Young Women

Chapter 17 - Young Women

Snape was growing increasingly agitated by the day. Potter and his friends had begun their sixth year, and things between he and Harry had gotten worse. He spent more time talking with Lupin whenever he could get a moment. Lupin was so caught up with Greyback and trying to spy for the Order, it was rare to steal time away so they could talk.

One evening, that late fall, they sat in Snape's quarters. Lupin was torn up about Tonks and needed to vent his frustrations.

"She just mopes, Remus," Snape complained as he informed him about Tonks. "Sulking and walking around for all and sundry to know your hurts is annoying and infuriating to those of us who have the decorum to keep their grief to themselves!" he snapped.

"Well, Dora is not like you, Severus," Remus replied uncomfortably. "She is the polar opposite of you, when it comes to emotional displays of the tender sort."

"Remus, why the hell don't you just admit you want her and get on with it!" he snarled.

"You know why better than anyone, Severus! I would ruin her life. I don't want her to look at me one day and regret the choice she made, or do something foolish because of me," he replied sadly.

If the werewolf had said that a year or two ago, Snape would have had his guts for garters! But, he knew what he meant, and Remus was the only one who really understood his motives for the hideous things he did for the Order and for Harry.

"When this war is over, Remus, you shall have no more excuses to push her away. Things will be different after it's all over. You'll be a hero. I'm not giving up my plan on finding a cure for Lycanthropy, so you had better not...what did you call it? 'Burn that Bridge?'" he retorted.

A smile crept on Lupin's face. "Why, Severus, that was quite optimistic of you. Dare I think you're getting sentimental in your old age?" he teased.

"Shut up before I change my mind and make a pelt out of your carcass!" Snape snarled.

Lupin decided to change the subject and test the waters since Snape had brought up a past reference to Hermione on bridge burning. "Severus, Hermione was very hurt by your rejection of her assistance this summer," he said cautiously.

Snape snorted. "She's a child and a student, Remus! What did you expect me to do?"

"Do you ever wonder just how powerful a witch she'll become one day?" he mused.

Snape nodded and then began to absent-mindedly trace his mouth with a long finger. "Miss Granger is the brightest and most dedicated student I have ever taught. I have yet to meet a witch as powerful as she. I wish I could live to see what she would do after this war is over and has grown up. She is a credit to Muggle-borns and a thorn in many a Death Eater's side. Honestly, Remus, the girl intrigues me. Every time I think I've got her pegged down, she'll do something so shocking and amazing that I am nearly speechless."

Remus was impressed. He had never heard Severus speak about another witch so highly other than Lily. "For example," Remus prodded.

Snape shrugged his shoulders. "For example, she was able to cast a nonverbal spell on her first try. It was highly impressive. She was making Protean Charms in her fifth year, I was told. Her abilities in Transfiguration and in Charms far exceeded my own when I was a student."

Lupin watched his reluctant friend as he spoke about Hermione Granger. There was pride, respect, and perhaps a little adoration in his eyes. He also had a shadow of smile playing around his lips. Lupin hoped his friend would find happiness again. He truly did.

***

Snape had been annoyed after Remus left. What was he playing at? Hermione Granger had been nothing but an irritation and would be nothing more. He had known that without reservation because he was unlovable. He had tried to understand why he never could arouse anything more in women than disgust hidden within false interest. It had consumed him for years. However, since his brief talk with Nymphadora and experiencing Miss Granger's closeness during his convalescence this past summer, coupled with his voyeurism of her masturbating whilst saying his name, he could not stop thinking about Miss Granger's motives.

Young women.

He sat in his chair facing the small fire in his sitting room. He felt cold. He never felt warm anymore. The warmth had left him as Lily's body had cooled on his bed.

His thoughts rambled onto Moira. He hoped she was happy. There had been times he'd wanted to find out if she were doing well, but she'd made it plain that he wasn't welcome anymore. He was tainted, no good, unworthy. Young women would always find him out in the end. He wasn't a fool. He saw the looks he received from his older female students. Some of them looked at him as if he were nothing more than a bowl of cream. He enjoyed it in a twisted sort of way. He knew if he let them in close enough, they would use their pretty claws to shred him to pieces. Hermione Granger would be no different. Although, he had to admit, she was the last female he'd ever thought would see him in that light. Perhaps she wants to be humiliated and dominated? He could do that, but ever since his experience with Evangeline, the pretty prostitute, that urge had died out.

His thoughts returned to Hermione Granger. He remembered how she smelled of lavender and how she would stroke his hair and put cool cloths on his head. She had been so calming and soothing. He remembered how warm she had felt as she ran her hands over his skin. Her skin had been so soft.

Young women, he thought as he went to bed. They haven't a clue. I'm far too feeble in spirit to try to resurrect that old need. He made the decision right then and there to push Miss Granger out of his mind.

***

Snape stood in Dumbledore's office, his fists clenched with rage.

"You mean to tell me, that after everything I've done, everything I've lost and gave up, you dare to tell me you will offer up my son as a pig for slaughter!" he roared.

"Severus, he has Tom inside him. He is a Horcrux! As long as Harry lives, Tom will never die!" Dumbledore reasoned.

The younger wizard cried out in anguish. It was a primal scream of a father losing his child. It was all for nothing! He could endure anything as long as he could remind himself it would make a better life for Harry. He could even stand his boy hating him, as long as it could be a long, long hate.

Now, Harry would be destroyed along with everything else that he had loved. He would not do it! He'd rather live under the Dark Lord's rule and have Harry next to him living in hell than not to have him...to not have that chance to be reconciled to him.

Dumbledore knew his thoughts; he bore down on the wizard.

"You will do this, Severus. You have a Vow to keep with Narcissa. You can take your hate and rage upon me when you kill me," he said darkly.

"You and I are finished, old man!" he swore bitterly.

"So be it, Severus. For what it was worth, I thought of you as my own son. However, I love you enough to lose you forever for the Greater Good."

Snape's head jerked up and his face grew dark. How he hated that phrase! He turned on his heel and stormed out of the office. As long as he was still a trusted Order member, he would get comfort where he knew he could.

***

He met with Lupin in an abandoned shack outside of Blackpool, where they could talk and be safe.

"Remus," he called as he stepped inside.

"In here, Severus. You sounded rather desperate."

"Remus, I have to tell you...I have something I must do. Dumbledore told me something about Harry that I cannot..." His voice wavered and he stopped talking. He would NOT cry in front of him!

"Severus," Remus said as he sat at the table. "Come, sit." He conjured two cups and took out a flask. "Have a drink, Severus."

Snape accepted it gratefully.

"It's Harry. Dumbledore told me he is a...that he has a part of the Dark Lord's soul embedded in him. It's been there ever since the beginning of this nightmare! He has to be killed, Remus, and the Dark Lord will have to do it."

He began to laugh. It was a dry, cracked, laugh, mirthless and bitter.

"Why should I be even remotely surprised, Remus? Why! It not as if things have easy in the slightest, no, rather the events in my life keep on growing darker and darker, losing is all I know. I really believed that I would be able to have my boy back. I had such foolish hopes and dreams. Now I have nothing," he whispered sadly.

Remus sat with his hands in his hair. "I can't believe this, Severus. This is just...I don't have the words!" he finally confessed.

"How about...fucked up?" he answered sarcastically as he gulped down his drink.

"Thanks for the firewhisky, Remus," he said as got up to leave.

"Severus," Remus called to him. "Do you have to leave so soon? Don't you want to discuss this more?"

"What for, Remus?" he said tiredly. "There is nothing to discuss. Dumbledore has got me by one ball, and well, someone has the other," he muttered as he thought of Narcissa.

"I can't help but feel there is more to this, Severus. Can't you unburden yourself?" Remus asked desperately.

Severus gave a twisted smile to his friend. "I wish I could, Remus. Unfortunately, this is something you are safer with not knowing."

He Disapparated then, leaving Lupin to only fear the worst for his reluctant friend.

***

The night Dumbledore died, Snape had only one regret: his fight with Harry. He had kept his bloody promise to Dumbledore and Narcissa. The Dark Lord was so pleased with him now. It was all going according to plan, yet all Snape could think of was how his son had tried to kill him, had struggled with all his might to avenge the old bastard he thought was his protector! He had screamed bloody murder as he tried reasoning with the boy. He was never going to succeed if he did not learn to close his fucking mind!

Harry had called him a coward, and it had torn at his very soul. He could see the little baby he had loved. He recalled later as he laid in the filthy bed in the Dark Lord's Lair all the happy memories that had kept him sane and grounded over the years. The first time he held him in his arms and looked into his beautiful green eyes, sitting, grading poorly written essays with Harry bouncing on his knee, bathing him, holding him in his arms by the fire, smelling his clean hair, and the first time he'd called him "Daddy."

It had hurt each and every time Harry referred to James as his "Dad." He had nearly as much time with Harry as James had! If anything, he had done more than James, he had guided, and saved his life, fretted over the stories he'd heard about him playing the celebrity Romeo during the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He'd known all about his failed first love with Miss Chang, and his heart had broken right along with his.

Sure he had been a right bastard and lost his temper on a number of occasions. He had insulted and cursed James to the boy's face, he had verbally abused Harry over the years, all of which he tried to justify by telling himself it was for the boy's own good. After all, wasn't that what his father had done? His father wanted his son to be tough, not a sniveling little "Nancy boy" as he'd called it. But, it was all a lie. He had just been wrong as many times as he had been right. Sodding James Potter! He could be the perfect father, being dead. Harry could build him up in his head as the ideal of fatherhood, but Snape knew the reality all it all. Every parent fucks it up royally, and there is no such thing as a perfect father.

He had failed Lily. He used to wonder if she was looking down from the heavens, shaking her head, her eyes flashing in anger, as she had been wont to do when regally ticked off. He had more than once winced at the thought of her disaproval from above, but as time went on and the memory of her touch curdled with the knowledge that she had not meant any of it, he felt for a long time he owed her nothing. But, as he lay alone in his bed, shunned by the Order, a murderer, and a traitor, he felt the condemnation rise up again inside him.

Snape winced.

***

September, 1997

Severus sat behind his desk. The Headmaster's desk! It was quite the reward he had been given, yet he found little comfort in it. He worked now with Dumbledore's portrait, the dead wizard giving him information as needed. Their relationship had never been fully healed. The night he'd stormed into this office after the debacle with Potter and called him every name in the book, their long-standing father/son relationship had died.

Snape refused to speak to Dumbledore about his feelings for Harry. He had been devastated when the rooms originally Transfigured for Lily and Harry were restored to their original state for Professor Slughorn to occupy. He had taken the stupid duck and the rocking chair and had placed them in his new quarters. Then, when he knew he would have to leave Hogwarts immediately after he killed Dumbledore, he had decided not to leave anything to chance. He had them placed them in his Gringotts vault. He trusted no one to keep his possessions with care. Once the Dark Lord had established him as Headmaster, he took them with him again. He still sat in the rocking chair when the sadness overcame him from time to time. He was desperately lonely and wanted it all to be over.

It was only Harry that kept him going now. When the war was over, and if he survived, he was going to tell Harry everything. If the lad still reviled him, then so be it. He could not carry all of this in his heart anymore.

He wished he could talk with Remus. He wished that he could talk to anyone outside of the inner circle of Death Eaters. He had never in his life felt so utterly isolated and alone. There was no one to confide in, no one to care. He had achieved what he feared the most: unloved, unwanted, and unworthy.

He took a perverse joy in protecting the students. When he had caught Ginerva Weasley and Neville Longbottom attempting to steal the Sword of Gryffindor, he had made a good showing in front of the witnesses. Then, as he had marched them off to Hagrid to serve detention, he had stood in the shadows of the forest and shook Longbottom's hand. He had told him to be more careful, and that he was proud of him. Neville, who had blossomed into quite the renegade, had stood stock-still, his mouth gaping open. He had been speechless. He had made the two swear they would cause no more trouble, for he did not want any students hurt.

"But, if you can't be good, then be careful," he'd said. "That is what I always told my Slytherins. Your foolhardy attempt at burgling my office was ill planned and far too risky. Take care of yourselves and try to stay under the radar of the staff from now on," he had warned.

Miss Weasley had not spoken one word to him the entire time, but when he had turned to leave them, she had placed a hand on his arm and had asked Neville to leave them alone.

She had faced him with her red hair gleaming in the moonlight and her brown eyes shining brightly. "I never thought...but it all makes sense now, Professor. I swear, I won't breathe anything to a soul!" she had said fiercely.

Snape, for whatever reason, had reached and ran his hand through Ginny's hair. She was so much like Lily: brave, fierce, and tenacious. She would be a good wife for Harry. They were meant for each other, and he would make sure Harry did not lose her.

"Ginerva," he had whispered. "You may not last the year here if you continue to revolt against the staff. I will not have you beaten and bruised by the Carrows. Promise me, if things become too difficult, that you will leave. Just come to my office, and I will make your excuses for you."

"Why are you so concerned for me?" she had said in disbelief.

"I want you and Harry to have a life one day. Despite popular opinion, Miss Weasley, I do care about people, and I care about you and Harry. Don't you ever breathe a word of what I have said to another soul!" he had said urgently as he had grasped onto her wrists painfully.

"I won't!" she had pleaded. Her face had been full of terror. He had released her and muttered a feeble apology. She had responded by flinging her arms around him and said, "Thank you, Professor. Thank you so much for caring about Harry. I miss him so much!" she had said as she began to shake. He had smoothed her hair with one hand, relished in the loving contact he had longed for so many months. She had begun to cry now, and he had understood all too well the fear for someone loved dearly. Again, he had been overcome with the strength and feeling that came with the love of young women. He had thought of Hermione, out there with Harry, and he had wondered if she ever thought about him as well. He had shook his head and had extricated himself from Ginny's grasp. He had admonished her to remain strong and had given her a small smile.

He had left her standing there, and as he had walked back to the castle, he had cursed himself for his weakness. But, he could not help but feel lighter in his heart. That girl was going to be his son's wife one day, he knew it! She had been the closest he had come to Harry in so long. He had hoped that one day she might help heal the divide between them. He had never been a praying man, but after that night, he had begun to pray for his son to come back to him.