Title: Forget Or Not Remember
Author: whynoy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Snape/Hermione
Word Count: 1,631
Disclaimer: JKR owns. I play. You don't sue.
Summary: Snape, Hermione, a Pensieve and a random Shakespeare quote.
A/N: Descriptions of the Pensieve's mechanics come straight from OotP and GoF, but since there's not much canon on how they exactly work, certain details are my own.Title from Richard II.

.

'Or that I could forget what I had been,
or not remember what I must be know!'

.

After knocking for the third time and still receiving no response, Hermione Granger took a deep breath and pushed the heavy door of the Potions' master study, walking in with as much determination as she was able to muster.

The room was cold and shadowy, lit by less than a dozen candles that were magically suspended in midair. It took her a moment to spot him, a tall black figure leaning immobile over his desk with his back to the door and to her.

"Professor Snape?" she tried. No answer.

Hesitantly, she took a small step in his direction. "Professor?"

She couldn't understand why he hadn't turned around and bellowed at her for intruding, as she expected him to. He surely must have heard her calling him.

Hermione walked all the way up to his desk, until she was standing directly behind Snape.

"Sir?" she called once more and this time, she reached out and tentatively touched his shoulder.

But as soon as her fingertips came in contact with the fabric of his robes, she felt the floor lurch beneath her feet, while the office swam in front of her eyes and rapidly metamorphosed into a completely different scenario.

Hermione was now standing on a suburban Muggle street, between two lines of identical semi-detached houses. What place was this? How had she got there? It couldn't have been by Portkey, she knew the feeling of traveling that way and it was nothing like what she had just experienced.

A sudden blast at her back resembling a gas explosion made her wheel round. One of the houses had spontaneously burst into flames. Its inhabitants were screaming desperately, trapped inside the fire. Hermione wanted to help them, to do something, but when she reached for her wand she realised with shock that she wasn't corporeal. What the… wait a minute. Could it be… a Pensieve? She had read about them, but… how was it possible? Was she really inside someone else's memory?

Before she had time to ponder these questions, she saw something that terrified her even more. A group of black hooded figures were surrounding the house, and one of them shouted "Morsmordre!"

Out of the darkness emerged a colossal skull, composed of what looked like green stars, with a serpent sticking out of its mouth like a tongue. Hermione watched horrified as it hovered sinisterly over the burning house.

She looked away from the Dark Mark just to see Snape standing only fifty feet to her left and staring straight at her. No, he couldn't be staring at her. He wasn't supposed to be able to see her at all. But when their eyes met and he started marching towards her, she realised that this Snape wasn't part of the memory.

Suddenly, the Muggle street around her was fading away and transforming into a dark and overgrown graveyard. A different memory? Why? Snape, who was now standing beside her with a confused expression, seemed to be wondering the same thing. Hermione had never seen him at a loss before and this somehow managed to frighten her more than anything else.

She glanced around. Between the graves, hooded and masked Death Eaters were standing in a silent circle, with two figures enclosed in the middle. One of them was Snape. He was on his knees, his head bowed before a tall hooded man. A cold shudder ran along Hermione's spine.

"Well, well, Severus…" Voldemort spoke in his cold shrill voice, "I have been receiving disturbing reports as to where your loyalties lie. All these years in Dumbledore's proximity… who knows? That senile old fool might have planted some of his eccentric ideas in your head."

"My Lord, you know I'd never…"

"I admit," he continued, ignoring Snape's pleas, "that you never seemed stupid enough to betray the Dark Lord, Severus, but we can never be sure enough, now can we?"

Almost lazily, Lord Voldemort raised his wand and roared "Crucio!"

As the past Snape started screaming in pain, the one standing beside her seized her arm and Hermione felt herself rising into the air. The graveyard evaporated around them, she was floating upwards through icy blackness. Then, with a swooping feeling, as though she had turned head-over-heels in midair, her feet hit the stone floor of the dungeon and she found herself standing beside Snape's desk, where a shallow stone basin engraved with runes and symbols lay in a pool of silvery light.

The present-day Snape was barely able to stand upright, as if the Unforgivable had been cast on him instead of his past self. 'Or maybe that's how it works', Hermione thought. 'Maybe one relives the moment completely, feelings and all…'

Snape was trying to reach the chair behind his desk, but as soon as he took a step forwards, he stumbled and would have fallen to the floor hadn't Hermione rushed to his side to steady him.

"Shall I fetch Madam Pomfrey?" she asked as she assisted him to sit down.

"No!" he spat and she recoiled. "That won't be necessary," he added in a slightly kinder voice. "Pensieves can occasionally… malfunction if subjected to… interferences." Forming words seemed to be a painful effort.

"I'm sorry, Professor Snape. It's all my fault, I shouldn't have…"

"As much as I would like that, Miss Granger," he interrupted her, "I'm afraid you can't be blamed for this unfortunate episode. A Pensieve is a very complex object and I unwisely overlooked the fact that certain memories tend to… gain power inside it if they're not visited often."

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, then appeared to have thought better of it and closed it again. However, her natural thirst for knowledge won in the end.

"Sir… if you don't mind my asking, why would one want to relive bad memories at all? Once they've been magicked them into the Pensieve, I mean."

Snape looked at her, a vicious retort already forming on the tip of his tongue. But she wasn't prying, he realised. She seemed genuinely interested. Maybe it was the feeling that there wouldn't be another opportunity to explain his reasons, since no one was likely to show true interest ever again, that made him give her an honest answer. He didn't feel brave enough to consider any of his other motives at the moment.

"Our experiences make us who we are, Miss Granger. Our memories, however painful or disturbing they may be, help us explain why we have become what we are in the present. A man can escape either his former or his present self, but never both."

"That I could forget what I have been, or not remember what I must be now." The verses slipped unbidden from her mouth before she had time to stop them. Hermione blushed, feeling very stupid about reciting Shakespeare in front of her Potions master. "It's from a Muggle play, I… I think I never really understood the meaning until now."

Nothing in the unreadable expression Severus surveyed her with betrayed his fear. For there was a small secluded place in his mind in which he was terrified of Hermione Granger. A place built with all the brief glimpses of the woman she would one day become that he had gathered over the years. And in that place he had vainly tried to get rid of, he didn't see Hermione as the obnoxious know-it-all that dared to disrupt his class, but as the beautiful talented woman that he could so easily… that he maybe already…

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Hermione clearing her throat. "Obviously I won't mention this to anyone, Sir." The implication of that anyone being Harry hung in the air between them. "But maybe… I mean, you could always Obliviate me if…"

"No, Miss Granger," he cut her off with a dismissive wave. "You of all people should know that, contrary to what Gilderoy Lockhart's practices suggest, Hogwarts teachers are not allowed to perform Memory Charms on students without the express consent of the Headmaster… or Headmistress, in this case. And even if I was to disregard Professor Umbridge's authority, I am certain I couldn't bypass her spell detectors as easily."

Hermione sighed. It seemed Obliviating was out of the question.

"But perhaps," Snape continued, "you could consider remembering as your punishment for bursting into my private quarters without being granted permission."

"I… I had just come to give you the outline of my project, Sir. For the extra OWLs," she said, producing a roll of parchment from the inside pocket of her robes and handing it to him.

"Ah, yes," he said and set the parchment on the table without opening it. "I'll let you know when I've had the time to consider it."

An uncomfortable silence followed.

"It's nearing curfew," Hermione finally said. "I should probably head back to Gryffindor Tower."

Snape nodded curtly in acknowledgement. "Good night, Miss Granger."

"Good night, Professor." She started to leave, but when she had reached the door she wheeled around and made her way back to his desk with something akin to terrified determination on her face.

Hermione came to a halt before him and gently put a hand on his left forearm. To his surprise as much as hers, he didn't pull away.

"There is nothing to escape from in the man you are now, Sir," she said, her sparkling brown eyes boring into his. "You should perhaps try to keep that in mind."

And with that, she turned on her heel and left.

When Severus Snape finally tore his eyes from the closed door, long after Hermione had disappeared behind it, there was no one but the darkness to hear him whisper, almost as a prayer, "And I loved her that she did pity them."

:

'She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
and I loved her that she did pity them.'
Othello, 1.3.168-9

Hermione's was supposed to be the only quote in this story, but Snape went all Shakespearean on me while I was writing and added that last bit of his own accord without even asking permission. The nerve…