Chapter 14, How Could You!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Beta Acknowledgment: Hats off to my amazing beta, WriterMerrin. She is the best!

Severus Snape was an unfortunate man in charge of a school full of magical children. He did not possess the luxury of moping about disasters in his personal life, which had once again involved foolish mishandling of his budding love towards a bright Muggle-born witch. The habit of being a responsible teacher was too prominent to die just because it had been out of practice for nineteen years. Duty towards his students came first and foremost.

Therefore, he threw the letter of dismissal in the fireplace, watched it burn, then contacted Madam Pomfrey and requested her temporary presence because the current Healer of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry was unavoidably absent from her post.

Poppy Pomfrey had known Severus Snape since he had been just a skinny little boy...she had not asked any questions, just given her consent. She reasoned that if it were not terribly important, Severus would have never asked it of her, knowing she was recovering from poor health herself. Besides, she had missed seeing the sweet faces of hundreds of innocent children in that place.

Then Severus had woken up Minerva and told her that he needed to take an indeterminable period off to sort out urgent personal business. He was not leaving the grounds yet, but he might have to at some point. So as the Deputy Headmistress, she needed to step up once again as he would be unavailable to handle the day-to-day duties of the school.

Minerva was not as considerate as Poppy was. She had a habit of asking questions when one rather wanted to not answer them...he had known it since he had been her student. So Severus was not surprised when he saw her coming out of his Floo. He told her to wait and Floo-called number twelve, Grimmauld Place to request Harry Potter's immediate presence.

Minerva McGonagall had not stopped asking questions just because Severus Snape asked her to; she was merely allowing him to call Harry. As soon as it was done, she asked, "What's wrong, Severus? You look terrible!"

"I always look terrible, Minerva. My look has nothing to do with it. When have I not looked terrible?"

"When you were under Hermione's care, of course, I would say I saw you relaxed and almost pleasant..."

She had stopped suddenly, noticing that at the mention of Hermione's name he had slumped down to his chair and buried his face in his hands, as if the invisible weight of the world on his shoulders had doubled up to make its presence known to the others. Minerva had never seen him this vulnerable before; she had no idea what to do.

Buried behind his hands, Severus spoke softly. "I don't even know where she is!"

"Who?" asked Harry Potter, brushing off the Floo-powder and ashes from his person.

"Hermione has been taken away." Severus motioned him to sit.

Harry had started to sit, but halfway through it, changed his mind. "Taken away?"

"It's my fault entirely. We had a disagreement."

"Had a disagreement?" Harry again.

"She Flooed off to Potter's office, and someone was already there who snatched her by surprise."

"Snatched her by surprise?" Harry himself was no less surprised.

"Will you stop echoing me? This is hardly the time to select your Animagus form!" Severus was becoming more and more impatient.

"Huh?"

"He means you are parroting him, Harry." Then Minerva looked at Severus. "Speak in plain English, Severus. I have more than forty years of practice in it, and I barely understand 'Snape.'"

Severus scowled at her but said, "We had a little disagreement which got out of hand, and she fled."

"That's it?" Harry did not buy it.

"Well, I might have yelled at her at some point." Both of them gave him a disbelieving look that said, "You? No!"

Severus sighed and said, "Oh, all right! I screamed awful things at her because I thought she was ridiculing me."

"Might I ask WHY?"

"I thought Neville Longbottom and ... Does it really matter what I called her, what I thought or what I said...she is somewhere out there in danger because of me. I need your help to find her."

"Give me a reason why I should not kill you, Snape." Harry remembered what Snape had asked of Sirius when they met in the Shrieking Shack; he now understood why he had done so.

"I must beg for her forgiveness in person." He was sincere.

"Right, but that's no reason why I shouldn't hex you!" Harry drew his wand, and in a split second, there were bat bogies all over Snape. Harry's wife was famous for the hex, and he rarely got a chance to be on the other end of the wand where it was concerned.

"Finite! It will do Hermione no good if we fight among ourselves rather than looking for her," Professor McGonagall intervened.

"How could you think of her and Neville? She was the one who set Neville up with Luna when she came back from Merlin-knew-where after her divorce with..."

"I am not remotely interested about your peers' love life." Snape sneered.

"You should be if you decided to fall for one of them!" Harry shouted.

"What!" It came from McGonagall.

Harry sighed. "He fancies Hermione."

"Severus Snape! How could you! She is..." Minerva could not believe her own ears.

Severus raised a hand to stop her. "She is not a little girl anymore, nor is she one of the students. Nothing happened when she was one, either. It started when I woke up from my coma and ended before really starting."

"Still, how could you? You never liked her before." She was not convinced.

Severus spoke more to himself than to the company present. "Falling for Hermione was never a trial; I always had a thing for her laugh. Before I woke up, I heard her laughing, and that was the first thing that made me want to come back; then I kept hearing her voice, her plea. When I finally woke up, she didn't really feel like a stranger anymore, nor did she resemble a student I once used to teach."

"Maybe it was just empathy; you have both lost the people you loved." Harry said, then added for Minerva's benefit, "He used to like mum before he liked Herms."

"Someone like Hermione should not mourn for a lost love like I did. Yes, it may have been empathy at first; I wanted to hear her laugh, but all she did was smile a strange heart-aching smile. Suddenly, I wanted to be the one to make her laugh again."

"It seems so quick. Loving someone takes time...to build up the romance." Harry said.

"What romance? I am here all the time; I didn't see any romance between them!" Minerva sounded indignant.

"We could hardly dance around here wearing giant red hearts with proclamations of love in front of a school full of teens! We're grownups; we were... discreet."

"Stop right there, I need to get that picture out of my head!"

"Harry!" Minerva motioned for Snape to go on, and he did.

"I am sorry if it seemed too quick for you. What was my hurry? I don't know, but once I was sure of my feelings, I could not deny them as nothing. I could not case them in and throw them into the North Sea and pretend they didn't exist. I could not 'unlove' because the timing is wrong for you, Mr. Potter. There is no such thing as that. Love works in a mysterious way; for some it may take a while, for some others it could be instantaneous.

"Although I have never told her that I loved her, hadn't realized very well myself before she was gone, love felt like indigestion mostly...one that never leaves you in peace. I wanted to do right by her and Mr. Longbottom after everything they had done for me. I told her there will never be anything between us, and she left. Now she will never have me."

"You don't know that! She has a penchant for taking up hopeless causes, and right now, Severus Snape, I see nothing more hopeless than you are."

~*H*~

She found herself wandless and bound to a chair by invisible ropes. She looked around as far as she could, given her situation. She was kept in a dark underground room...a cellar maybe! She tried to see through the darkness again in vain hope of finding a way out.

At least her eyes and mouth were free, and no one was torturing her for anything. She could yell for help. No, that would be a waste of energy for now. Whoever had caught her must have made sure no help was that readily available. Maybe she should preserve her energy and concentrate on getting rid of these ropes wandlessly; she would scream for help if all else failed.

The door opened, and Hermione squinted her eyes at the sudden burst of light. She heard a familiar near-nasal drawling, "Hello, Mudblood."

"I would greet you back, but I stopped greeting cowardly little ferrets a long time ago."

"Feisty still, aren't we!"

Hermione quirked an eyebrow. Even though she was puzzled and uneasy, she was not afraid of Draco Malfoy. She asked him, "What do you want, Malfoy?"

"You're forgetting who is the captive in here. Let me clarify...Crucio!"

Hermione had to bite the inside of her mouth to stop herself from crying aloud in the bone-wrenching pain of the curse. She did not take her eyes off him, but the eyebrow she'd raised dropped of its own accord.

Draco lifted the curse quicker than she thought he would. Leaning on the door, he smirked at her. "I see we understand our positions better now."

"Anyone can curse an already-bound opponent or an opponent's back for that matter, but no one else would be as gleeful as you are in such cowardice." She had managed to smirk back, suppressing her hurt. "So again, why are you here?"

"Where else would I be? I own the place."

"Don't be a prat! Tell me why you kidnapped me."

"Maybe I like you. Maybe I loved you all along. All my shows of hatred towards you were only an act due to the impossibility of getting you for myself. Maybe every time I insulted you...all I wanted was to kiss you. Maybe I was head over heels for you..."

"Was Lockhart your roommate in St. Mungo's?"

"You don't believe me?" Rubbing his palm on his chest where his little ferret heart supposedly would be, he feigned heartache.

"Never did before. Why change the habit so late?"

"You're right; I would never lower myself for the likes of you."

"Go, flatter yourself in private. Neither would I...lower myself for the likes of you, that is."

In answer, Draco hurled the Cruciatus curse again and left without lifting it.

~*M*~

Draco Malfoy could not believe the Mudblood was talking back to him even after being Crucioed. He had thought he found an easier way to solve the Potter problem.

Draco had to visit the Ministry to reinforce the Imperius on his contact. When he saw her from the door of Potter's office with a red wig on, being his father's son, he became thirsty for more knowledge of the opponent. She was asking for Potter and tossing the wig in the dustbin. What kind of game were these two playing? Perhaps it would be faster and easier than his father's long and hectic plan with her child.

She was so involved in her misery at not finding Potter, she made herself an open target. He had brought her to his chateau, against her will, of course.

He was on his way to visit his father and boast about his accomplishment, then he remembered, 'Oh, the curse!'

He showed her he was not without mercy and lifted it before leaving France.

~*M*~

When Draco was at the entrance of the Malfoy Mansion, Pansy rushed towards him, screaming excitedly about his father's arrest and Snape's betrayal.

Potter had come with half of his department and charged him with Weasley's murder. Apparently, they had proof against him. When Potter had told his father that they had his confession on the record, he had yelled, "Snape! You traitorous bastard!" and Potter had laughed evilly.

Aunt Bella was right; Snape had never been on their side. Draco paced and paced all over the drawing room for the entire night until he had come up with a new plan. Instead of using the Mudblood as bait to get Potter off their back, he would use her for something more important to him.

He stopped pacing, sitting down with a parchment and quill and starting to write,

"Darling Scarhead ..."