Chapter 17 - Tete-a-tete

A/N: For simplicity's sake, titles of books, journals etc are underlined and emphases are italicised.

Beyond Time and Space

Chapter 17 – Tête-à-tête

Hermione's pensive meditations as she left her sanctuary of the past two hours, were not interrupted; but on re-entering Severus's library, she found those who must perforce rouse her. Dumbledore and Remus had remained during her retreat and were sitting with Severus. Remus immediately got up and in a graver manner than usual said, "No worries, dear. We'll think of something else."

She rubbed her puffy eyes and sniffed laboriously into a handkerchief trying to find Severus's eyes. He, however, chose to ignore her searching eyes in favour of pacifying Crookshanks. Unbeknownst to her, he had winced at Remus's commonplace affectionate address.

"Quite right, my dear," agreed Dumbledore sagely as he tiredly stroked his beard. "Don't go back to the toilet and cry now," he chided kindly with a weak smile. "Crying is the ruination of pretty ladies."

"Damn your gallantries," muttered Severus, chasing Crookshanks away.

"Look at it this way," began Remus, helping Hermione to her chaise. "Severus is still with us, it cannot be all that bad."

"Don't cheer me up!" she sobbed, her lithe frame shaking violently. "I've failed! I've failed!"

Severus scowled his disapproval as he strode to her seat to comfort her, glad that she did not fling his hands off her shoulders. "Stupid woman! No one is infallible! Let this be a lesson to you!"

Dumbledore and Remus glared at him for his astringent words, but they soon saw that it had the desired effect of calming Hermione.

"I should have listened to the Oracle!" she cried, her screams of frustration muffled in a cushion.

Both Severus and Dumbledore started at the revelation; Remus alone looked distinctively puzzled. Before the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher could pose a question, Dumbledore said, "Would you mind ordering some tea for Hermione?"

"Anything but Prince of Wales, she deplores that," Severus added with a snarl.

"And something that might tempt her; a toffee apple perhaps – anything," Dumbledore joined in. "We had better let her have her cry."

Believing that he understood the situation, Remus quickly surrendered the care of Hermione to the Potions Master and his employer. Severus and Dumbledore exchanged half knowing looks; if Hermione's words on the Oracle were true, it would render her conduct intelligible at last. Before any such deduction could be made, however, they had to learn more.

"What is this about the Oracle?" asked Dumbledore, without removing his eyes from Severus's ghostly face.

"That's what I think she is," said Hermione, blowing her nose. "She welcomed me to Delphi."

"Was she a pythia?" questioned Severus, turning paler than was normal for a spectre.

"I've always seen her as far as I could remember. I did not know she was the Oracle then. But lately, she's been lecturing me mercilessly on my lack of phronēsis and for good reason too!" she croaked hoarsely through her tears.

Dumbledore drew his chair nearer to Hermione and held her hand. As he sat beside the sobbing black figure, Severus noted that the Headmaster would have patted her head if the chignon was not in the way. Her skirt and petticoat rustled as she moved to accommodate him on the chaise.

"She used to appear in my dreams frequently when I was a girl. She would teach me many things such as bezique." At this juncture, Severus unfolded his arms and looked intently at her. She ignored him and continued, "She stopped coming when I came here to Hogwarts. She told me that she would always take care of me. It wasn't until recently that she reappeared."

"What did she look like?" growled Severus with great urgency.

Hermione sniffed into her handkerchief. "Beautiful. She's always in a silver lined black toga. She has an elegant manner and the thickest, most lustrous raven hair I've ever seen. It's a pity she always wore her hair up. She looked almost aristocratic with her slender limbs, graceful neck and aquiline nose."

Dumbledore watched Severus part his lips as if to speak, and as such, quickly interrupted him with an intelligible look. "Were you also in black?"

"No," she said in an unnatural nasal twang after blowing her nose. "I would always be in white and gold. I actually thought she was a mirror as to what I would become. Look at me now," she sighed, twisting her mouth crookedly. "I'm already her."

"You are not!" insisted Severus indignantly, looking to Dumbledore for affirmation.

"Severus is right, my dear," sighed the Headmaster as he watched Hermione hug a cushion and his Potions Master sitting impossibly erect, tracing his lips. "The pythia speaks in riddles; it is left to the person seeking the Oracle's divination to unravel the cryptic message. You have had more learning from her than you know. This, in turn, could account for your belief that you turning into her." He flashed Severus a meaningful look.

Severus added, "Her teachings revolve around gnothi seauton. She is a philosopher in the classical tradition; she teaches logos, the rational principle that governs the universe. She loved my namesake, Xenophon, and those that studied under Socrates."

"I don't understand," said Hermione, dabbing her tears. "She does like Plato, I know. She told me something about him and a chimaera."

"Mother," Severus whispered, closing his eyes with great emotion.

Dumbledore raised a hand to silence Hermione, but she chose to speak her mind anyway. "I don't believe in divination."

"Stupid woman!" bellowed Severus. "The so-called prophetic utterances of the ancients are expressions of their wisdom! Have you never read Xenophon?" She shook her head and Severus threw his hands up in enragement. "Have I taught you nothing! The ancients couch their wisdom in a practical context. Xenophon informs us that Socrates implicitly declared that the gods send all human beings omens. A prudent attitude must be adopted when facing the prophecies of the pythia. Because the mind, your nous, manages your body as it wishes, so does 'wisdom in all things' arrange everything as is pleasing to itself. Phronēsis, then, is meant to inculcate an element of sobering fear in you."

Dumbledore silenced the spectre with a look before turning to Hermione. "You were born on September nineteenth, were you not?"

"Yes," she answered cautiously, looking at Dumbledore and Severus in confusion.

"You are older than Harry?"

"Yes."

"What time were you born?" demanded Severus feverishly.

"Why is it significant?"

"We will tell you when we find out," said Dumbledore.

Nonplussed, she told them the time of her birth, which left Severus stunned and Dumbledore dumbfounded.

"Mother died then," Severus said flatly to no one in particular.

Hermione shifted nervously in her seat, addressing herself to Dumbledore. "Surely, you don't mean to tell me that she and I are the same."

"No," answered Dumbledore.

"Then why all the questions and what does she have to do with this!" lamented Hermione.

"It's simple. Wizards do not partake in the quaint muggle belief of reincarnation; our souls are able to live on forever. This Oracle, as you call her, is your guardian. Severus's mother was a seer."

"Why couldn't she have looked after him instead? This is illogical!" cried she in disbelief and horror.

"The pythia selects the spirit based on her prophecies," explained Severus testily, annoyed that Hermione was unaware of this simple truth. His tightly clenched white knuckles, however, revealed his jealousy at being deprived of his mother's soothing presence.

As if sensing the heightened tension in the library, Dumbledore pretended to cough on his sweet. "Did she tell you anything about Severus?"

Hermione lowered her eyes in embarrassment. "Only not to forsake him."

"See, my boy, your mother still cares," pointed out Dumbledore to the visibly shaken Potions Master. "My dear," he addressed Hermione, "You have been educated by both the mother and son, you should be able to arrive at a better understanding than I. The pythia must have seen you two as lovers of wisdom, hence, potential allies to the logical philosophical way of life. His inclination towards the tragic view puts him in a serious frame of mind. Your leaning towards empiricism puts you in a logical state of mind. Together, logic and gravity coupled with his love for the beautiful and noble as well as your love for reason and the just; make you ideal vehicles for the transmission of the serious and salutary vision of the philosophical way of wizarding life."

"Oh!" remarked Hermione as realisation swept across her mind. "But I was so stupid! I did not heed her warnings on prudence!" she lamented, convulsively gripping Severus's hand in an unconscious gesture.

"You've finally seen the verisimilitude of your situation!" snapped Severus without shaking off her hand. "Do you see yourself as an excellence?"

Dumbledore chuckled and popped another sweet into his mouth. "Proatēs, Severus."

"I am trying to cultivate it, old fool!" he retorted.

"I hate myself now," she declared, extricating her hand from Severus's and finding it numb. "You burn like ice," she told him.

"You're not the first to engage in self-loathing," he snarled.

"Severus is right, my dear. Failure is no reason to hate yourself. It is a self-indulgent feeling like wallowing in self-pity." The spectre shot the Headmaster a dangerous look that would have withered any student. Dumbledore merely smiled at him and continued, "It may be a poor example, but I am sure you know what I mean."

"But I've failed him and you and everyone else after I gave you all such expectations and hopes," she wailed.

"Professor Granger," said Severus in a modulated voice, masking his dislike at being beside a weeping woman. "Many wise wizards have fallen into the trap as well. Nietzsche did so and he did not crumble into a crying mass; he merely opined that the attractions of knowledge would be small if one did not have to overcome so much shame on the way."

"But I was so sure – I had everything worked out – I don't know why or where I went wrong!" she sniffed into the handkerchief, stemming her tears. "Accio blue file!" she commanded, causing the said article with all her calculations to zoom into her hand.

Dumbledore watched her sink to the floor so as to better examine her papers.

"Could be preservatives in the body that Poppy applied," suggested Severus, looking over her head and placing his hands on her shoulders. She shivered at the contact, choosing to say nothing.

"Could it be meant to be?" offered Dumbledore with a heavy sigh, his eyes twinkling at the two of them.

"They are my mistakes; I'll iron them out," answered Hermione in a cold businesslike manner reminiscent of Minerva McGonagall.

"You two are impossibly serious!" the Headmaster chuckled before adding quietly, "I don't think it is possible to bring Severus back."

His two former students paled.

"You can either make the best of it or be miserable. You two must learn how to laugh."

Hermione and Severus snorted in unison at that comment.

"The more joyous and certain man's spirit becomes, the more he unlearns loud laughter; instead, a more spiritual smile constantly wells up in him," explained Dumbledore slowly.

Hermione was mortified at the Headmaster's words and Severus looked decidedly bored. "I'll leave you two to think about it; you could try reading Rizzo's Summoning Spirits to Flesh." Then, Dumbledore left them with a twinkling smile.

"Do you blame me?" she asked quietly, redoing her calculations.

"No," he answered without malevolence, shuffling a sheaf of her papers. "Even the most well laid plans can go astray."

"Even if my mind and mouth are somewhat askew?"

"Yes," he said indifferently, examining her arithmancy calculations. "I can see nothing egregiously wrong," he continued in his usual sneer. "You are attentive for a presumptuous woman." He returned her the papers without meeting her searching eyes.

Hermione's colour rose, whether by this unjust praise or his earlier backhanded compliment, she did not know nor did she care. Thus, with a smile and shake of her head, which spoke much, she looked at Severus. He regarded her with an earnest glower and she felt tremendously gratified. Then, as if seized by a sudden impulse, he clutched her hand, which she had rested on his knee. He took it, pressed it warmly and seemed to be on the verge of carrying it to his lips. But he suddenly released it with a blank expression. She flushed slightly at the wild trembling of her body and her rapidly beating heart. She was sure that she was suffering from nervous palpitations – so intense was this simple gesture. Why did he scruple to change his mind? Why? Regardless of the questions tripping in her brain, she was not offended. The intention of that gesture, however, was indubitable and whether it was that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it happened, she did not care. It was enough for her that she understood his intent. In fact, she believed that the aborted gesture became him. It was a simple yet dignified declaration, if indeed, it was a declaration.

Severus scowled at her silence and quiet smirk which expressed both archness and bashfulness – the woman infuriated him and yet, he found her more than companionable. He must have been weak to succumb to the first charms that presented itself as being well disposed towards him. He secluded his countenance into its usual habitual indifference, masking his surprise when she rested her head on his ethereal knee. If his aborted gesture of gallantry resulted in her gesture of perfect amity, imagine the reward he would reap if he had carried his beau geste through. He knew she was undeceived as to the meaning of his words and deeds.

"Forgive me," he whispered emotionlessly, gently pushing her head aside. "Forgive me, I must go." Immediately after those words, he left and was gone in a moment.

Hermione smiled knowingly to herself. He had always moved with the alertness of a mind which was neither dilatory nor undecided, but now he seemed more sudden than he had ever been in his departure. It was just as well that he had left her to own devices: she would work on another way to bring him back; she would conceptualise contingency plans thus time and they will come to be better acquainted; she could offer him that now. She would heed the Oracle, Severus's mother, whoever it is. She would care for him; she would keep her word and not forsake him. She shook her head, he would return later and she would have the talk she promised him and hopefully, they would no longer be at cross-purposes.

Footnotes

If you follow the classical Greeks, the Pythia was the priestess at Apollo's oracle at Delphi. She is the medium through which Apollo's will to be known to those on earth. A believer would make a sacrifice and present a question to a male priest. The male priest would in turn present the question to the Pythia. Seated on her bronze tripod in the adytum, or inner chamber of Apollo's temple, the spirit of Apollo overcame the Pythia in this sacred chamber and inspired the prophecy. After the prediction has been made, the priest would interpret the Pythia's response for the questioner.

However, I have combined the role of the Pythia and the Priest in my reinterpretation of Apollo's oracle. Hence, the woman in black in Hermione's dream is both the medium and the interpreter of the vision.

Gnothi seauton means known thyself in Greek.

Proatēs refers to gentleness and good temper. It also includes the ability to control one's temper.