Chapter 10: June

The potions classroom was silent except for the sound of Severus's quill scratching on a roll of parchment and the relentless ticking of the clock on the wall. He thought she would have arrived by now. Hermione's last NEWT ended nearly a half an hour ago – more than enough time for her to engage Flitwick in her usual post-examination repartee and then make her way from the great hall to the dungeons. His brow furrowed and he grudgingly admitted to himself that he was disappointed that she wasn't more anxious to see him. Nearly two weeks had passed since they'd spent any real time alone together, after all.

They'd spoken once since he was cleared of any wrong doing in the death of Hyacinth Tilly. It was a brief conversation in which he informed her that they hadn't been as discreet as they thought they were. He didn't know why he was surprised when, in typical Hermione fashion, she set her hands on her hips and informed him that she was astonished that he thought they'd been discreet at all. If the nightly private tutoring sessions weren't enough to set the tongues of the student body wagging, she reasoned, they were certainly enough to raise a few eyebrows among the staff. She was the one who quite correctly suggested that they curtail their visits until after she completed her NEWTs. This was a considerable relief to Severus, who was dreading making the same suggestion.

His quill tapped on the parchment in time with the ticking clock and he thought about what he would say when she arrived. Indeed, he thought of little else since they last spoke.

Good afternoon, Miss Granger. Please take a seat.

Hello, Hermione. How are you? We need to talk.

My beautiful Hermione, I've missed you. Don't ever leave me.

Before he had a chance to contemplate the wordless greetings that lovers shared, the hinges on his classroom door creaked and she was there. It was immediately apparent how she spent the last half hour. Her normally bushy hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders, and instead of her school uniform, she wore fetching casual robes. On closer inspection, he could see that she was wearing cosmetics. All the artifices of a woman. It wasn't her, and it made him vaguely uneasy that she felt the need to adopt the trappings of an older woman. Of the two of them, she wasn't the one who needed to change.

"You've changed your appearance," Severus stated plainly. It was hardly the greeting he'd planned.

"Good afternoon to you too," said Hermione, pulling a chair up next to his and tossing a folder onto his desk. "It's just a little Sleekeasy's and some lip gloss. I'm not a student anymore, so I thought it was time to project a more mature image. What do you think?"

"My opinion isn't the important one." He sighed quietly and got down to business. "Hermione, we need to talk."

"Yes, I know," Hermione said matter-of-factly, opening the folder on the desk. "Remus came to speak to me right after he found the potion that cleared your name. He's a dear man, but he can be so tedious when he's 'frankly astonished'. However, he made some very sensible observations."

Lupin. Severus wasn't sure if he should hex the werewolf within and inch of his life for his judgmental interference, or if he should send him a bottle of his best scotch for broaching the topic with Hermione. Perhaps he would offer him the scotch and then hex him. Yes, that would work. "What did Lupin say?"

"He simply pointed out that it wouldn't sit well with Voldemort if one of his Death Eaters had a public romance with a close friend of Harry Potter's. Naturally, he's right. I don't know why I didn't see it myself. In any event, I've taken the liberty of drawing up a list of safe places for us to meet. There's headquarters. Of course, that means you'll have to stay longer than it takes to give your report. And then there's a tunnel from the castle to Hogsmeade that almost no one knows about --"

"Hermione, stop," Severus interrupted. She clicked her mouth shut and looked at him curiously. "Do you honestly expect that Lupin or Molly Weasley is going to cheerfully accept us retiring to a private room after we've helped clear the dinner dishes? And I know about the tunnel to Hogsmeade. It's dark, it's dirty, and not nearly the secret you think it is. Hermione, you deserve better."

"We both deserve better, but we have to make the best of the options available to us," said Hermione, not at all happy with Severus's tone. "I'm not particularly fond of the tunnel either. It was just an idea." She scanned her list. The rest of the possibilities weren't any more appealing, and some of them were considerably worse. "There's nothing else for it, Severus. The members of the Order are just going to have to accept that we're both adults and that we have the right to our own lives. If you made more of an effort, they might get to know you the way I do and they wouldn't make things so difficult for us."

Severus folded his hands and sat silently for several moments. The moment he'd been dreading had finally arrived. "Hermione, they do know me, and that is precisely why they object to our relationship. I understand their objections." He turned his chair so he was facing her, lifted her chin, and looked into her eyes. "Hermione, what do you think happens when I answer the Dark Lord's call?"

"You put your life on the line and risk unbearable torture to gather information for the Order." Hermione stated what she believed was perfectly obvious.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for not answering the question." Severus retreated into the safety of his role as an austere professor. "You're the brightest witch in a century. Do you honestly believe that the Dark Lord calls me simply as an observer? Think, Miss Granger. What do you think I do when he calls me?"

"I – I don't know," Hermione stammered. Her jaw quivered at his abrupt change in tone.

"Of course you know. You simply refuse to think about it." Tears welled up in her eyes and he was tempted to gather her in his arms, then Lupin's words haunted him. When you love someone, you put their needs first, even when you don't particularly feel like it. "Consider all of the information, Miss Granger. I'm a potions master. I teach at Hogwarts and I'm a Death Eater. What purpose would I serve for the Dark Lord?"

"You brew potions for him?" Hermione was keenly aware that her answer sounded quite stupid, but she couldn't bring herself to approach the question with her usual objectivity.

"Not just brew, girl. I invent potions for him -- potions to make him stronger, potions to torture his enemies, horrible potions for nothing more than his entertainment." He stood up, crossed his arms, and loomed over her. It was an old trick he used to make her feel small. "How do you think these potions are tested, Miss Granger?"

"I don't know!"

"Ten points from Gryffindor. Answer the question, Miss Granger."

"On -- on Muggles," she answered quietly.

"Correct, Miss Granger. Twenty points to Gryffindor." He circled behind her. "But that's not all I do. Can you guess what other purpose I serve? I'll give you a clue. I hate teaching. I could earn ten times what I'm making teaching, working in a private apothocary, and yet I'm here. Why?"

"Because of Professor Dumbledore," she answered, more confidently.

"To gather information about Dumbledore, and Potter, and you, and Weasley to report to the Dark Lord. It's a tricky thing, knowing how much to tell and how much to withhold. My eyes aren't the only ones he has here."

"You do what you have to do!" Hermione protested, her jaw was set defiantly. "We all do. You have the hardest job of all of us. You have to face the evil everyday and do terrible things to help defeat it. That doesn't make you evil; it makes you brave and honorable."

Severus laughed, a mocking, barking laugh. "Honorable? Do you know me at all? I knew more dark magic when I was ten years old than most people learn in their entire lives. I don't like Harry Potter. I hated his father, and his marauders." His voice dripped with contempt. "I laughed when Sirius Black died."

"You didn't. You couldn't have," Hermione gasped.

"I assure you, I did. Shall I get my pensieve?"

"But you – and Remus – you're friends. You saved his life." Hermione grasped at straws.

"We tolerate each other, and I was the one who put his life in danger. Intentionally, I might add."

"Why, Severus?" Her tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

"Because that's who I am, Hermione, not this romanticized tragic hero that you've created. I am a nasty piece of work. I'm sadistic, and spiteful, and I hold grudges. I'm trapped in a life I hate until the Dark Lord dies and Albus Dumbledore chooses to release me. I am not a boyfriend."

Until the day I'm free to be the man I see when I look in your eyes.

Severus felt the bile rising in his throat. "Good day, Miss Granger."

He turned on his heel, his robes billowing behind him, and retreated to his private chambers, where he vomited until his ribs ached. As he lay on the cold tile, he vowed to kill Remus Lupin if he ever again suggested that he didn't love Hermione Granger.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Seventh Year Memories
of
Hermione Jane Granger

June 14th

Tomorrow morning I'll board the Hogwarts Express for the last time, so this will be the final entry in my student journals. I've purchased a new journal for my life after school and I'm sorry to say that Severus Snape will not be in it. I understand his reasons for ending our relationship much better now than I did last week when he dismissed me from his life, but I'm still quite angry with him. He was the one who suggested the private tutoring sessions. He was the one who kissed me. He initiated our sexual relationship, and he was the one who insisted that I wear street clothes under my school robes. Now he tells me that we weren't discreet, as if that's my doing, and that we can't possibly continue our relationship because he's an insufferable bastard. As if that's news. He closed his door on me without so much as a backwards glance and hasn't spoken or even looked at me since. It's as if everything that we did since December never happened for him. Bastard.

I spent a lot of time alone in the astronomy tower after Severus and I had our talk. I couldn't very well walk around with puffy eyes and a red nose from crying. People (Harry and Ron especially) would want to know why I was upset and of course I couldn't tell them. Remus showed up out of the blue on my second day up in the tower. He said he was visiting Albus and came up for the view, but that seemed a bit contrived to me. He asked me how I was doing and the next thing I knew I was crying on his shoulder and calling Severus every foul name I could think of. It was alright for me to tell Remus. He already knew about Severus and me, so it wasn't like I was spilling any secrets.

Remus agreed that Severus was a nasty piece of work, but said that he was a nasty piece of work who had my best interests at heart. I thought that was a rather nervy thing for him to say. I'm not a child. I'm nineteen years old and I haven't exactly been sheltered. I made it clear to Remus that I was old enough to decide for myself what was and what was not in my best interest. He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled at me in that way that older people do when they think you're being stupid, and said he remembered how difficult it was to be between playthings and firewhiskey.

Before he left, Remus told me how much he regretted missing most of the week before the Leaving Ceremony because it was the last time his class was together before going off into an uncertain future. I knew what he was trying to say, and he was absolutely right. I was missing something very special by spending my time sulking in the astronomy tower. Remus is a dear man, but it certainly takes him a long time to get to the good advice. He's very much like Professor Dumbledore in that way.

The next four days were a blur. Everyone around me was celebrating getting out of school – more than a few of them celebrating getting away from Severus – and all I wanted was for things to go back to the way they were. I cheered up a bit when I received an entirely unexpected owl from Grover Hipworth, a potions master with an excellent reputation. I applied for an apprenticeship with him in the fall but lost out to a student from Beauxbatons. In his owl, Mr. Hipworth informed me that he decided to take on two apprentices and offered me the second position. I was stunned to say the very least. It's unheard of for a man of his stature to take on two apprentices. Naturally, I accepted immediately. Gap years are over-rated anyway.

By the time of the Leaving Ceremony, I was far from fine, but I was functioning, which is more than I can say for Severus. He never looked at me, but I watched him push the food around his plate all night. He looked as if he hadn't slept in a week. Even Harry commented that he looked in a bad way. Of course, he and Ron were convinced it was because Slytherin placed third in the standings for the House Cup. Why would this year be different than any other year? Honestly, men can be so blind sometimes.

As much as I disagree with Severus's decision to end our relationship, I still love him. I know it should disturb me to see him in so much pain, but it doesn't. Perhaps this makes me an awful person, but I get some degree of comfort from knowing that Severus misses me that much. Despite everything that's happened, I still love him and I know he loves me. There's nothing else to do but wait for this war to end. Until that happens, I won't tell our secrets or nag to see him. You don't do that to someone you love.

The End