Chapter 3: Mucking About

The Uninvited

By Subversa and SubHub

Chapter 3: Mucking About

Hermione stood in the clearing, reasoning to herself that it must be the nexus of her professor's mind. With her heart aching, she resolutely pushed the image of the crying four-year old from her and concentrated on her next objective. As she considered, she looked all about her surroundings, but she did not see Severus Snape in any form.

'Professor?' she called quietly. 'Won't you come and talk to me, please?'

Only the preternatural silence of the wood-that-wasn't answered her. Hermione moved over to sit at the table that Snape – had it been Snape? – had conjured. What did it mean? Why had she seen two of him? Was he as confused as she was?

The idea gave her pause. Perhaps he was confused – it might even be the reason for his prolonged unconsciousness, as well as for his amnesia when he did awake. She frowned. He certainly seemed to know who she was, here in his mind, but he had recognized no one else since his waking, even though all of his attendants had been former students – some, even from his own House.

There was nothing to be gained by reflecting over the whys and wherefores; she had to either persuade him to wake up or find a cause for his memory loss, and she knew her time was not unlimited.

Resolutely, she reached for the next memory.

The peaked little face of the four-year-old moved past her eyes, growing older, longer, and thinner. The eyes grew more haunted, then more hooded. The only time he looked like a normal boy was when he was with the green-eyed witch, Lily Evans. Around her, his face relaxed, but his eyes burned – he was utterly taken with her. It made Hermione's heart hurt to see him looking on Lily so greedily.

At last, as the montage of moments flowed past her, Hermione chose the one she wanted and was there.

It was a warm summery night, but here on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, no breeze moved through the branches of the trees. It was still and deathly quiet, save for the hiccupping sobs coming from the black-robed boy huddled beneath the ancient oak tree. Hermione kept her place until the storm of agonised sobs ceased, knowing she would likely be completely unwelcome, but feeling drawn to the need of sixteen-year-old Severus Snape.

As the distressing, keening cries quieted to harsh, gasping breaths, Hermione stepped from behind her sheltering tree trunk and approached him, making no effort at silence. She was, therefore, entirely ready to stop and stand still with her hands open before her when the boy leapt to his feet and trained his wand on her.

'Who are you?' he demanded dangerously, and in his attitude Hermione clearly saw the boy who had become one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters.

'Well,' she said frankly, 'you once thought I was an angel.'

He stared at her with pitiless eyes, dashing tears from his cheeks with his free hand. After a moment, he lowered his wand a fraction. 'I remembered your hair differently,' he said.

'Oh, me too,' Hermione answered with a fervent nod. 'I keep on remembering it differently, but it stays pretty much like this.'

Adolescent Severus snorted. 'What do you want?' he asked suspiciously. 'Don't think I'm going to let you cuddle me.'

Hermione kept an eye on his wand for safety's sake, but she sat down near the spot where he stood. 'I have a few things to share with you,' she answered, looking up at him. His eyes were red-rimmed, but otherwise, he looked as well as he could. He had obviously groomed himself before going to throw himself upon the not-so-tender mercies of his so-called 'best friend'. His chin-length hair was lank but clean, and even from this distance, Hermione could pick up the faint aroma of cheap aftershave. He had put his best foot forward, only to have it knocked out from under him.

He glared at her. 'What makes you think I want to hear anything you have to say?' His sneer followed the words after a beat, almost as if he had forgotten to affect it. How curious – was he having to teach himself to be nasty and off-putting?

She shrugged. 'You don't have to stay, of course,' she said. 'You're free to leave at any time – but I thought you should know that I think you were treated abominably.'

He seemed to sag a bit at these words, and he dropped to the ground beside her, an air of dire defeat about him. 'Did you see that? What Potter did?' he asked, his eyes turned away from her, his shame etched in his very bearing.

'I know about it,' she told him gently. 'I know you were terribly upset when you called Lily a "Mudblood". It was very brave of you, going to say sorry, you know.'

'No!' he cried, and he turned his face to her, his eyes wild with despair. 'I ought to have left her alone – left her to get over it. Now she'll never speak to me again!'

Hermione touched his arm, and he jerked away from her as if she had burned him through his robes. One side of her mouth quirked up in sympathy, but she spoke to him as if he had not pulled away. 'You made a mistake, Severus – we all make mistakes – no one is perfect. But you behaved like a proper man. You went directly to her and apologised. Not many boys would have had that kind of courage.'

'It didn't matter,' he said desolately.

'I think it did,' Hermione said firmly. 'You did the right thing – it's all you can do. It's up to her now.'

He turned his face away from her again, providing her with the harsh profile she knew so well – here was a Snape she recognised, although his face was smooth and unlined. The jutting nose remained the same, but the landscape of his long, thin face had been ravaged by twenty years of existing on the razor edge of disaster. Here was a striking boy any witch in her right mind would be happy to fancy – unless, of course, the witch in question was Lily Evans.

'I know you're upset,' she went on, determined to have her say, 'but I want you to ask yourself a question: Would a true friend refuse a sincere apology?'

He reacted as if she had touched him on a raw, open wound, shouting and scrambling to his feet. 'You don't know anything about it!' he cried.

Hermione did not answer him, wanting so badly to soothe his hurt and knowing he was beyond any aid she could provide. This was a soul-deep cut from which he bled now; only time soothed such sorrows.

It seemed as if the echo of young Snape's accusing voice had scarcely died down when another very familiar voice came to Hermione's ears.

'Now, I hear tha', Fang,' the voice of Hogwarts' Keeper of the Keys said conversationally. 'I think yer on ter summat – might be a student out after curfew.'

What help Severus could receive was on the way – Hermione knew only too well the comfort of a cup of tea in Hagrid's snug cottage. She willed herself away and was in the clearing once again.

She saw at once that Professor Snape was sitting at the table, all signs of the shattered teacup gone. 'Hello,' she said, very happy to see him.

He watched her with calculating eyes. 'So, you're here to tour my memories? Nose out interesting facts to share with your little friends?'

Hermione felt as if she had been slapped. 'Of course not!' she rejoined hotly. 'Do you think I would take this risk for the sake of gossip? You're not the only one in danger here, you know!'

Mockingly, he raised one eyebrow. 'You are cordially invited to depart at any time, Hermione,' he told her. 'In fact, now would be perfect.'

Hermione cast him a cool look and sat down across from him. 'Perhaps I would be able to leave sooner if you cooperated with me,' she said reasonably.

He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. 'What are you looking for, specifically?' he asked, a look of beleaguered longsuffering on his face.

Hermione leant forward, resting her forearms on the tabletop. 'I'm looking at painful memories,' she said. 'If you won't consent to tell me why you won't come back, then I'll look in your memories for clues.'

She looked into his glittering black eyes and watched his expression go from boredom to amusement. 'I could direct you to the memories most suited to your purposes,' he pointed out. 'Allow me to guide you.'

Hermione sat back again, suspicious. 'Wouldn't it be easier for you to just tell me what I want to know?'

His eyes narrowed. 'Take it or leave it,' he said indifferently.

'Fine!' she snapped. 'How do we do this?'

He stood and extended an elegant, long-fingered hand to her. Somewhat intrigued, she stood and placed her smaller hand in his – and they were away.

The first memory to which he escorted her was a Death Eater gathering. Hermione reacted violently, attempting to jerk her hand from his and to flee. Although her intellect knew it was only a memory and that all of these people were dead or imprisoned, her instinct was to escape. Her merciless companion held tightly to her hand and hissed, 'Be still! You'll miss the best part!'

Standing on a raised dais at the front of the room was Tom Riddle, known to his followers as Lord Voldemort; the Death Eaters stood in a semi-circle around him, hooded and cloaked. In the middle of the circle, kneeling before the Dark Lord, were a number of young people. Hermione did not know who the others were – unlike her professor, the other young people did not seem to resemble the adult Death Eaters Hermione had known and fought. One by one, Voldemort called names and the young people crawled forward to kiss the hem of his robes. Next, two burly Death Eaters would step forward and lay hands upon the supplicant whilst the Dark Lord placed the tip of his wand to the left inner forearm, burning his indelible Mark into each new follower to the accompaniment of their screams of pain. When the branding was complete, a female Death Eater stepped forward to supply the new recruit with the hooded robe and the sinister mask worn by all their brethren.

Before Hermione's horrified eyes, Severus Snape crawled to the Dark Lord and endured his branding with white-knuckled fortitude. Her free hand covered her mouth as the tears started to her eyes, and the profusely sweating eighteen-year-old young man received the garments which would become the symbols of his servitude.

'Isn't it a shame you can't rush into a memory and kill someone?' Snape murmured idly. 'Think of all the trouble the world would have been spared.' He gave her hand a jerk. 'Enough of this. Let's see my first assignment.'

For what seemed an interminable time, Hermione flitted from horror to horror in her professor's memories, viewing duels, Unforgivable Curses, killings, mayhem and carnage. Her guide seemed to be watching her carefully, searching for a specific reaction from her, but she was apparently a disappointment to him. Yes, she saw Severus Snape take up his wand and commit atrocities – but she also saw the sickened horror in his eyes. Every time it seemed to her that she was about to witness an act of remorse or contrition, she was jerked into the next memory. At last, he tired of her.

'You have quite a tolerance for abiding in the mind of a torturing, murdering Death Eater,' he remarked to her. 'Let's see how you feel about his ... other proclivities.'

Now she was treated to images of Severus Snape in his element amongst his fellows, drinking and joking with them, but failing to pair off with witches as they did. She saw him entering a building on Knockturn Ally repeatedly, leaving his gold upon a dresser before spending a short period of time coupling with an anonymous woman in a darkened room. She turned her face away, refusing to invade his privacy.

'Can't bear to watch, can you?' her companion hissed into her ear.

'Everyone has sex, Professor,' she returned with a shrug, demonstrating to him how unimpressed she was. 'Why don't you quit mucking about in this folderol and show me something meaningful?'

In the next instant, she stood in a warm, damp room with a milling crowd of girls in various states of undress. Some were bathing in the large pool in the middle of the room, whilst others were brushing their long hair, and others still were slowly dressing themselves. They appeared to be about Hermione's age; vapidly pretty, with gravity-defying, unreasonably large breasts. A rather disproportionate number of them were redheads.

'Where is he?' said one, looking about fretfully. To Hermione's astonishment, it was obvious the girl saw her. 'Who are you?' the memory girl demanded, but then she spotted the professor. 'Oh, sir, we've been waiting so long!'

There was a general murmur of joy as the young women pressed forward, surrounding Hermione and Professor Snape. They seemed to wish for no greater joy than to touch the professor, all talking at once, but in very soft, sweet voices.

Hermione said, 'Shoo!' and the ranks broke, the girls scattering away from them. Hermione turned to Snape, who was watching her with such an arrogant smirk on his face that she had to restrain herself from slapping him. 'Why can they see us?' she demanded, trying to ignore the fact that the scantily-dressed young women were now attempting to pull her away from him.

'You mustn't be rude to him,' one of them said to her. 'He doesn't like it. And I don't care if he did bring you here – you have to get at the back of the queue!'

A general murmur of agreement greeted this pronouncement.

Hermione strong-armed three redheads to the side. 'In queue for what?' she snarled, speaking to Snape – but it was one of the girls who answered her.

'The spankings!' the young woman said rapturously. 'And after the spankings, the oral sex!'

Hermione was easily able to jerk her hand from his, for he was nearly doubled over with laughter.

'This isn't a memory,' she said, striking out again with both arms and scattering half-naked redheads in every direction. 'It's a fantasy!'

'How do you know?' the professor said, the laughter going out of him at her first show of disbelief.

'Because I've seen the damn movie!' Hermione snapped, and with merely a thought, she was in the clearing again, alone.

A/N: This story was beta read by DeeMichelle and Keladry Lupin; it was Britpicked by MagicAlly and alpha read by Sshg316.