Chapter 2: The Dam Bursts

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not mine but Jo's. Sadly.

A/N: Once more thanks for all of your reviews! I want to make this story as good as it can be and am glad for all of your comments and ideas.

From now on I'll make the Author's notes shorter. They shouldn't be longer than the chapter! ;)

The idea to postpone an argument was incidentally from the movie "Volcano".

Thanks again to Bi for reading it over, encouragement and her total lack of surprise at the reviews I've received from you. Thanks also to my beta, Snarkyroxy, for corrections and bearing with my slightly hysterical moments.

And of course to my baby girl, for not being jealous of the flimmering box Mommy sometimes sits behind.

* * *

Two weeks later, Severus Snape stood at a window in the library of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, staring out at the backyard blankly.

He did not know what to do anymore.

He had come here again to think and to look for an answer to his 'problem'.

His 'problem'. If only it were that simple.

The Black library had by far the most extensive collection of books on the Dark Arts he'd ever seen, he grudgingly had to admit, but even here he'd found nothing to get him out of this nightmare. All the books he'd searched, and yet he was nowhere closer to his goal.

There had to be a way.

No problem was insoluble.

There was a way to undo it, and when he found it he'd be out of this mess. It didn't even bear thinking about, what would happen if he didn't find a way.

If he'd only found out sooner what that midnight visit had been about...

He'd thought it worth the risk to find out what had been so important for her to seek him out. He'd only realised what he would have to do when It had been complete.

His fingers curled almost painfully into a fist. He didn't notice.

Just then, the sound of furniture crashing and a male yell reverberated through the house, triggering the usual mayhem caused by Mrs Black from the painting in the hallway.

"Blood-traitors!... Filthy Mudbloods desecrating my noble home!" the portrait of Mrs Black began its inevitable tirade.

So much for peace and quiet.

He hissed, annoyed. Teenagers!

Couldn't they ever control themselves?

He stayed where he was. He'd be damned if he had to get them to behave themselves even during his summer holidays.

Though he couldn't help but wonder who it was this time.

Potter and Weasley, the twins, or someone else from that ridiculously large family?

An extremely angry female shriek echoed up the stairs.

That had been much too high for Mrs Weasley or the painting, and there was only one other female currently in the house.

Granger?

He frowned.

She was normally very controlled. Usually only a life and death situation involving her friends would make her lose her hold of her emotions.

At least in public, he thought, remembering the troll incident in her first year. Her eyes had shone far too brightly after lying to both him and her Head of House.

Or the threat of not quite perfect NEWTs, he thought with a smirk, thinking back to her mere Exceeds Expectations OWL in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and the rumor of what her Boggart had been in her end-of-year examination in her third year.

A stupid thing to fear.

He wondered if it was still the same, though. His smirk was replaced by a frown.

She had trouble sleeping, judging from the dark circles beneath her eyes and the late-night activities he'd witnessed.

And she had taken a particularly nasty hex back at the Department of Mysteries.

He knew because he'd had a hand in healing her, helping out with a few counter-curses and some of the more particular healing potions. And even then it hadn't been easy. But it had worked.

Now that he thought about it, she had tried keeping awfully busy the month she'd been here. Maybe she had reached her breaking point.

If his assessment was correct, then the others wouldn't be far behind. Something had to be done.

"Ron, you big oaf! What do you think I've been doing these past few weeks since I've known for sure? Trying to make amends! For what, though, I don't know. It's not as if it's a crime!" The female voice increased in pitch and reached Snape's ears with perfect clarity even through the closed library door.

"Ha! 'Mione, do you think I'm that stupid? You've been rubbing it in my face ever since!"

"Like how? I've been grovelling at your feet for something I hadn't foreseen and can't help now that it's done!"

"As if you didn't know exactly what you were doing! Did it intentionally, did you?"

"No! Believe it or not my whole life doesn't revolve around you, Ron!"

What was this about? Had she dared take interest in some other boy?

He had certainly heard no rumours to that effect. The Hogwarts grapevine was a very accurate source on these things. Thus, he also knew Granger and Weasley hadn't been an item when they left Hogwarts at the end of term, but maybe the issue had finally arisen. They had certainly been dancing around each other for as long as he had known them.

"As if I wanted it to! Nevertheless, you can't deny that you don't even go to the..."

"'...loo without a plan'," a surprisingly sarcastic female voice answered.

Snape snorted.

It was a very accurate image.

"Yes, Ron, I know about that one. Very nice of you, too, to gossip behind my back. You are such a friend. You seem to be much more confident of my Divination skills than I am, however. I dropped it for a reason and that's because I think it's rubbish!"

He agreed whole-heartedly with that sentiment. Trelawney alone was reason enough to turn one off the subject forever.

"So what do you expect me to do, Ron? Take it back? I've tried not doing any magic now that I'm allowed, but you look at me like I've betrayed you regardless of what I do!" She implored him to listen in an exasperated tone.

She was no longer underage? Hmm, she did take quite a few subjects back in her third year. Far more in fact than could have been managed without help. A Time-Turner, probably.

Was that it?! She was of age and he wasn't?

My oh my, his self-confidence must really be low for him to worry about something as mundane as that and behave like an absolute moron with a witch he has his sights set on.

"I don't care what you do, 'Mione! Just leave me alone." That whining voice of the boy was really starting to get on Snape's nerves.

"What now, Ron? Are you going to sulk again like you did in fourth year when Harry was a Triwizard champion and you weren't? Are you going to do that every time someone has an opportunity to do something before you do? Because I can assure you, jealousy will never get you where you want to be! And I would be careful how you treat your friends, or someday you won't have any left!" she retorted a bit shrilly.

"I knew this was about Krum! I knew he'd try things with you, didn't he?" he retorted with a sneer.

smack!

smack!

smack!

Apparently Weasley had gone too far.

It was a sad testament to Ron's social skills with women that even Snape could see what Weasley shouldn't have said.

And he really had no experience with regards to relationships.

The next sound that could be heard was the bounding of light feet up the stairs and along hallways in the direction of the library.

Oh, no.

In the next moment, the door was flung open and the slight, bushy-haired figure he'd been expecting bolted inside, closing the door behind her with a silent click, much to his surprise.

Chest heaving with emotional upheaval, exertion or perhaps both, she locked and cast a Silencing charm on the door.

So much for peace and quiet.

He hid behind a shelf, fully prepared to hold his hands to his ears and weather out the storm that was about to break.

And it did.

Next came a piercing and agonising scream, the likes of which he'd never before had the misfortune to hear.

And he was a Death Eater.

It didn't last long, however, and cautiously he removed his hands from his ears.

He heard nothing.

At first he thought he'd been struck deaf on top of everything else, until he heard it.

A faint sniffle.

Oh, no.

Now he rather wished he was deaf and anywhere but where he was.

Granger. Crying.

Though certainly a new experience, he really didn't care to make it.

Damn it all!

Why hadn't he reacted when he had the chance and escaped the library? Feeling the first hints of entirely uncharacteristic panic surface, he looked around the edge of the shelf to see how bad it was.

Something he couldn't name and didn't want to feel squeezed his chest tightly at the sight that greeted him.

She was sitting huddled in a far corner, leaning against the arm of one of the sofas, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she cried.

It wasn't the loud bawling of a first-year, nor the desperately heart-breaking type usually favoured by girls her age. She was silent, tears just streaming down her cheeks while blankly staring straight ahead, making not a sound apart from the occasional sniffle.

Which made it even harder for him to endure.

* * *

The longer she sat there, tears flowing down her cheeks, the more her embarrassment and pain over the situation with Ron were replaced by the frustration which had plagued her the past weeks, and the anger – no, fury – she felt at the dead-end she found herself in.

This was the final straw!

"What the fuck do they want of me?!" she yelled, punctuating her question by hitting the sofa she had been leaning on.

It hurt.

But it hurt in a good kind of way. If there was such a thing.

At least when she felt the pain fade slowly from her bruised knuckles, she felt like she had done something!

"Argh! How am I supposed to cope if I'm not allowed to do anything?!" she continued to yell, grabbing the nearest pillow from the sofa and started hitting it furiously.

"No studying, because it doesn't work for me anymore. No housework, because Tonks is a walking disaster. No spells of any kind, because the others are not old enough and all 'adults' can't be bothered. No Quidditch, because Ron is a prat, the others side with him and I'm too 'stupid' to join their little club. Oh, and don't forget, no Potions either, because I'm too 'stupid' for that as well! Why can't they just... just..."

But she didn't know what they could do.

She didn't know anything anymore.

She hated that feeling. Hated it more than anything in the world. It made her feel so weak.

And just like that, the fight went out of her. She collapsed against the much abused sofa and resumed crying quietly.

The frustration and lack of sleep of the past month finally caught up with her. Combined with the fight she'd just had with Ron and letting out her aggressive side, she was completely exhausted. And yet she still wasn't tired enough to sleep.

How could that be?

Somehow she slid back down to the floor as she tried to figure that one out, but couldn't, since her mind seemed to work only partially. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall, unsuccessfully stifling a yawn.

Suddenly Ron's expression as she hit him popped up in her mind.

She chuckled.

Then it hit her.

"Oh, my God... I slapped him!" she exploded, gasping for air.

She burst out laughing.

"The... look on his... face!"

She laughed so hard, she had to hold her sides to keep them from hurting. It was no use.

"Three... times!"

She laughed so hard it felt as if something large was being ripped from her stomach.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

When her jaw started to cramp uncomfortably, she tried to stop. She knew she was hysterical, but that only made it all seem funnier for some reason. So she tried to think of dinner and that she would have to face him then. It helped a little, but she couldn't stop completely because she kept imagining him with three overlapping imprints of her right hand on his cheek.

Finally only chuckling mildly, she ran a hand through her completely dishevelled hair and said what she hadn't wanted to think about and what her little madhouse episode hadn't changed one bit.

"Oh, dear. What am I going to do now?"

As soon as those words were out of her mouth, a voice she knew only too well spoke up from somewhere in the room.

A voice belonging to the one person aside from Ron she'd rather not have witnessed her disassembling into tiny, psychotic pieces.

"I wouldn't worry too much about Mr Weasley, if I were you. In my opinion, men in general are least attracted to women who treat them well. And who knows? It might shake his brain about a bit and do him some good. He must learn he cannot depend on you or Potter forever," Professor Snape said conversationally, stepping out from behind one of the bookshelves.

"On the other hand, if you meant your other 'difficulties', I'd try the third door on the right in the attic after dinner, Miss Granger," he continued quite calmly, inclining his head by way of goodbye as he made for the door. He undid the Silencing and locking spells, opened the door and left.

She looked after him, a hand pressed to her open mouth, horrified.

* * *

Well, what do you think?

Finally all that frustration came to the surface. And how it did!

Three more movie quotes in this one. One from "Dogma" (I couldn't resist), one from "The Hunt for Red October" and one from "Death on the Nile".

Up next: What awaits Hermione in the "third room on the right in the attic after dinner"?