Chapter Four

SEVERUS

I was losing him, and myself in the process, and I neither knew nor cared how to stop it happening. What had seemed so easy in the days in the shelter, and the first few days back at Hogwarts, had in fact proven to be impossible. For a time we had lessened our hostilities to a show of cutting remarks, but that was really all that had changed, and I was turning away in disappointment, or that was what I told myself; it was easier than admitting the truth, that I was losing my grip on reality.

I had too many barriers and too much competition. He was amongst his adoring throng again; he didn't need me any more, and that cut me more than I could have imagined. I felt outraged, eaten away by an unreasonable resentment any time anyone as much as spoke to him, almost as though he were violating what we had gone through, what I had gone through for him. He should have been mine and mine alone, and now that I had to share him I found I wasn't willing, or able, to do that. I only understand now that it was because he was still part of me and I had left a part of me inside him; perhaps it is a mercy that I did not recognise my own insanity. When I stopped going out of my rooms the jealousy retreated; instead I found myself plagued by guilt that I had put a price tag on the love I thought I had freely given.

I retreated to my own rooms more and more, keeping to my solitude and my books. Every now and again my mind would wander to the Great Hall, thinking about him, wondering whom he was talking to, who was looking at him, but I'd really cut myself off from everything. I suspect people had failed to even notice now that I didn't turn up for meals; maybe I flatter myself, maybe they had never noticed.

I realised with dull acceptance that I hadn't spoken to a living soul for days; I didn't know how many days, maybe five or six, probably more, it didn't matter. There was nobody I wanted to talk to, nobody who wouldn't pry, or try to make me talk about my feelings, or attempt to get into that black hole of my heart; there never had been. I had decisions to make and I had to make them soon; I just needed the energy.

The position of assistant head came up in Durmstrang, and I knew I would be the best qualified for the post; I could walk into it. The Daily Prophet the elves had left, before I told them to stop calling, lay open at the advertisement for a week; somehow I never got around to applying.

Lucius owled me a few times, each letter becoming more demanding than the last one, until he finally begged me to meet him; I stopped reading them after that. I know he even hammered on my door a couple of times; I could feel his presence. I was slowly sinking deeper and deeper into despair so black that I knew I would never find my way out if I succumbed.

I made up my mind to leave Hogwarts; I had done no work at all for the new term, the rising of the new dawn of everything we had fought for, and I knew I could not face it, not now, not the way I was. I had no idea where I was going to go; it didn't seem to matter much anyway, and it had taken all my mental energy to decide to leave. It hadn't been a choice made from any conscious desire, as much as one forced upon me because I was at such a loss as to how I could continue to stay. I had no explanation as to why I let myself drift in to the state in which I found myself, why I had retreated into myself, turning everyone away, even turning aside the one man I had lived for. I only knew how badly hurt I felt, and failed to understand why.

I poured a drink; that was becoming a habit too, and lit another cigarette. I found my teeth gritting at another ruddy knock on the door; the sooner I was away from here the better.

*****

SIRIUS

I couldn't understand what had gone wrong; one moment it seemed as though we could make it after all, and the next he had retreated behind his black armour.

I had been given rooms on the second floor, but he'd never called at them; he seemed to be more comfortable in his dungeon, so I went there. It hadn't been a courtship, even I couldn't pretend that to myself, but it had been a lessening of aggression, as though we were two exotic birds gauging one another in some weird ritual before deciding whether to go for the kill or the mating game.

Looking back, I think I see what happened. I was euphoric, unnaturally so; I know that now, and my health was improving so rapidly that I failed to see the equal decline in his. It's a lame excuse, I know, but I haven't got another one. He was drinking too much, smoking too much, and he became argumentative and hostile to the point where I stormed off on more than one occasion, leaving him to stew on his own.

And there was so much else happening at Hogwarts; the war was over, the peace was beginning to come together and I found myself, for the first time since before I went to Azkaban, truly free. And he was holding me back, reluctant to integrate himself into anything much; in fact he hardly spoke to anyone except me, unless he was spoken to.

I remember the night I went to the Three Broomsticks with Bill and Lupin; Harry and Ron and Hermione were already there. Severus had refused to join us, again, and I was damn sure I wasn't going to miss the fun just because he didn't want to join in. I went to his rooms when I came back, the worse for drink, I know, and we had another round of the tired old recriminations we had begun to throw at one another. He didn't come for breakfast the next day and he refused to answer his door, nor did he come for lunch or dinner. To my shame I didn't see the significance that a day had become two, and when he failed to let me in the second day, I stormed away again.

It probably took another day for my anger to turn to concern that I hadn't even seen him; perhaps another two until it turned to something approaching alarm. I knew he was in there; I knew he hadn't left, Padfoot's senses told me that. I began to worry that he was suicidal. I went down to his rooms and stood for a full hour one evening, constantly knocking at his door, threatening to break it down until eventually I got one sentence from him, "Go away, Black, I want to be alone". It wasn't the words that sent me straight to Dumbledore; it was the flat hollow tone. I could picture him sitting at the other side of that door, looking at his table for an hour, dredging up the force to deliver that one line.

*****

HERMIONE

I hadn't seen him for over a week; he'd even stopped haunting the Restricted Section on the few occasions he left his rooms at all. Everyone was worried about him, and nobody knew what to do. Sirius became withdrawn, and Lupin and Bill looked anxious; I knew they were all fretting about Severus in different ways. Even Dumbledore kept looking towards the door during meals. I'd been down a couple of times, but he hadn't answered; this time I'd decided I would just wait until he did.

'Come.' He surprised me on my first knock and only looked up as I froze in the door. 'Oh, it's you,' he said flatly.

He was drunk; he looked as though he hadn't shaved for days, and his rooms were a mess that I could not even begin to associate with him. 'What do think you are doing to yourself?' I asked him when I found my voice.

'Now, a bright girl like you should know the answer to that, Miss Granger. I am in the process of getting rat-arsed drunk.' He lifted the glass in a mocking toast and drank it off.

I went in and closed the door; it really would not do for anyone else to see this, I knew he'd hate that. 'Why?' I asked.

'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'

'Severus, why have you shut yourself away?' I asked as I sat down opposite him. 'Everyone is worried sick about you.' I hoped he didn't see I was at a loss, but I don't think he was registering much of anything, and that frightened me.

'Yes, so I see. I am inundated with requests for my company.'

'You don't answer the door.'

'I know.' He stood up, quite steadily. 'Will you leave me now, Miss Granger? I should like to continue my good work, undisturbed.'

'No, I think I'll just sit and watch ... or go for Dumbledore. I've not decided which yet.'

'I know what you are trying to do ... and I appreciate it.' He sat back down and lit a cigarette. I'd never seen him smoke, but he did it with the familiarity of long and frequent practice. 'Please, Hermione, leave me alone.'

He'd never called or referred to me by my first name, to the best of my knowledge; I think that twisted my heart more than anything. 'He loves you, you know ... but you make it so hard for everyone. He just doesn't know what to do, how to get through to you.' I almost pleaded with him. 'None of us do.'

He put his head in his hands, and it was all I could do not to stand up and touch him, but I knew that would be a mistake; I knew I was lucky I hadn't been thrown out already. It was then that I noticed in the general mess of the room that he had begun to pack some of his books into crates; I had to stop this, and I didn't know how to.

'Severus,' I tried again, 'don't leave, not after all you did to get him. Don't just give up now.'

He looked back up and curled his lip. 'I have fought the good fight ... and lost; he does not need me.' He stood up and opened the door. 'Thank you for your concern.'

I had little choice; I knew I needed to move fast. He'd know I'd go straight to Sirius; he didn't look as though he was going to hang around for long.

*****

SIRIUS

Dumbledore watched me, nodding his head in that way he had. 'No, Sirius, he will not take his own life; have no fear of that.'

'What's wrong with him?' I asked. 'I've tried, Albus, everyone has.'

'I fear that he has drained his will to live. I cannot think anything else. Dark Magic is a dangerous thing, Sirius; it does not ask us if we can pay the price of its use.' He'd given me his blue gaze. 'Severus poured so much of himself into you that when he let go there wasn't enough of a foundation left to rebuild himself. In time he will come out of it, I'm sure ... in time.'

'Lost his will to live? What are you talking about?' I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that; he'd seemed sane enough to me when we'd got back to Hogwarts, it was only a few days later that he'd begun to draw away from everyone. 'I'm the one who died; I've managed to get the fun back into my life.'

'He didn't lose it, Sirius. He gave it to you.'

I hope never again to feel the humiliation I felt at that remark; it cut through me like a hot knife through butter.

Dumbledore looked at me shrewdly, and I had a feeling he was beginning to understand something himself, but it was as though he expected me just to accept that I should leave Severus to his own devices. 'Give him time ... give him time to come to terms with himself,' he said, nodding his head, as though he, at least, understood. 'He has got so far; he will manage the rest.'

'Time? I don't think he's got time.'

He was watching me, as though he wanted me to understand something, something I should realise for myself, something he wasn't able to tell me. Now I had to be a fucking mind reader too.

'You've thought of something haven't you?' I accused.

'For what it is worth, I suspect that Severus's calculations were based on the expectancy of you both returning, for want of a better word, at the same time. He did not account for the fact that Lupin and Bill had to bring him back through you; he could not have allowed for that, although he had prepared for the possibility, it was an unknown.'

I blinked at him. 'And?' I asked.

'I suspect things haven't quite balanced out because of that. You haven't only got his will to live, Sirius.' He paused as though struggling to voice what he was thinking. 'Whatever confidence and self-belief he had ... I think you've got that too.' I must have looked thunderstruck, because he stood up and put his hand on my arm. 'Give him time, Sirius; he has adjustments to make too.'

'What else?' I asked as I watched something like regret cross his ancient features. 'What aren't you telling me?'

He looked away for a moment in a way that was so unlike him, but when he turned that damn blue gaze on me again he had composed himself. 'I should have been there, Sirius,' he said. 'I should have been there to help. Forgive me.'

*****

It hadn't comforted me much; I couldn't stop thinking about him, about what was going through his mind, sitting down there on his own, day after day, night after night. And yet I'd found that whilst I yearned for him when he was not there, I'd fought with him when he was. And he was the one who had pushed me away ... I had gone though; I admit that. It was too much; I couldn't wait for him to just snap out of it, I didn't think he was going to, not on his own anyway.

I stood from the board game I was playing with Remus, Harry and Ron; I couldn't concentrate, and Dumbledore's words had begun to haunt me. He'd made me feel as though I were Severus Snape's personal Dementor; I wasn't sure I could handle the knowledge.

'Where are you going?' Harry asked, giving me another of the hard looks he'd been throwing at me all week; I knew what they accused me of.

'I can't take any more of this; I'm going to hammer on his fucking door until he gets fed up with the racket and lets me in,' I replied. 'And if he doesn't, I'll smash the fucking door down.'

Harry gave me the "about bloody time" look.

I was almost at his door, when it was flung wide open and Hermione walked out with a worried frown, which was swamped with relief when she saw me.

'Don't bother closing it, Severus.' I shoved him back into the room and closed the door, shutting us both in the shambles that had once been his proud domain.

*****