Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

“You had me.” Three little words that reverberated throughout her entire being and destroyed her so utterly and completely.

She clutched his soiled handkerchief to her chest.

In silence, the darkest recesses of her mind leeched toward the forefront.

“You had me.”

Hermione opened her mouth, but no words tumbled forth. Oh, how she wanted to speak, ramble, to think aloud, or just scream—anything to still the myriad of thoughts from overtaking her.

“You had me.”

“What you deserve…”

“… not absolve you…”

She clenched her eyes shut, dirt-encrusted fingernails digging into the flesh of her scalp, dragging down to her ears, scratching away. Begging the voices off, please stop, please go away… please, she pleaded, broken. Her own thoughts were drowned out by the visions and voice of the man before her. The man she had broken.

There were no more words to be spoken, nothing more to be said. In silence comes clarity and understanding.

He hadn’t said a word to her or deigned to acknowledge her very presence as they labeled and stored the freshly gathered ingredients. He didn’t volunteer to help her jar the more reactive specimens, and Hermione dared not ask for assistance.

She felt dazed, stifled as they trekked back to the castle. Walls of pressure within were compressing and slowly constricting in her chest. Each breath of oxygen gasped set her lungs ablaze.

Hogwarts was in the distance. Faintly, she could hear the cheers from the Quidditch pitch as the game carried on. Hermione shifted the small potions box in her arms, her fingers grasping it more firmly. The essence of juniper tickled her nose as the sweet scent wafted up from a jar whose cork hadn’t been properly stopped.

Lost in contemplation, she hadn’t realized they were in the castle until she bumped into him. Snape had stopped outside his classroom. Glass jars clinked and rattled against one another as Hermione nearly lost her hold on the ingredients. She mumbled an apology, flushing hot with a mixture of embarrassment and shame.

Snape didn’t react; he just unwarded his door, opened it, and walked through into his classroom. He proceeded to unward his storeroom. Inside, he exhaled softly. He set the portable curio down on the trolley and began the tedious process of shelving his stores by alphabet and common usage.

Hermione’s arms were growing heavy, leaden with the weight of the box cradled against her. She stood stock still, outside his storeroom unmoving.

“Professor Snape,” a throat cleared.

Glass shattered, shards dancing, skittering across the flagstone as the potions box fell from listless fingers. Numbed, tendrils of fears slithered through her body, freezing her to the spot. Hermione could not force herself to move, to cross the distance between her and the open door of the storeroom, her sanctuary and last ditch effort at refuge.

Calm and collected, Snape flitted through the door entering his classroom. He snorted softly at the wasted ingredients and energy expended that now lay ruined at his feet.

“Madame Umbridge, to what do I owe this visit?” Measured steps propelled his body forward with dignified purpose as he bodily placed himself between the interloper and Granger, who had yet to move a muscle. With a slight bow and inclination of his head, Snape deferred to his guest.

The squat harpy preened at his display of courtly manners. “Official Ministry business I’m afraid.” She drew breath as if the task was an imposition, menial, and beneath a woman of her self- purported stature. Snape knew differently by the quick and fleeting glint in her eyes.

“Yes, of course.” He nodded, moving closer to the smaller woman. “The C.O.U.R.T. mandates,” he leaned in close, “that the Ministry must do everything in its power to ensure that those of a “lesser birthright” are protected.” His tone implied anything but, and Umbridge delighted in their tête a tête

“Certainly, it hardly seems fair to persecute them based on the unfortunate blood status of their parentage.” Narrowed eyes flickered past the physical barrier of Snape’s imposing frame to her prey. Umbridge placed a well-manicured hand, pink polish glistening against the glittering of the blazing wall sconces, on his cloak covered arm. “After all, we are not uncivilized.” Though not spoken aloud, her implication that those not pure-blooded, or at the very least of half-blood status, were inferior filth.

“Quite right,” Snape purred, the malicious glint in his eyes misinterpreted by his contemporary as camaraderie.

Hermione shut her eyes, barely breathing, the self-belief of his words leaving her cold.

“Madame Umbridge, here you are.” Dumbledore entered the room. “You missed quite the rousing Quidditch match,” he remarked offhandedly. “And what do we have here?” He peered over his half-moon spectacles at Miss Granger. A flourish of his wand saw the mess at her feet vanished.

“Miss Granger, you must have a care. Who knows what potentially harmful situation could have befallen you? Luckily Severus was here.”

Hermione’s brow furrowed; was the headmaster issuing a not-so-subtle warning behind the double entendre?

“Messrs Potter and Weasley were inquiring as to your whereabouts; I believe there is still time to catch up with them before the end of the luncheon period.”

“Thank you, Professor. I am rather famished.”

Smiling with grandfatherly affection, Dumbledore watched as Hermione scurried out of the room like Wormtail with Crooks hot on his trail.

Snape distanced himself from Umbridge. “Headmaster.” Roles in place, he deferred to his master.

“Actually, Severus, It is Dolores I am interested in having a word with; if you will excuse us.”

“But of course, headmaster.” Snape paused. “Madame Umbridge, perhaps we can finish this conversation at a later date?”

“I am sure time can be arranged, Professor Snape.” Heels clacked, sounds echoing off the walls of the dungeon, Dumbledore’s quieter footfalls following.

Alone, Snape summoned himself a snifter of whisky, downing the shot in one toss-back. The amber liquid burned his throat on the way down to his unsettled stomach, no doubt about to wreak havoc on the ulcer yet to heal from his last reckless bout of binge drinking.

How he wanted this all to be over and done with; he was past the point of caring if he survived or not. As he felt now, death would be a welcoming embrace.

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Hermione didn’t seek out Harry or Ron in the Great Hall, instead she locked herself in the prefects' bathroom. Submerging herself in a scalding bath, she fervently wished she could wash away the wreck of the day as easily as the dirt and grime from her body that now floated atop the dingy, sudsy water. Taking a breath, she plunged under the water, willing the pain away, praying her soul could be sloughed off like the red and burned cells of her flesh to be grown anew.

Hermione broke through the surface. A bitter cackle of a laugh ripped from her throat. “The Brightest Witch of Her Age” was a moniker she did not ask to be saddled with; now its burden threatened to collapse on top of her. She had cocked things up beyond repair. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty. She deserved his disdain. Hermione had all but pushed him to the brink, eagerly watching and waiting for him to tumble off the precipice. And when he did, she pulled away the safety net to prevent the stop, his death. Watched him freefall, baring and mocking the beaten fragments of his soul, the glue, her constant and not always welcome presence in his life, gingerly holding the pieces together, evaporated, completely shattering the pieces just as surely as she had the ingredients they had gathered.

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The seventh shot and his senses were dulled. His taste buds could no longer distinguish between the vintage or brand as he rummaged through the butler in his chambers, filling and refilling his glass with liquor from empty and half-empty bottles.

What a fucking fool he made himself to be. Not once but twice in his lifetime falling for the unattainable. Women who could or would not look beyond bonds of friendship, or at the very least lust, to see the man before them. He allowed himself to be love’s errant whipping boy, relished in the delusions and misbegotten hope that he had worth, a heart, though damaged, to be given wholly without reservation.

He was thirty-six and had spent the last eighteen worthless years of his manhood remembering a dream and chasing the falsehood of redemption and grasping at the lies of innate goodness. Now, he was on his way to hell. At least he would be good and drunk when his sentence was fated upon him.

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Her freshly scrubbed skin was tinged pink. She was clean, physically at least. Emotionally drained, the pair of jeans and sweater she hastily donned felt two sizes too big. Hair, still damp, was pulled into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Wand tucked into her back pocket, Hermione ventured through the corridors of the castle. Her feet hefting the slight weight of her body, turmoil roiling in her gut, towards the direction of the dungeon.

“Professor Snape,” she called, knocking on the closed door to his classroom. No answer. “Professor Snape, it’s Hermione Granger, sir.” Still no answer, though she highly doubted if he was in, he would answer. Not to her summons.

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The buzz felt wondrous, though what little rationale he retained knew this state was temporary. Getting pissed in the middle of the night was one matter, but to wallow in self-loathing and alcohol when it was not even two in the afternoon was another low which he had reached. He found he didn’t care; the outside world be damned.

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She gave up. Slightly dejected, she furthered her journey into the bowels of the dungeon.

“Professor Snape.” Words hesitantly spoken, the knock on his chamber door, even more so.

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The ninth shot, glass to his lips, was stilled; a staggered few steps found him at his door.

Hermione jumped back as the door was yanked violently open. The stench of alcohol pervaded her senses. The man before her reeked of liquor.

“You’re drunk.”

“I assure you…” he paused, “I am not,” breath, “drunk, Miss Granger, but I am about…” he knocked back the shot in his hand, “five shots away from glorious oblivion.” His speech was slurred ever so lightly. From what little Hermione could see, he appeared to be able to function; his motor skills and coordination didn’t seem worse for the wear. For that she was frightened. If he knew his tolerance, and from the smell of him, he had been drinking for some time, she could only assume this sort of behavior occurred frequently.

“I should go.” Hermione lacked the conviction of her statement.

“You will find no one here to disagree with that, Miss Granger.” The biting edge was lost in the haze of whisky.

“But I don’t want to. Go, I mean.” Nervously, she picked at a frayed thread of her sweater.

“Yes…” He licked at liquor coating his lips. “I don’t believe your wants have any hold in this conversation.”

“Even if it’s you that I want.”

“Do not fucking lie to me,” he snarled.

He was so close to her, his face contorted in anger millimeters from her own. The vapors burning her sensitive nose. She clutched at his cloak, propelling them back into his living quarters. Taken off balance, he stumbled, the traction of the soles of his boots on the area rug causing him to fall backward. Hermione, in his arms, shrieked as he landed with a hard thud on the floor.

He groaned in pain, choking on a cough at having the breath knocked out of him.

Hermione, unscathed, as her professor bore the brunt of the impact, pushed herself off of him. “Are you okay?”

The glare directed at her was the only response she provoked in him. A wave of his wand saw the door to his chambers slammed shut. He threw a hand over his face, covering his eyes, perfectly content to lay there sprawled out on his backside, ignoring the bloody nuisance.

“Can we please talk?” she pleaded, her fingers tracing the sliver of the flesh wound on her palm.

No response.

“You bequeathed your fealty upon me.” Hermione waited, but he was still unresponsive. Perhaps she should wait until both parties were in their right frame of mind. As it were, she was running on guilt and the need for his acceptance, and he was quite possibly three sheets to the wind, despite his denial otherwise.

“How do I reciprocate?”

He laughed. This was not the reaction she had been expecting.

“Of all the fucking irony,” he groused, pushing himself into a sitting position. “You cannot.”

“But I want to.” She sounded almost petulant.

“Wants do not enter into this equation. You physically and magically cannot offer your fealty to another while cursed.”

Her brow knitted in confusion, thought lines crinkling her forehead. “But you…”

He nodded slowly.

“But you knew I wouldn’t…”

He nodded again as she began to piece together the puzzle.

“Why?” Why would he promise himself, mind, body, and soul to her, knowing that she couldn’t return the sentiment, or if she so chose, could deny his sacrifice all together.

“The answer should be quite obvious, Miss Granger.”

“You…” she pointed between them, incapable of proper speech.

He nodded.

“Oh…”

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A/N: Heartfelt thanks as usual goes to my beta, SeverusLovesUs, and of course to all my readers and reviewers.