Chapter 4: An Inquisition

CHAPTER 4: AN INQUISITION

Hermione woke to someone standing over her. She was lying directly in front of Snape's door with her hands beneath her cheek like a makeshift pillow. At first, she did not remember where she was, but when she finally opened to her eyes and peered up, the sour countenance of her former professor reminded her quickly.

"You slept out here all night." It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact. She couldn't detect whether he was surprised or simply annoyed.

Sitting up, Hermione looked him in the eye. "I did. Sir, I want to apologize for my... insensitivity. The memories you gave to Harry were private. I shouldn't have watched them."

He waved a pale hand in the air. "What's done is done. I don't wish to converse on it further, Miss Granger. Now, if you'll kindly remove yourself from my doorstep... I have a job, and I'm very nearly late for it."

Hermione pushed her hair back and looked up at him. His clothes were old and coming apart at the seams. She doubted they would last much longer than a few months. "I thought we could talk," she said softly.

"I have nothing to say to you," he replied, looking down his long nose at her.

"I have questions."

"What makes you think I have answers?"

"I thought you were dead."

He raised a brow. "You were obviously mistaken."

"How?"

"That's another thing I have no interest in discussing."

Finally, Hermione stood and brushed the dust from her trousers and shirt. "Please," she begged. They watched each other in silence for several moments, Snape's hand poised on the doorknob, ready to close and lock the door. "You've been on my mind for almost five years. I need to know. I can't even sleep through the night anymore."

Snape's stiff posture faltered, as did his inscrutable face. Pulling himself back together, he said, "You're delirious, Miss Granger. Perhaps you should try sleeping in your bed instead of in my hallway."

"Sir, I..."

"I don't care to hear your explanations," he said, cutting her off. "However, I'm in a bit of a bind here. You see, I can't afford to move from place to place with you and whoever else wants to berate me tagging along. Therefore, I would greatly appreciate your keeping my whereabouts confidential, especially from your little friend Mr. Potter."

"I can't..."

"In exchange, I will tell you my story to appease your curiosity. However, you must swear to me...perhaps I'll even require an Unbreakable Vow...that you will never tell anyone I am alive."

Hermione stared into the black depths of his eyes. He looked quite serious, even a bit desperate. Unbidden, an image of Snape kneeling on Sirius's floor in tears flashed across her mind. "I...I think that's agreeable, Professor." She wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers. "When?"

"Return here at six o'clock this evening. Bring no one. If you disobey, I'll leave, and I assure you, you'll never see me again."

"I thought you did not have the means to move from place to place."

"I'll find the means if you insist on disrupting my current life with the one I've left behind," he replied with anger in his voice.

She frowned. "And how am I to know you'll return?"

"I'll return, Miss Granger. I know you have no reason to do so, but trust me; I'll return."

She gave him a soft smile. "I have every reason to trust you, Professor. And I do...trust you, that is."

He turned his back on her and locked the door with a simple key. No more charms and wards for Severus Snape; he had been reduced to the Muggle method of keeping his privacy and possessions safe. "Six o'clock," he reminded her as he swept down the hall.

Hermione smiled when he turned the corner. If he had been wearing robes, they would have swished and taken up the entire width of the hallway. She never thought she'd see the day when the sight warmed her heart.

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The mediwitch waved her wand over Hermione's leg, moving up her body to check the girl's stomach, chest, neck, arms, and head.

"Has it slowed any?" Hermione asked, lifting her head to see the mediwitch's face.

She shook her head, flashing Hermione a sorry smile. "No change."

Sighing, Hermione dropped her head back onto the examination table. "We've been increasing my dosage every few months. The increase in potency should have an effect on my blood. It should be stopping this."

"Healer Gnecco has authorized another dosage increase. It should make you feel a bit better."

Hermione sat up. "I'm almost at the dosage limit, Lavender. Two more increases, and they won't be able to help me. My blood will just thicken until my heart can't pump it anymore."

"Hermione, they're going to figure something out," Lavender Brown said, placing both her hands on her friend's shoulders.

"It's been five years, and no one knows what to do. We're just prolonging this." Hermione blinked back the tears and tried to calm her trembling voice.

"It's going to be okay, I swear." Lavender wrapped her arms around Hermione, hugging her tightly. "There might be another potion we can try. Have you spoken to any Muggle doctors? Maybe they can help."

"No, they can't help. It's that damn curse, Lav. I'm going to die of it eventually. It seems like it might be sooner instead of later, now."

Lavender reluctantly released Hermione and pulled seven phials from her apron pocket. "Here's your supply for the next two weeks. Healer Gnecco will be seeing you for your next appointment." Both the girls looked at each other, neither saying a word. Finally, Lavender spoke up. "Why don't you stick around for a few more minutes until my shift is finished? We can get some early dinner together."

"I can't. I have to meet someone at six o'clock."

"A date?" Lavender asked with a smile.

Hermione snorted. "Not at all. More like an inquisition."

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He answered the door as soon as she knocked. Hermione watched him step aside and wait, impatiently, for her to invite herself in. With a deep, calming breath, she stepped over the threshold into his flat, scanning the bare walls of cracked paint and the sparse furnishings. The kitchen was to her left, but the counters were devoid anything but a loaf of bread. The living room held only an old, green couch with worn cushions and a stiff-backed, wooden chair pushed up against a small card table.

Her heels clicked against the floorboards as she crossed the quiet, and nearly empty, room. "How long have you lived here?"

"Over four years," he replied. She was surprised he answered her question without any fuss or dramatics.

"I can't believe you're alive." Hermione turned around to look at him as he closed the door. "Really alive," she repeated, wonder creeping into her soft voice.

"I assure you, you won't find it such a mystery after I tip my hand, Miss Granger. I was simply prepared. Anyone with an iota of sense would have done the same, seeing as how the Dark Lord had become rather unstable toward the end." He crossed the room and pulled the wooden chair out to place it in front of the couch.

Hermione sat down on the sickly green cushions and noticed, for the first time, the teetering pile of books stacked by the far end of the couch. They were in sorry shape, some even falling apart at the binding. He had obviously read them all many times over. "Thank you for seeing me. I haven't told anyone."

"I appreciate that." His dark gaze fell over her, and she nearly swooned under his close scrutiny and unusually kind voice.

She pulled her wand out. Snape's eyes immediately went to the thin stick of vine wood, watching it with a sort of hunger. "I'll make the Unbreakable Vow."

He turned his eyes back to her face. "You kept Mr. Potter's secrets all these years; I'm sure you are capable of keeping mine."

"You mean you don't want me to take the Vow?"

He shook his head once. "Your word is enough. I've had more than my fill of Unbreakable Vows for a lifetime."

Hermione blushed, embarrassed that she had been so callous as to bring up such a sensitive subject with him. Of course he was haunted by Dumbledore's murder. How could he not be, even this many years after the deed?

"I have your word," Snape said, interrupting her thoughts, "that you will not go blabbing my whereabouts to anyone, especially Potter and Weasley?"

She nodded eagerly, unable to take her eyes off him. He was alive.

"I forbid you to even hint about my being alive."

"I promise."

"Very well. Where would you like me to start?"

Hermione shifted on the lumpy couch. "I was there when...in the Shrieking Shack when Nagini..."

He interrupted her awkward mumblings with, "When the Dark Lord fed me to his snake."

"Yes."

Snape lifted his right leg and rested its ankle on his left knee before crossing his arms over his chest. Despite the tatty clothes, he still looked intimidating. "I don't know if the fate of Charity Burbage has come to light, but she was given to Nagini several months before the battle at Hogwarts. That was but one of the many occasions when the Dark Lord utilized Nagini as a way of punishment or as a dealer of death. My position was tenuous at all times due to the thin line I walked as a spy. The Dark Lord favored me as a close advisor, but many of the Death Eaters coveted my position, whispering doubts in his ear.

"After Dumbledore's death, I attempted to safeguard my position and life in order to assist Mr. Potter. Nagini was a concern. I suspected the Dark Lord would use her to make an example of me should I be outed as a spy. Therefore, I spent the summer after your sixth year developing a potion to counteract the potent venom."

Hermione's eyes widened. "How brilliant!"

He dismissed her praise with a wave of his hand. "It was all theoretical because I very well couldn't test it on myself, or anyone else for that matter. My foremost concern was ensuring the potion would remain in my bloodstream for an extended length of time without side effects. That took much longer than developing the antivenin. Again, there was no opportunity to test it. I drank a phial of the foul concoction once a week when I had perfected it to the best of my ability."

"I heard your encounter with Voldemort that night. I couldn't see anything, but you sounded so convincing. Voldemort never suspected your duplicity or that you had developed a potion to live through Nagini's bite."

Snape snorted. "If I was convincing, it can in no way be attributed to my acting skills. With the upheaval at Hogwarts and the constant requests for my presence by the Dark Lord, I had not taken the potion in over ten days when I found Nagini wrapped around my body. There were too many other things to worry about at that time. Nagini seemed a distant threat."

"But it still worked."

"Yes, in a rather belated way."

"Which explains why I thought you died after you gave Harry the memories," Hermione said, leaning forward in her excitement over the tale.

Snape's face darkened at the mention of the memories. He remained silent for several long moments, and Hermione mentally berated herself for bringing the sore subject up again. "What you saw was the venom paralyzing my body. Had I stayed that way, I would have quickly bled to death."

Her eyes flicked down to his collar. Two scars started an inch below his ear to continue down his neck and beneath his shirt. They were ragged and had faded to a dull pink. When she looked back up to meet his gaze, she saw him watching her with curious eyes. "I had Muggle doctors clean and close the wounds," he explained.

"At any rate," Snape continued, "you left before the antivenin took effect. I can only assume my lack of attention in taking it on a regular basis diminished its effectiveness only slightly because I regained my ability to move within seconds of your departure."

"Where did you go? How did you escape?"

"I Apparated to an alley in Muggle London with a wand I had stolen off a Death Eater's body. I discarded the wand in the alley and left mine at the Shrieking Shack. Of course, I splinched myself." He carefully rolled up his left shirtsleeve to show an indentation in his arm. It had cut into the Dark Mark and left the snake with only half a head. "Fitting place to splinch, don't you think?" he asked, his voice dry. "There's also a spot on my leg and a piece of my ear, if you hadn't noticed."

Hermione's eyes automatically went to his ear and saw the crescent-shape missing from the top edge. As far as wounds went, it was a minor one, hardly even noticeable, yet her heart ached for him. She knew it was the memories. Snape could never be the stern Potions professor in her eyes now that she knew he had a heart and had given that heart so completely once before.

His voice knocked her out of her contemplations. "I walked a mile to a hospital. By the time I got there, I was dehydrated and nearly dead from blood loss. I told them I had been stabbed by a mugger; they believed me."

"Why didn't you try to heal yourself with the wand before you left it?"

"The magic could be traced. My magical signature might have lingered long enough for a smart Auror to track me down or, at the very least, recognize that I had left Hogsmeade alive."

"But you Disapparated."

"Disapparation is difficult to track. It doesn't leave such a strong resonation as a specific charm, especially a healing one that would have had to be quite powerful to staunch the blood pouring from my neck."

Hermione was struck with how matter-of-factly he relayed the events of that night. He seemed numb to it. Of course, she had been numb to her own pain, had been denying it or ignoring it since that night...since that curse bounced off the shattered armor and hit her leg. Perhaps it was perspective, she thought. She couldn't hurt for herself, but she had never ceased to hurt for him, even when she thought he was dead. To a certain extent, she had been using him, putting her pain and frustration into his story so she did not have to feel it on her own behalf.

"Why didn't you come back to help us?" she asked, meeting his black eyes again.

Snape was silent, his stare unyielding. Finally, he spoke up. "You said Potter allowed you to view the memories...my memories. I gave him more than he needed." He looked down at his lap. "I gave him more than I intended. However, the important piece of information was Dumbledore's explanation of what Potter was to do in order to defeat the Dark Lord."

She watched him cast his eyes around the floor, obviously uncomfortable with discussing what he had assumed was Harry's slaughter at the hands of the Dark Lord. "I had spent so many years working to protect him," he continued, "that it was rather difficult for me to condone what I knew must happen. Potter is a Gryffindor through and through, and I had no doubt he would follow through with Albus's plan, nor any doubt that he would defeat the Dark Lord in death. I did not care to watch..."

Hermione had been staring at the floor, but she lifted her eyes up when he trailed off. She caught the nervous bob of his Adam's apple before he continued with, "I did not care to watch her son die. It made me feel like a failure."

"But Harry lived, Professor," Hermione said.

"Yes, I'm aware of that. When they released me from the clinic, I sought out a magical household and stole the Daily Prophet from their owl. I stole several more over the following month so I could read about the defeat, the survivors, and the departed."

"Harry spoke well of you to everyone who would listen, and that was most of the wizarding world. You must have read it in the Prophet. Why didn't you return?"

"Mr. Potter does not need me. I serve him better in death than I ever did in life."

Hermione blinked back the tears welling up in her eyes. "He misses you, I think. Now that he knows, he misses you."

"He has a full life in front of him and has no need of my direction any longer. He seems capable enough on his own."

"I missed you."

His eyes snapped up to meet Hermione's. "Don't be dramatic, Miss Granger."

"I've cried for you so many times, Professor."

He shifted uncomfortably shifted in his seat. "I don't need your pity."

Hermione couldn't stop the tear from tipping over her lower eyelid and sliding down her cheek. "After Harry told us about you, I thought you deserved more than what you got. Later, when he showed me the memories you gave to him, I knew you deserved more. Thinking of the hand you were dealt made my heart burn; it made me angry... and sad."

She sniffed and watched him look at her with soft, dark eyes. "How much did he show you?"

"All of them...beginning when you were a child and ending when you left to send your Patronus to Harry."

"Why you?"

"Me?"

"Why did Potter show them to you? Or has he bandied about my memories and shown them to mass audiences to clear my name?"

Hermione frowned at the bitterness in his voice. "He only showed them to me. Harry has never shown them to anyone else. I didn't even know he had kept them until months after the war ended." She sniffed again, wiping the salty tears from her flushed face. "He told me he had to show them to someone else. He said that you would have given him a year's worth of detentions if he showed them to Ron." She laughed weakly at the joke.

"And again, I ask, why you?" His voice was softer now, not casting off the old hatred or anger. He seemed genuinely curious as he waited for her answer.

She brushed away another tear. "Because he knew I would appreciate you even more after seeing the memories."

"And do you?"

"I haven't stopped thinking about you since," she answered honestly.

Snape didn't immediately respond. He simply sat in his stiff chair and stared at the girl sitting on his couch, weeping for him. Hermione sniffed again and inhaled a shaky breath of air.

"Don't fancy me some Heathcliff, Miss Granger, and Lily was no Catherine. Don't romanticize it into some fictional tale of love and loss so you can feel something beyond surface gratitude and pity for your old professor. I'm no tragic fictional character to pine away after. I'm simply a man whose life has been one rather large mistake."

Snape rose and walked to the door. He opened it and stood silently, his eyes downcast, waiting for Hermione to leave. She bit her lower lip, trying to stifle a sob. "Sir..." she whispered.

"I think it would be best if you leave," he replied, not daring to look up at her.

Hermione nodded and gathered her bag. The walk to the door felt like miles. Her heels clicked loudly, echoing through the empty room. "I..."

"Leave," he repeated in a soft voice.

"I won't tell anyone. I promise," she said as she passed by him to step over the threshold into the hall.

All she heard before the door shut was a murmured, "Thank you."

Author's Note: Thank you to moonrevel and JenF for their fantastic beta skills. And thank you to everyone who has been supportive by leaving reviews. I appreciate each and every one of them. Just a reminder to those who didn't see the notes earlier: (1) this story is complete and will be eight chapters, (2) and I'm completely ignoring the epilogue of DH (because it sucks).