Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Hermione spent the next two hours in a daze. When she reached her quarters, she lay down on her bed, wanting a good cry. The hurt was so deep, cutting through the core of her very soul, that she couldn't manage a single tear. All she could do was curl into a foetal position, hugging her pillow and staring at the wall.

This was worse than anything she had ever experienced before. Nothing came close, really. Not Ron cheating on her so publicly; not Bellatrix gleefully torturing her; not the losses they had sustained in the Final Battle; not the loss of her parents when she had taken their memories and sent them to Australia.

How could she have been so stupid? She should have realised it was all a ruse, a game that Severus and Lucius had played for their own hidden purposes. It felt as though her heart had been ripped from her chest, thrown to the floor, and crushed under someone's boot. She could only imagine the hatred Severus must still hold toward her to have schemed in such a way. Everything else he had said or done to her over the years paled in comparison to this. She could, to some degree, understand, accept, and forgive everything that had gone before. It had been awful, of course, but her defences had always been raised, like a mental Protego that had deflected the most malicious and vindictive of his comments and behaviours towards her, so that at worst, it gave her superficial cuts.

But this time – this time he had really outdone himself. He had seemed so sincere and apologetic about his past behaviour that she had been persuaded to lower her defences and let him in. She had handed over her heart into his hands, trusting that he would keep it safe, and he had betrayed her trust, so now she had nothing left, not even the strength that had seen her through the worst of what had gone before.

She felt more alone and tired and ... sad than she could ever remember feeling before.

It was the thought of how alone she was that finally freed her tears. She couldn't talk to anyone about this – she would never get the words past the lump in the throat, even if there had been anyone to tell. Normally, she'd have talked to Harry and Luna, but not about this, and she just didn't have that kind of friendship with anyone else.

She would have to find a way to muster her defences and find some previously unknown strength, she supposed.

But for now, she decided, she would just cry.

When Severus went to fetch Hermione from her office for lunch, as had become his habit, she didn't answer his knock. He let himself in anyway, thinking perhaps she was caught up in her work and simply hadn't heard him. But her office looked deserted.

Deciding that perhaps she had gone to the library, he set off briskly in that direction, but he didn't find her there, either. Neither was she in the lab working on their research, nor in the staff room chatting with one of the other staff members. He was fast running out of places she could be, so he cast a locator spell, and was surprised when it directed him toward her quarters.

A feeling of uneasiness crept over him when he knocked and received no answer. Hermione never retreated to her quarters during the workday. Could she be sick? He re-cast the locator spell, thinking perhaps she had gone ahead to the Great Hall on her own, but his wand stubbornly insisted she was behind her door. He knocked again, and when she still didn't answer, he spent a moment deciding what to do. Eventually, his fear for her safety overrode his care for her privacy, and he used his privilege as headmaster to let himself in.

His eyes swept the sitting room, finding nothing out of the ordinary, and with an increasing sense of trepidation, he let himself into her bedroom. He was momentarily relieved when he spied her, curled up on her side in her bed, hugging her pillow close, until he got closer and saw evidence that she had been crying. Protectiveness surged through him, urging him to find and hex whoever had upset her so.

Even as he had the thought, her eyes drifted open, and she started to smile at him. He started to smile back, but then she seemed to awaken fully. Her smile disappeared and she looked frightened as she scuttled back across the bed away from him. "Hermione?" he asked, frowning. "Are you ill?"

She stared at him without speaking for an eternity before laughing bitterly. "Why should you care? Afraid I'll die and you'll have to fill my post? Or maybe that would be the coup de grace." She shook her head. "Go away, Severus. I don't want to talk to you. Except to say that my resignation stands. I'll be leaving here within a day or two, and I won't be coming back."

Severus couldn't have been more shocked had she told him the war had all been a bad dream. Her voice was all wrong – cold and hard and mean – and her words made no sense to him. Leaving? She can't be leaving. "What are you talking about? Where are you going?"

"Shocking as you may find it, Severus, I don't have to clear my plans with you. Rest assured, I do have somewhere else to go, and I can do just fine without a career for a while. In fact, before I go, I plan to destroy my pathologically colour-coded schedule. Would you like to watch?"

Severus felt the blood drain from his face. In fact, he wasn't sure if he wanted to faint or vomit. "Hermione," he began, but she cut him off.

"Oh, do you want to tell me I didn't hear what I thought I heard? That you didn't plan to trick me into thinking we were friends, or even more than friends, so that I would stay at Hogwarts? That you and Lucius didn't hatch some plot to keep me here for reasons known only to you? That you didn't scheme to gain my trust and my heart in a callous plot to break me once and for all?"

"No! Hermione, it wasn't like that!"

She laughed again. "Right. Just how stupid do you think I am? How many times do you think I'm going to believe your protestations that you really mean it this time?" She shook her head. "I'm done, Severus. I will never believe another word you say to me." Standing, she walked to the bedroom door before turning to look back at him. "You know the funny thing? You didn't have to pretend to like me. You didn't have to break my heart. All you had to do was say you thought it would be better for Hogwarts if I stayed, and that you would endeavour to treat me the same as everyone else you don't particularly like, and I probably would have stayed. It's not like I ever expected you to like me, and I certainly never wanted to love you." Another short, bitter laugh. "But I guess breaking my heart is just a bonus for you. Congratulations. You really had me fooled. Now, I'm going out. Please be gone when I come back."

After she left, Severus stared at the empty doorway for several minutes, willing her to return and let him explain, but she didn't come. At last, he decided he could at least honour her wishes and leave her quarters. He didn't go to the Great Hall, though. He felt too sick to eat, and what would be the point, anyway? His primary reason for wanting to live had just told him she never wanted to see him again, and who could blame her?

He went to his office and dug around in the cupboard until he found a bottle of Firewhisky. Opening it, he started to search for a tumbler, before realising he may as well drink from the bottle – he was planning to finish it, anyway. He took a long drink as he sat in his chair; easily a quarter of the bottle was gone by the time he paused for breath. After a moment, he sighed in relief as the drink began to take effect.

Sighing again, he stared at the light playing off the liquor and wondered whether there was any point in writing her a letter. She'd probably burn it anyway, he thought fondly, remembering her facility with fire from the time she had been a first year.

An unwelcome voice intruded on his thoughts. "Severus, my boy, is something wrong?" He ignored it, but Albus was just as annoyingly persistent in portrait form as he had been in life. "Severus, why are you drinking at this hour?"

"None of your business," Severus said flatly. He heard the portraits murmuring amongst themselves, but he didn't care. He took another long swallow and pulled out a piece of parchment.

"Dear Hermione," he muttered as he began to write. "No, better make that 'Dearest Hermione.' If she bothers to read it, it has to be perfect." He made the correction. "'I know you're hurt and angry.' No, better not start by reminding her she hates me ... well, not sure how to start it then ... 'I know you said you won't believe my words.' Great, so much better to remind her she doesn't trust me ..." Crumpling the page, he took another long drink and a fresh sheet of parchment. "'Dearest Hermione, I never meant to cause you pain.' No, she won't believe that. I did, before, and she knows it. 'Dearest Hermione, I know I went about things all wrong, and it started because Lucius persuaded me it would be better if you stayed, but I really do love you now.' That's just pathetic. She'll never believe that, even if it's true." Severus was so wrapped up in his drinking and his somewhat drunken efforts at letter-writing that he didn't even hear the portraits conferring about his behaviour, nor did he hear them decide they were duty-bound to assist him in his hour of need.

Had he looked up, he'd have noticed that most of the former headmasters and headmistresses had disappeared. Only Phineas Nigellus remained, watching disapprovingly as Severus tried to get his increasingly incoherent – and now, tearful – ramblings onto parchment.

When Hermione returned to her quarters, she half-expected to find Severus stubbornly waiting for her. She refused to acknowledge that her relief felt very similar to disappointment when she found him gone. She had taken a long walk around the lake, and the fresh air and sunshine had calmed her somewhat. She stubbornly ignored the little voice that whispered she should have given him a chance to explain himself, and that she was no better than Lily had been as a teenager if she didn't. She wouldn't believe him, anyway, she told herself, so what was the point of listening to him?

A familiar voice interrupted her musings, startling her. "Hermione, my dear, what have you done to Severus?"

Turning, she discovered that Albus had managed to wriggle his way into a pastoral scene of what looked like Derbyshire that hung on her wall. "Don't you mean, 'what has Severus done to you, Hermione?'" she asked with some asperity.

Dumbledore frowned and glanced around. "I don't see you drinking yourself into a stupor and writing drunken love letters to him."

"He's –" Hermione cut off the surge of hope that attempted to break through her defences. "I don't care what he's doing. After what he did to me, he deserves to suffer," she said as she turned her back to the former headmaster.

Looking very disappointed, Albus shook his head. "That's not very charitable of you, Hermione."

"Why do I always have to be charitable?" she demanded, turning again to face him with a glare. "Why can't he just not hurt me for once?"

"I'm quite certain he didn't mean to."

"Do you even know what he did?" Hermione asked, exasperated. "In case you don't, let me tell you. He pretended to like me – to be my friend – and maybe even to possibly love me, all in the service of getting me to rescind my resignation."

"Are you sure he was pretending?" Albus shook his head. "Because the man seems incapable of pretending at the moment, and he seems rather brokenhearted to me."

"Right. He just wants me to think that. He probably told you to come and tell me all this shite in hopes of changing my mind again."

"Actually, he told me it was none of my business. Would you like to hear for yourself?"

"No," Hermione said stubbornly. However, the little flame of hope that had sparked into being continued to flicker and she found herself unable to ignore it. She sighed. "Do you swear he didn't put you up to this?"

"If he had told me anything, it would have been to stay out of it. Fortunately, he's not coherent enough for that to have occurred to him, so we concluded that without clear instructions, we were duty bound to act in his best interests." Dumbledore's eyes sparkled like they used when he had been alive. "Now, would you like to hear?"

"All right, fine. But it's not going to change anything," she warned.

Dumbledore just smiled. She heard him call over his shoulder, "She's agreed!"

A moment later, she heard the rasp of a quill against parchment and Severus's voice muttering. It took her a moment to make out the words, because they were rather slurred, and when she did, she was stunned. "'Dearest Hermione,' ... well, at least the salutation is set ... 'Dearest Hermione, I know I should have told you earlier that my intentions at the start weren't so pure, but by the time I realised I should have, I knew you'd never forgive me, and I thought if you never knew, maybe you would ...' That's ridiculous, Severus. You knew she'd eventually realise she could do far better than you, didn't you? Or that you would do something to fuck the whole thing up ... You just figured you'd keep her as long as you could. If only I had told her, maybe she would have forgiven me. Oh, that's good, I should write that ... 'If I had told you that I started out plotting, but very soon found myself truly in love, would you have forgiven me?' Oh, it's hopeless. She'll never even read this stupid thing." Hermione heard what sounded suspiciously like a sniffle. Was he crying?

"You don't expect me to believe he's actually crying, do you?" she whispered to Albus.

"He turns out to be a melancholy drunk," Albus responded. "If you don't believe me, go and see for yourself."

She glared at him. "I know what you're trying to do," she said sternly. Albus said nothing; he simply smiled at her. Finally she huffed. "Fine. I'll see him."

"Might I suggest some Sober Up if you want to actually get anything coherent out of him?"

Glaring at him again, she nevertheless decided she would take a detour to Severus's private stores on her way to his office.