Chapter 9

A/N: One more chapter after this will bring us to the end of this tale. Thank you very much for taking this journey with me.

Chapter 9

It isn't until she sees an angry red spark land and extinguish on the cold stone of the corridor floor that Hermione realizes she has her wand clutched in her fist. She is radiant with fury, and like a firstie, her emotions have her shooting unintentional sparks of magic. She scarcely cares.

She wishes he would come after her so she can hex him. Perhaps a flock of birds to peck his face...eagles this time, rather than the little songbirds she sent at Ron. Or a curse of boils across his face to spell something out. Jerk? Scrote? No, that might be too long. "Sneak" was five letters, and that's about the longest word one could get on Snape's long, narrow face.

Perhaps if she concentrated very hard, she could manage all six letters of C – O – W – A – R – D.

She reaches her room and opens the door. It isn't until Crookshanks races out that she notices the elegant white cat from TPE sitting in the shadows of an alcove. Ought she to allow Crooks to interact with a likely Animagus? But really, Kneazles...even part-Kneazles like Crooks...are excellent judges of character. If anyone knows whether Ramona's intentions are positive or negative, Crooks will be the one.

She turns from the circling, sniffing cats, forgetting all about them as the door closes behind her. She paces back and forth between door and window. She's steaming with rage, but she has her wits about her enough to realise she cannot approach Snape...not on school grounds, at any rate...and give him either the hexing or the telling-off he so richly deserves.

Still, she wants to strike a blow. If she cannot make a strike at him, she can make a strike for herself. She knows the sort of message she wants to send...both to the bogus Sir Tobias and to the very real Severus Snape.

Frankly, it's a message she is desperate to also bring home to herself.

And she knows just how and where to deliver it.

Lucius enters the drawing room as requested, his face a mask of courtesy. Narcissa rises to meet him, her smile all the reward he needs for performing this necessary, husbandly duty.

"Darling, you remember my Aunt Maia and my cousins, Mimosa and Capella?"

Lucius makes his bow to Narcissa's frightful Black relatives...why did they persist in naming their children after stars, long after the decent names were already taken?...who are on their bi-annual visit to the English Blacks. This branch resides now in wizarding Turkey. One would think, with such exotic origins, the Turkish witches might have something of interest to say.

One would be quite wrong.

Having politely extended his welcome, he is permitted to take his leave of the guests.

Narcissa follows him into the hallway. "Are you sure you won't take supper with us?"

She is no fool, his beautiful wife. She loathes her relatives as heartily as he, but she has too much elegance of mind to let it be known.

She also knows he's up to something.

"I wouldn't dream of gate-crashing your ladies' confab. I would have little to contribute."

She surveys him with icy blue eyes. "You would rather sit with the house-elf than with my family."

He bows without speaking.

"You'll do nothing foolish? Nothing ... dangerous to us?"

He presses a kiss to her smooth, perfumed cheek. "You may rely on me."

Her words are spoken as his lips touch her skin. They are barely audible, and therefore, by Malfoy family rules, they do not count.

"I wish I could go with you."

Then she turns from him and glides again into the drawing room, the perfect hostess.

Lucius smiles after her, his admiration unflagging after these twenty-five years. There is no equal to the well-bred, perfectly behaved Narcissa Black Malfoy, not in all the wizarding world.

He turns away, walking towards his study. Slinky is waiting for him there. He does not often leave the house when Narcissa is awake, but he knows she will be fully occupied for the next three or four hours.

He is keen to be away from Malfoy Manor. He must never come to think of his home as his prison.

These excursions are necessary.

"Severus Snape, you are a fucking coward."

The words are still reverberating in his head when the door closes, and he sags into his chair, his hands shaking.

How long has she known? When did she find out? What was her reaction to the discovery?

He rubs at the pain behind his eyes, trying hard to concentrate and sort out the mess in his mind.

Hermione Granger is Kitten. Beneath her clothes, she is soft and lovely, ivory and rose, enticing and luscious. Beneath her know-it-all insufferability, she is curious about her limits, interested in off-beat sexual practices, seeking a partner to safely surrender herself to. At her depths, in the Kitten Dimension, she is submissive, responsive, eager to experience, avid to learn, rapaciously needful.

She has lived a life more similar to his than any female alive. No one, save Dumbledore, knew the ins and outs of his existence in detail, but this witch is Harry Potter's best friend. She has known fear, she has looked death in the eye, she has raised her wand and pitted her mind against Death Eaters...she has taken outrageous risks in her life in the service of her beliefs.

She accomplished all of these things before her nineteenth birthday.

He rises from the desk and goes into the lavatory. He stares at his pale face in the mirror, sees his haunted eyes, and bends to splash water on his face. As he sluices the day away, he forces himself to let go of her parting shot...to remember the rest of what she said.

"Sir Tobias never existed. He's just a part you played. I am in love with a phantom."

He grabs a hand towel and stares into his own eyes as he dries the water from his skin. She didn't say, "I hate you," indicating zero chance of repairing the breach. She didn't say, "I was in love with you," indicating an unfortunate malady from which she has thankfully recovered.

She said, I am in love with a phantom...an on-going state of affairs.

"She says she's in love with me."

He speaks the words aloud to hear them, but he can see the incredulous look on his own face. Even the mirror, schooled for years in the art of ignoring Professor Snape (or suffering the consequences), is unable to keep quiet on the subject.

"I think that's hardly likely, don't you?"

He drops the towel and leaves the lavatory to begin pacing the office.

She called him a coward...the terrible word still stings like rubbing alcohol poured on an open wound...and walked out. There is a finality to the words and action. Perhaps she means it as an ending. To Kitten and Sir Tobias? To her employment at Hogwarts?

Is that a good thing or bad?

Fuck it. He doesn't know what to do, and there is no one to ask. Dumbledore would have been useless, and even Lucius would never understand this dilemma. Lucius did not possess the life experience necessary to grasp the soul-deep conviction that is the bedrock of Severus' world view:

Severus Snape will never be allowed to have something he wants so very badly.

He closes his eyes and leans against the nearest surface...Miss Granger's desk. He sees the disarray she left when she stormed out...she is always very tidy in her work habits. His thought process tries to reassert itself, but he forces it away, engaging his attention in putting her quill back in its place, closing the hinged lid of the inkstand, straightening the desk blotter...and spying the edge of a pink envelope hiding beneath the blotter.

Without compunction, he Summons the envelope, extracts the matching pink paper, and begins to read.

Your Kitten

Severus does not realize he has sunk into her chair. He does not realize he is crumpling the paper in his hands. He does not even realize there are tears on his cheeks until he rises to snatch up his cloak, pulling the Marauder's Map from its hiding place in an inner pocket. Then the drop of a salty tear falls on the paper, and he is quick to dry his eyes.

No witch wants to see her wizard crying. Not when he's begging her forgiveness.

It is the work of a moment to ascertain that she is nowhere to be seen on the Map. He returns it to his secret pocket, accompanied now by a pink sheet in a matching envelope.

She may not have yet given the letter to him, but it belongs to him, nonetheless.

Perhaps one day he will confess to her that he took it.

He sets off with purposeful strides through the castle corridors and down the staircase, out into the cold night.

He knows precisely where she is waiting for him.