I've always been a fan of HG/SS, but there aren't nearly enough stories of that kind, so I decided to write my own. This is my first HP fanfic, so be gentle.
Enjoy - and please rate and review!
Prologue: The Weight of the World
They say that things get better with time, that I'll forget, that I'll be able to enjoy life again, but some wounds never heal. Sometimes the weight of the world is almost too much to bear, the young woman thought bitterly as she made her way out of the castle, her body hidden under an old, worn cloak. It was late October, and it had been raining heavily for the past couple of days. Half the students were sneezing or blowing their noses. Some claimed that this was the work of the Dark Lord, but she knew better. It was simply the natural order of things. He was not involved in everything. Those superstitious people could not blame him for every little thing that was unpleasant.
Or maybe the sky is crying for him. He was a good man. He tried to give us an advantage in the war that is to come even if they all think that he was working towards our destruction, that he was in league with the enemy. And I … I loved him, almost more than life itself. They would probably accuse me of being one of them if they found out. They never really knew me. I was never anything but an annoying bookworm to them. They think I'm still mourning Dumbledore's loss. I'm not. I know that his death was inevitable, that it was his wish.
She found the small grove at the edge of the Forbidden Forest where the Aurors had confronted him. They had intended to take him to Askaban to question him, but he had refused. He had remained faithful to the cause. He had given his life to protect them all.
She had been the only one in the entire school to mourn him. They had been lovers for one short summer. Who would have thought that he who thought her annoying and irritating and she who suspected him of practicing the Dark Arts would fall for each other, that he'd become the center of her universe for a while?
They only see black and white, but things are never that simple. Not all Slytherins are bad and sometimes one must pretend to be something else in order to save a life, sometimes one must make a sacrifice to make things right again.
She had brought a blood red rose, kept fresh with a spell. She knelt down in the mud, not caring whether her skirt got dirty and wet and placed it on the ground where the grass had been burnt. The rose would be her last gift to him, a sign that she would never forget him. „I hope you are at peace wherever you are", she whispered and rose to her feet again. They'd start wondering where she was soon, and at the moment she could not bear the questions that would certainly follow. She did not want to look at them now. She wanted to be left alone.
A pair of green eyes, half hidden under messy black hair watched her as she slipped into the castle again, took the cloak off and hid it. Where has she been? She doesn't usually sneak around the castle like that. Maybe she has a boyfriend ... maybe he has broken up with her. She has not been herself for a while now. Maybe Malfoy has hexed her … sounds like the ferret to make a Gryffindor unhappy …
He contemplated confronting her, but then he decided against it. He'd talk to her later, when she was not soaking wet and crying her eyes out. Maybe he'd ask her about it at breakfast, let her sleep a night over it.
Hermione Granger entered her room and changed into fresh clothes, not knowing that Harry Potter had watched her, not really caring what was happening around her. She lay down on her bed and covered her face with the blanket. She did not want anybody to see her now. She wanted to forget the world around her and pretend that everything was fine.
She still remembered the day their relationship had become something more, remembered it as clearly as if it had been yesterday. She still remembered when she had first noticed that Severus Snape was a human being.