Getting the Hang of Thursdays

Chapter 11 - Pete Fell In...

By Hayseed

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Five

When Severus put his mind to it, he was generally successful at whatever task he set for himself. This trait was not one that was often noted, however, as he rarely approached any aspect of his life with the necessary degree of resolve to ensure success. As a result, there were probably not many -- if he were honest with himself, there might not be any -- people in this world that would characterize Severus Snape as anything but the most dismal of failures. While not technically homeless and not outwardly destitute, he had certainly deviated far from the lifestyle that he would have called ‘successful’ in his more introspective moments. A job that he nearly detested, involvement in a cataclysmic struggle between the forces of Good and Evil quite against his will, and the insidious black mark of Traitor in all of his Ministry files.

Not to mention that the last time he had laid hands on a woman in a non-platonic fashion had been in 1982, and she’d later turned out to be a not-entirely-distantly related cousin with designs on a mythical -- and thus nonexistent -- Snape family fortune. He learned in retrospect, though, that the fortune had not always been mythical, but his grandfather had squandered the vast majority of it prior to Severus’ birth.

Despite this, however, Severus genuinely believed that if he’d made any sort of actual effort to live his life instead of simply allowing life to happen to him as he had, he probably would have made a more successful go at it. He would have had a more fulfilling career, at the very least, and quite possibly would have told Lucius Malfoy to take a flying leap into the nearest bubbling cauldron all those years ago. It was true that his personal life would quite likely be very little altered, but Severus did not think of his personal life in terms of ‘success’ or ‘failure.’ The simple fact of the matter was that he did not like people as a rule. There were individuals that he more or less tolerated, but that was about the extent of it.

All this having been said, Severus was rather surprised to find himself thinking about Hermione Granger with a disconcerting sort of ambivalence. Their current predicament was dire, of course, and hers was particularly sinister. Thus, he was fairly certain that his accompanying sense of pity was natural and normal -- Severus was beginning to understand that the phrase ‘a thousand deaths’ was not meant to be bandied about lightly. He had done all that he felt he could to ease her difficulties in this; Hermione Granger had been walking a very fine line of sanity for a good number of days and he did not care to watch her unravel any further. So, after a fashion, his desire to see to her well being was just as much out of his own self-preservation as it was genuine goodwill for the girl.

However, Severus did not expect to actually miss her as he was beginning to suspect that he did. It had taken a few todays to realize that she had not been to his office since... that day. She hadn’t come to class either. Or attended the handful of meals that he’d gone to.

In fact, he hadn’t laid eyes on Hermione Granger since... that day.

He felt as if That Day warranted a mental hesitation.

And that, of course, was the only thought he would give That Day.

Other than using it as a marker for her disappearance.

And damn her, but she was right. It was hard to talk to other people -- Severus’ limited social sphere only contained Albus Dumbledore, a number of other Order members so small that if he counted them on one hand he’d still have fingers left over, and Minerva McGonagall on the best of days. Since the majority of the Order of the Phoenix was currently outside the loop, this left Severus with even fewer options.

He was only going to listen to Minerva’s curriculum worries so many times. And Albus...

Well, conversation with Albus had the doubled frustration of Albus’ usual cryptic old man witticism combined with the fact that Dumbledore should know about the time-loop. It was the right and natural order of things -- he was the most powerful wizard in the world, was he not? If Severus -- and Hermione, his mind added unhelpfully -- were affected, why the hell wasn’t he? It was even his Time Turner that Hermione broke day after day.

No... Severus had grown tired of speaking with Albus the third time he’d patiently explained the time-loop and been gently rebuffed and told to visit Poppy.

That left him with no options at all.

Which made Hermione Granger an almost appealing prospect. Conversation that didn’t repeat daily. With someone who, for reasons he didn’t even begin to understand, seemed to regard him in a more or less companionable light. And, most important of all, conversation with someone who knew what was happening.

She’d been right and he hated her for it. But she was also someone to talk to.

Besides, Hermione was becoming increasingly unbalanced -- that was the only possible explanation for That Day, really. Severus made sure to tell himself that often: whatever he was feeling about the situation was probably magnified about ten times for her. As awful as it was watching her day after day, even just knowing what would happen to her, whether he watched it or not, the memory of death had to be far worse.

Perhaps she had gone mad. It wasn’t an unreasonable thought, and Severus knew that. Especially given that Hermione really looked worse and worse through the todays. Her exhaustion had stretched into genuine haggardness, and every time he saw her, he noticed a distinct tremor in her hands.

Really, the only time she looked like anything but the palest of shades of her former self was when they were alone. When they could pretend that it was any other day but today.

And that was why Severus was prowling through the hallways at midday as if he were a panther stalking his prey. If Hermione had indeed gone mad and was planning to burn down Hogwarts or some such thing, meaning that her actions were going to have a direct impact on his well being, Severus wanted to know about it.

He would find her.

As has been said, Severus was generally successful at whatever task he set himself to. And he was currently bent on ferreting out Hermione Granger’s whereabouts. She’d managed to effectively evade him for more than two weeks’ worth of todays and he wasn’t going to have it for a moment longer.

It was entirely possible that he looked silly. Or, at the very least, uncharacteristic. But it was a sign of his resolve that he did not care. Robes clearly not billowing, expression merely stern as opposed to his usual sour, Severus made his way through Hogwarts as briskly as he could without drawing attention to himself. He had, if not an outright mission, a goal for the first time in more days than he cared to count.

Hermione was not in the dungeons, which was not surprising. She was also not in the library, which was. Nor was she in any of her classes, Gryffindor tower, the Quidditch pitch (it had only just started to rain as he stood in the grass outside), the Shrieking Shack, the Astronomy tower, the Room of Requirement, or the kitchens.

Unfortunately, Severus now had a fairly good guess as to where she was. And he did not want to verify it. More correctly, he did not want his first glimpse of Hermione since That Day to be under such circumstances.

Looking down at his watch, he sighed and began walking more quickly. Maybe if he got there before it was too late...

With a headshake, Severus mentally berated himself for a fool. Once he got there, once he saw her, pale and shaking, in an Infirmary bed, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to leave and he knew it.

Really, he shouldn’t even go, he told himself as the Infirmary doors loomed into view. He could always seek Hermione out tomorrow. She’d probably prefer it nearly as much as he would.

His fingers wrapped around the doorknob.

And besides, he was probably wasting his time anyway. It was entirely possible that Hermione was someplace he hadn’t checked. Off with Potter and Weasley, being cajoled into mischief -- not staying in one place would make it that much more difficult for Severus to track her down. After all, it was only two o’clock. She had a whole half-hour, really.

He pushed the door open.

All in all, he was most likely on a fool’s errand. Hermione wouldn’t be here. She --

Only one Infirmary bed was occupied, Severus could see as he stepped into the room. And even though Harry Potter’s head blocked his view of the person in the bed, he was fairly certain he knew who it was. As he neared the bed, he saw that Potter’s expression was happy, although clearly forced. He held onto Hermione’s hand with a white-knuckled grip that belied his cheerful grin.

Hermione looked wan and tired, her face pinched with obvious pain. She met his eyes over Potter’s shoulder. “Go away,” she said sharply.

Potter hadn’t seen Severus yet, that much was evident. His mouth twisted in confusion. “Hermione?” he asked, releasing her hand. “I, erm...”

Rolling her eyes, she blew a sigh out through her nose. “Not you, you twit,” she said. “Him.”

With a start, Potter turned around completely and gave Severus an absolutely befuddled stare. “Pro... Professor Snape?” he stuttered. “What’re you doing here?”

Severus glared down at the boy. “Get out, Potter.”

The confusion deepened visibly, and Potter’s eyes flickered back to Hermione for confirmation. She looked away, clearly uncomfortable, and Potter’s back stiffened. “No,” he said quietly, nearly inaudibly.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Severus told himself not to hex the idiot. “Thirty points from Gryffindor, Potter.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “No,” he repeated stubbornly.

Severus’ hands slowly curled into fists. “One hundred points.”

Something tightened in Potter’s jaw, but he remained seated by Hermione’s bedside. “No, Professor,” he said, face settling into a scowl eerily reminiscent of an adolescent James Potter. “Can’t you see that she’s dying?”

That was it. Before he could rein in the impulse, Severus stepped forward and grabbed the collar of the boy’s robes, jerking him up out of his chair. “You think I don’t know that?” he growled, giving Potter a shake for good measure.

“I--”

Another shake, cutting him off. “I won’t tell you again, Potter,” he said in a venomous whisper, pulling Potter’s face so close to his that their noses were nearly touching. “Get out.”

Severus released his collar and he staggered. For a shocked moment, he thought Potter was going to protest again and moved his hand surreptitiously toward the wand secreted in his robes.

But Hermione reached out a shaking arm and laid her hand over Potter’s. “Just go on, Harry,” she said in a strained voice. “I’ll be fine.”

Keeping his expression deliberately neutral, he watched Potter’s internal struggle. “But, Hermione...”

“I’ll be fine,” she repeated firmly.

In many ways, it was nice to finally see that there was indeed at least one person on the face of this planet that Potter more or less listened to. After another few seconds of what was clearly mental anguish for the boy, he backed away from Hermione’s bed. “All right,” he said in a dull sort of voice, shooting Severus a positively poisonous glare in a puerile effort to intimidate him.

Severus merely allowed his upper lip to curl into the barest of sneers, and Potter finally -- finally -- walked out of the Infirmary with so many backward glances that for a hopeful moment, Severus thought he was going to bash his head on the doorframe as he left.

“If I’d wanted to see you, sir, I would have gone to your office,” Hermione said as soon as Potter was out of earshot.

He sat down in the chair that the boy had just vacated. “I know.”

“And I don’t need you to look after me,” she continued, sheets rustling as she shifted position in bed. “I am quite capable of looking after myself.”

He took her hand matter-of-factly in his -- the skin was clammy to the touch and her fingers were limp and unresponsive. “I know.”

“So you can leave if you want,” she said, exasperation creeping into her voice.

Severus looked over at her impassively. “I will take that under advisement.”

They were quiet for a few long minutes. Hermione’s face grew increasingly pale as the seconds ticked by -- it occurred to Severus that he did not know what had happened to her, and he was surprised to realize that he did not want to know, either.

Finally, it appeared as if Hermione could take it no longer. “Why are you here?” she exclaimed suddenly. “Why did you run Harry off like that?”

He tried to keep his face blank and his eyes carefully focused on hers. “Potter does not know what you must endure. And no one should have to die alone, Hermione.”

Her fingers curled around his minutely. “Oh.”

Day Two Hundred Thirty-Six

He’d forgotten about his coffee. Some mornings, he ordered a tray from the kitchens in lieu of attending breakfast in the Great Hall, others, he didn’t do either. Hermione had noticed this trend some time ago and commented wryly on his ‘optimism,’ which Severus still felt did not merit a response.

Today, it seemed, he had indeed ordered a tray and then proceeded to become engrossed in the second-year exam he was still writing and forget all about it. Meaning, of course, that he was now facing a cup of cold coffee, which was entirely unacceptable.

He could, perhaps, subject the poor thing to a Warming Charm. Albus, he knew, thought nothing of ordering a tea tray, coming back to it two hours later, and putting the whole pot under a Warming Charm. But while Severus was well aware that Warming Charms did not alter the chemistry of the beverage in question, that did not detract from his fervent belief that a reheated cup of coffee was far more repulsive than a cold cup of coffee.

And the house elves were generally busy with other duties at this point during the morning. It wasn’t as if they wouldn’t drop everything to make him a fresh pot of coffee, but he would have to wait for it.

Severus’ temples throbbed. Cold coffee it was, then.

The cup was halfway to his lips when his office door slammed open, door rattling on its hinges as it banged into the wall. To his credit, he managed to keep his surprise from showing on his face, barely blinking as Hermione Granger came striding into his office as if she owned it.

Taking a sip of his awful coffee and suppressing the urge to shudder, Severus looked up at her. “Yes?”

Her resolve seemed to leave her, and something in her posture shifted. “I’m sorry,” she said, staring at his desktop and blushing a bright red as she did so.

With a quirked eyebrow, he folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward slightly. “You’re sorry?” he echoed, allowing a hint of uncertainty to bleed into his voice.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated in a firm tone, “about That Day.”

Severus blinked, surprised to hear the same capital letters in her voice that he himself used. “Oh,” he said carefully. “That Day.”

“I just wanted you to know,” she said earnestly, “that I’m sorry.” Finally, Hermione looked up and met his gaze. “I really am.”

He shrugged. “It’s all--”

“I wasn’t thinking,” she continued in a rush. “It was just... and I was so mad and you were so... but I’m not crazy, sir. I’m really not. I didn’t mean for it to... I was just angry.”

Horror bubbled up in Severus’ gut -- she wanted to talk about That Day?

She pushed a curl out of her eyes. “I don’t want... I don’t want to be alone, you see. And I’m just afraid that if you don’t--”

He could take no more of this. Raising a hand in protest, Severus tried to keep the panic out of his voice and mostly failed. “Miss Granger... Hermione.”

Pausing, she just looked at him.

With a mental sigh, Severus cleared his throat. “It’s forgiven, Hermione,” he said neutrally. “Forgiven and forgotten.”

“But, sir--”

Unable to contain himself any longer, he fixed her with a harsh glare. “Are you trying to give me indigestion, girl? I said forget it.”

Unbelievably, her mouth opened again.

“Hermione...” he drawled in warning.

Lips pursing, she slumped into her usual chair and folded her arms over her chest. “Oh, all right,” she said in a tone that approached a grumble. “I won’t bring it up, then.”

“Good,” Severus said, picking up his cup of coffee once more and taking a long sip, making a face as he did so.

She regarded him with raised eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s gone cold,” he said noncommittally, forcing another mouthful down.

“You know... they have these things called Warming Charms...” she said, something akin to a mocking expression on her face.

Severus gave her a withering look, and it was as simple as that.

Day Two Hundred Forty-Three

Inasmuch was possible, Severus was in a good mood today. So much so that he not only attended breakfast in the Great Hall and made small talk with Albus but that he was teaching his morning classes as well.

It had been a long time since he’d bothered to show up. On some days, he would Floo Albus and mumble about headaches or experiments, but usually, he merely scrawled something on the blackboard canceling all classes for the day. Every now and again, if he were feeling particularly perverse, he would cancel his morning classes but hold his afternoon ones.

But today, he had bullied and berated his way through his morning schedule with the closest thing to relish that he felt he could manage under the circumstances. Maybe one of these todays, he would make a concerted effort to reduce his early morning class of first years to tears. It would be entertaining at the very least. Causing a single student to cry usually left Severus feeling oddly guilty, but he was fairly sure that an entire classroom full of teary-eyed children would be more satisfying. The only way to find out was to try, really.

The room was currently full of his fourth year Ravenclaws and Slytherins, brewing their usual potion. And, according to Severus’ watch, he had about forty minutes until Graham Pritchard broke his vial.

He’d often wondered how Pritchard’s vial was broken when class was canceled. To the point that, out of curiosity, he’d actually followed the child around for about an hour one day many todays ago. Of course, the vial’s end was quite anticlimactic -- it seemed that if Pritchard did not break it in class, he merely dropped his bag, which contained his potions kit, instead. Severus had hoped for something more along the lines of spontaneous combustion or an owl swooping down from the ceiling -- something... exotic.

Nothing seemed exotic about Pritchard, however. Other than the inexplicable fact that every today, without fail, he broke his vial of armadillo bile, which in and of itself didn’t seem particularly exotic either. Severus permitted himself a moment’s indulgence as he looked up from a struggling Ravenclaw’s cauldron to stare at Pritchard -- the boy flicked at an invisible speck of something on the front of his robes as he stirred his brew. As he did so, the child frowned, his eyes straying to his workbench. Severus smiled inwardly as Pritchard continued to frown at his workbench -- after a brief pause, the child stopped stirring, reached down, and swapped two vials around on the tabletop.

A few short words with the Ravenclaw relieved some of his confusion, and Severus moved on to the next cauldron -- there were only two students between him and Pritchard now. But one of those two students had made a complete mess of the assignment, and Severus had to not only pause to clean it up, but to have a rather lengthy discussion with the visibly nervous Slytherin girl on the subject of proper slicing technique.

As he approached Pritchard’s cauldron, the boy looked up at him fairly calmly. On the pretense of examining his work, Severus leaned over the table, peering down at the bubbling potion, which was more or less correct, deftly exchanging the places of two vials as he did so. “Fine, Pritchard,” he said curtly once the vials were carefully out of place, walking away.

Severus kept one eye on Pritchard as he continued down the aisles, docking a few points here and there and offering advice as he saw fit. After about fifteen minutes, he saw the child frown once again and reach over to rearrange his kit once again.

With a badly suppressed smile, Severus paused at a Ravenclaw girl’s cauldron to offer a rare compliment and to turn around in order to approach Pritchard’s workbench once again.

Day Two Hundred Fifty

“It’s the weirdest thing, Hermione,” Potter said as they walked past.

Interest piqued, Severus paused -- he’d been heading toward the kitchens in an effort to procure a lunch that did not consist of lamb, but this sounded far more significant. Was Potter remembering?

He tried to be inconspicuous as he pivoted and followed the pair, aware that Hermione had probably already noticed his presence but also aware that she was unlikely to bring it to Potter’s attention.

“... do you mean?” she was asking Potter as he caught up to them once again.

“Well...” Potter hedged. “Like I’ve said -- it’s really weird.”

She was most likely rolling her eyes at him. “Believe me, Harry,” she said, “it would take more than you’ve got to surprise me.”

“I dunno...”

Hermione huffed. “Are you actually going to tell me, or are you just going to dance around it all day?”

“I was cleaning off my broomstick after practice this morning like usual -- Ron’s gone completely batty this season, you know. Five AM practices, even in all this rain...”

“Yes, yes, I know,” she interrupted, clearly exasperated.

Clearing his throat, Potter’s shoulders sagged a bit as he leaned in more closely. Severus found himself stepping even closer in an effort to hear the boy speak. “There’s something... funny about my broomstick.”

“Funny?” Hermione echoed carefully. Her head tilted a bit in Severus’ direction, confirming his suspicion that she knew he was behind them. “Funny how?”

One of Potter’s hands reached behind his head to give his neck an agitated scratch. “It looks... I dunno... off somehow. Like the handle ought to be all splintery, but when I run my hand down it, it’s perfectly smooth. There’s something... blurry about it.”

Hermione’s voice sounded defeated. “Like maybe bits of it aren’t there any more.”

Potter stopped walking. “Exactly.”

Something twisted in Severus’ gut as Hermione actually turned around to look at him with anguish in her eyes. “It’s everywhere, isn’t it?” she whispered.

Solemnly, Severus nodded.

“What’s everywhere?” Potter asked with obvious confusion, spinning around to stare at Severus with surprise. “Professor Snape? What’re you talking about?”

Severus felt the corners of his mouth turn down. “Nothing, Potter.” He walked past the pair as briskly as he could, evading both Hermione’s worried gaze and Potter’s confused one.

It’s everywhere, isn’t it?

Hermione was probably right. It was everywhere. And it was probably getting worse.