smile returned. 'At least Potter will have some chance of planning classes without copying your notes, which is more than I can say for Weasley.'

Hermione took heart from his slight smile. 'I've brought you something,' she said, offering him a stack of Potions books from her bag. 'They wouldn't let me bring Defence Against the Dark Arts, of course, and I had to read these to check there's nothing on neutralising Veritaserum in there, but I hope they're OK.'

'Thank you.' Snape took the books, but his expression betrayed nothing.

Hermione took out her own books, all easy reading – chick lit and romances. Normally she preferred the classics, but she didn't think A Tale of Two Cities or Agatha Christie's murder mysteries were a good idea under the circumstances. Last out of the bag came the bottles of liqueur.

Now she had stopped distracting herself with her unpacking, Hermione started feeling sick again. A swish of robes outside confirmed her suspicions. The Dementors were back from escorting the Minister off the premises and had stationed themselves outside Snape's door again. A wave of cold washed over her, and she hastily reached for a bar of chocolate, ripped it open and took a bite. Ye gods, she was going to end up the size of a house if she couldn't get through five minutes in here without a chocolate fix. She just hoped she'd brought enough.

The chocolate made her feel slightly better, but she still felt rather shaky. Lupin had always advised eating a whole bar at a time, but she definitely wouldn't have enough if she did that every time she felt a bit off. Against her better judgement, she opened the liqueur bottle and took a small sip. Then she offered the bottle to Snape. 'You look as if you could do with some, Professor.'

He took a tentative swig and grimaced. 'That is truly vile,' he said, his brow furrowing in distaste. 'What is it?'

'Chocolate Irish cream liqueur,' she replied, smiling at his look of disgust.

'Waste of good whiskey, waste of good cream,' he muttered. 'Could you not have brought Firewhisky?'

'I had difficulty enough getting this past the guards. I had to promise not to give you any. The Dementors don't like their prisoners drunk.'

'Don't worry; I'd rather take the memories.'

She raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and he dropped his gaze.

'Sorry,' Hermione said softly. 'That was below the belt and I didn't even say anything.'

He shrugged, but would not meet her eyes. 'I think about them all the time anyway. Lily, Albus, that night on the Astronomy Tower. It's just that the memories are so much stronger in here. The Dementors make them so much worse. I can't even use Occlumency against them. I could, for about the first week, but it's been getting more and more difficult.' His head was bowed, his eyes fixed on his hands, which were twisting in his lap.

Hermione stared at him. This was so unlike him it was starting to scare her. She had never heard him speak like this before. He had always been so confident, so self-assured. Was this what Azkaban did to people? She had seen Sirius depressed and bitter about his imprisonment, but in someone as self-possessed as Snape had always been, the transformation was unnerving. She searched desperately for something comforting to say.

'It's all right.' Hermione could have kicked herself. 'No, I'm sorry; that was a stupid thing to say. It'll never be all right, will it?' She got up and moved her uncomfortable wooden chair next to Snape's. 'What I meant to say is, I'm going to get you out of here, so at least you won't have to deal with the Dementors any more.'

Snape looked up at her. 'Why are you doing this, Miss Granger?'

'Hermione,' she insisted. 'Kingsley Shacklebolt asked me the same question.'

'And your answer was?'

'The answer I gave him was that I had seen what Azkaban did to Sirius.' She looked away, embarrassed. 'The answer I didn't give was that I wanted to learn more about you. I admire you, and I could not see the Ministry destroy you for a charge of which you are innocent.'

'You admire me?' Behind the sneer, Hermione could detect a hint of surprise, even disbelief. She smiled broadly at him.

'I should think the whole school admires you for what you've done these last twenty years!' She leaned forward, trying to engage him. 'And by tomorrow, the whole of the Ministry will too – I'll make sure of that. You've done nothing wrong. You put a sick, frightened old man out of his misery. That took courage, Professor. More courage than anything in the last twenty years, I should think.'

Snape shook his head. 'Courageous? Me?' He gave a short, mocking laugh. 'No, Potter was right. I am a coward.'

'What?'

'Potter called me a coward after I killed Dumbledore. And, much as I hate to agree with Potter, he is right.' He raised his eyes, and Hermione was shocked at the anguish and self-disgust in his face. 'I hid. During the final battle. I hid.'

'What?' Hermione was aware she was sounding like a parrot, but she was so shocked she honestly couldn't think of anything else to say.

'After Flitwick attacked me and I leapt out of the window, I re-entered the castle under a Disillusionment Charm. I knew I had to give Potter the information that Dumbledore entrusted to me before...before he died. I hid in the Room of Requirement until the opportunity arose to lure Potter up to Dumbledore's office and slip the memories into the Pensieve. I was still under the Disillusionment Charm; I could not risk revealing myself to Potter and explaining the situation personally. I knew he would not trust me until after he had seen my memories.'

Snape had kept himself together while he told his story, but now, the self-hatred returned to his face and his voice shook slightly as he continued. 'But after that, I returned to the Room of Requirement. Instead of joining the battle after I had fulfilled Albus' wishes, I lost my nerve and hid myself away again.'

Hermione dropped to her knees in front of Snape's chair. His eyes were cast down again and he was refusing to meet her gaze. This was the only way she could make eye contact with him.

'You did the right thing. What if Harry had needed your help? If you had returned to the battle, you would have been fighting both sides. You might well have been killed, probably by one of our own side, and how would Harry have contacted you then?' She got up off the floor and went to fetch a block of chocolate from the desk. If she was going to have to comfort Snape, she needed to keep her own spirits up. Then she sat back on her chair and offered the chocolate to him. He took a piece and finally looked up at her.

'There is one thing I do not understand. Who told you about my past? You must know about the arrangement with Albus, or why would you defend me?'

'Harry told Ron and me immediately after he killed Voldemort – he feels awful about not trusting you all these years.'

'Of course, I should have guessed. I did wonder if it was Miss Weasley.'

'Ginny? What made you think that?'

Snape toyed with the chocolate, snapping it into precisely equal pieces, but he did not eat it. 'She was in the Room of Requirement. I told her everything. I feared she might do something unwise if I did not. I did ask her to keep it to herself, but I thought she blamed me for the death of her brother.'

Hermione gawped at him. 'Excuse me, Professor, but how did you work that one out?'

'I hid, Hermione! If I had returned to the fighting, I could have saved him. Fred Weasley was only twenty. Nymphadora Tonks was thirteen years younger than me. Colin Creevey was underage, for Merlin's sake. And they all fought. They didn't skulk in a safe house and let someone else do the work.'

Hermione leant forward and grasped Snape's hands. 'This is Azkaban talking. You've been with the Dementors too long.' She took a deep breath, unsure quite how far to push their enforced intimacy. She decided to risk it; she couldn't keep calling him Professor, and she had already told him to call her Hermione. 'Severus.' He still wouldn't look at her, but he didn't object, which gave her confidence. 'Do you know who alerted me to your arrest? It was Ginny. She was trying to help you.'

'She has reason to hate me.'

'Severus! Listen to me. You gave Harry the memories that allowed him to defeat Voldemort. Your memories saved him – Ginny knows that. This was her way of thanking you.'

'I knew I was sending him to his death, yet I still did it. I hid myself away and left him to die.'

'Dumbledore had a trick up his sleeve, didn't he? That tied-by-blood thing. I don't believe he would have allowed you to send Harry to his death, even to defeat Voldemort.'

Hermione moved her chair right next to Severus' and tentatively put an arm around his shoulders. He's not going to like this, she thought. He'll pull away in a minute and make some sarky comment, but I've got to try and help him before tomorrow. His body language, his whole manner was screaming, "I deserve to be here". Of course he was terrified of being left with the Dementors for the rest of his life, but she had to get him to accept his innocence or the memories in the Pensieve would send out quite the wrong message to the court.

Right now, Hermione thought furiously, I am ashamed of working for the Ministry. That a brave, selfless man should be reduced to this is unforgivable. For the first time since setting foot in Azkaban, she was glad her wand had been confiscated – she would probably have set light to the furniture in her anger!

But, to her surprise, he didn't pull away. His shoulders stiffened slightly as she slipped her arm around him, but then he relaxed and she felt some of the tension drain out of him.

'Hot chocolate!' Hermione said cheerfully, to save him the embarrassment of speaking. 'It's freezing in here, and I need a chocolate fix.'

With a steaming mug of hot chocolate in her hands, Hermione began to feel better. Snape looked slightly happier once she had persuaded him to eat something himself and to look at the books she'd brought him; he hadn't made an acerbic comment since she first got here, and they were on first name terms. Perhaps she would be able to get through this after all.

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A.N. I know I will not be popular, making Snape hide from the fighting, but I wanted to work out how he could survive the war, rather than just say he had. I needed to throw him together with Ginny, and I had to give him something to feel guilty about!

I saw a TV interview with JKR in which she said Hermione went on to work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Harry and Ron became Aurors, and Harry taught the occasional Defence class at Hogwarts.

Hobson was a 19th century stable owner who, when you wanted to hire a horse, would rent you the one he decided or none at all. So it actually means no choice at all. The reason Snape uses it (rather than ' Morton's Fork, which means a choice between two equally bad options) is that he perceives Ron to be no use whatsoever, so the choice for substitute DADA teacher is Harry or no one. Morton's Fork would have given Ron too much credence!

The desk-but-no-books thing actually happened to Oscar Wilde in his first three months of imprisonment.