About A Potions Master

Chapter 16

By Pigwidgeon37

So this was what love was like. A heart that hurt—not metaphorically but  physically—cringing and writhing under the bites of pain. A feeling as if the whole body were made of lead. A throat so narrow that it was almost impossible to breathe without sobbing. A desire to scream and break and tear hair from skull, to bang your fists against the wall. The complete loss of joy, because everything had lost its lustre, because nothing seemed desirable anymore. And if you thought of what love could be, if you remembered a soft voice and gentle hands, black hair and a wiry body you longed to touch, then your heart bled from a fresh stab, your throat narrowed even further and your eyes tried in vain to produce tears that simply weren’t there anymore.

When Hermione had returned home on Wednesday morning, the only thing she had been able to do was block her fireplace, and then slump down on her couch and cry. She cried until she fell asleep with exhaustion and when she woke up there were new tears and the ache was there, too, as sharp as before. Her stomach was empty but she felt like vomiting. So she drank some water and fell asleep again, still in the light blue linen dress that was crumpled by now and stuck to her body because crying had made her all hot and sweaty in the still-glorious August sun that streamed in through the windows.

When sleep released her again, it was night. She sat up on the couch and asked herself Why? Why hadn’t he let her speak? Why did he have to find that letter instead of her? Why hadn’t he trusted her? Why had his mother been for a walk instead of in the house, to help her?  Why hadn’t she gone after him? Why had she followed Ginny’s advice? Why hadn’t she just said no and stayed here, in her flat that she now hated because it was empty?

More water, more tears, more sleep. On the next morning, she told herself that she should do something—people always said that when you were angry or sad, work helped distract your mind. So she tried to read, but the words resounded in her ears read by his velvety voice. In a fit of rage she flung the book into a corner and started cleaning the apartment, the Muggle way. But when she had broken two glasses and cut her finger on the sharp edge of a tile she attempted to polish, she decided that she couldn’t do even that. So she returned to the couch, let herself fall atop it and stared at the ceiling. The last twenty-four hours had seemed to last an eternity, and there were so many days ahead of her. 

So many dull, grey hours. She knew that, sooner or later, the pain would become less acute, would turn into a numb bruise on her heart. It had been that way when Charlie Weasley died. They had become good friends when he had come home to England, to actively participate in the war. She had cried for days, then, but finally, gradually, the grief had lost its clear outlines and had become a little blurry, and then faded a little more until she could think of the time they had had together with a sad smile and a little pang in her heart.

But Severus… maybe the desperate sense of loss she was feeling now was going to ebb away in the same fashion. But the wound was deeper. Charlie had been a friend, and the war had taken him away from her. With Severus she was in love, and it had been he, he himself, who had ruthlessly pushed her out, out of his life, to where it was dark and cold. She didn’t even have Crookshanks to give her an illusion of being loved. Of course, it was her fault that she had left him behind and blocked her fireplace. Or did she expect that Mrs. Snape would send him per owl? Or show up at her doorstep to deliver him personally? Probably Mrs. Snape was as furious with her as Severus. Of course she would be on his side. Every good mother was on her child’s side. She would defend him like a lioness. And who defended Hermione Granger? Nobody. She was alone and unhappy.  Even her cat had found love at a house from which she had been banished.

On Friday, around noon, when she almost collapsed from lack of food—she hadn’t had anything but water for the past two days—she decided that she had to eat something. To go shopping seemed unfeasible, as if somebody had told her she had to climb the Mount Everest. So she went through her kitchen cupboards. There wasn’t much, as she wasn’t much of a housewife. But she always had an ample stock of tuna cans for Crookshanks, and so she half-heartedly boiled some spaghetti, put the tuna on top and ate some forks full. Somehow, the food revived her a little, and she cautiously started thinking about the next days.

One thing she knew for sure: she didn’t want to see anybody. Either they knew—as was the case with Harry and Ginny—and she wasn’t sure whether she could stand whichever way they chose to deal with her tragedy. It was of little consequence whether they would altogether avoid the subject, or show pity, or curse Ron. She simply couldn’t take it. Ron. Another person she certainly didn’t want to meet. 

Not that she hated him now; his letter had been…well, nice, but also a bit infuriating. Had it not had this pernicious effect on her budding affair with Severus, she would have laughed away the arrogant tone. As things were, she couldn’t find it funny anymore. How could he even think that she might be in love with him? How could he expect her to even consider a proposal made in this preposterous way? But in the end, it didn’t really count. What was really important was to find a method of surviving the next few days. The immediate future was the weekend—she wasn’t sure whether she liked it, but it couldn’t be changed. What to do on Monday, though?

Hermione briefly considered leaving for a real holiday; after all, she had two more weeks. But somehow it seemed too tiresome to choose a destination, book a flight and an accommodation…

On the other hand, she couldn’t stay in here for two more weeks, because she would go barking mad. Which meant that her only option was going back to work. The implications made her cringe. First, she would have to find a plausible reason for having taken three weeks off, and then another for having returned after only one. Considering how she was looking—and she had no expectations for her outward appearance to change until Monday—it was hardly believable that she had been on a pleasure trip. Probably the most sensible thing to tell them was that she had been taken ill. After all, love was a sickness of the heart, so in a way it was true.

So after a brief flight the butterfly was going to return into its cocoon, realizing that in there it was maybe dark and narrow and lonely, but at least safe.

**°°**°°**

After a week of rigorous seclusion, Severus Snape emerged from his dungeons, jaw set, lips thin, eyes blazing defiance at whomever might have the nerve to ask him questions about his seven-day-isolation. He had decided that the girl was simply not worth it. After all, he wasn’t a snivelling teenager anymore. He had survived worse than that, and he was going to survive Hermione Granger. He had been discarded for the sake of a twenty-one-year-old boy without any particular outstanding qualities. If Miss Granger was unable to make the right choice, it certainly wasn’t his fault. Moreover, it was already 26 August, and he had to make lesson plans, prepare the assignments for the first two or three weeks, give both his private and the students’ stores a thorough look-over; there were ingredients to procure, Poppy’s stock of medicinal potions to be refilled… His life wasn’t empty, even without a bushy-headed, treacherous little tart of a Gryffindor.

So he straightened his shoulders and went upstairs to the Great Hall for breakfast. The other staff members greeted him cordially but without any visible sign of surprise or concern. They continued talking, neither excluding him nor searching his participation in that overzealous way usually reserved for the suicidal or mentally ill.

Dumbledore told him that this afternoon, there was gong to be a staff meeting, the number of first years was discussed, Acantha Sinistra complained about Peeves who had composed a tableau vivant of astonishing obscenity, in which not only two suits of armour but also one of her prized telescopes played prominent roles. Normalcy, in one word. Normalcy that should have been reassuring. But somehow it didn’t have a calming effect on him. It seemed to have lost its shine. The candlelight was less mellow, the house banners less resplendent, the food less tasty. Everything was shrouded in dullness, and in his heart of hearts he knew exactly why, although he stubbornly refused to acknowledge it.

But somehow, the days until the start of term went by, even though they seemed like a procession of fat, grey slugs, and suddenly it was 1 September, and the castle was again filled with laughter and noise. And he hated it. He hated those excited, rosy-round first-year faces that looked at the enchanted ceiling with wide-eyed fascination. He hated the ocean of voices, engaged in conversation, exchanging holiday stories, laughing and giggling. He hated the Sorting and the Sorting Hat’s song. This year’s Head Girl was a Slytherin called Megan Polstock, a bright student, exceptionally gifted for Potions, whom he had always especially liked. After the feast she approached him, eyes shining as bright as the Head Girl badge adorning her robe, and wanted to thank him for having suggested her for the position. He overlooked her outstretched hand and refused her thanks with a few barked words before sweeping out of the Great Hall and back into his dungeons. The hurt look on her face only made him hate her more, because she was young and petite and had brown hair.

Now that school had started again, he knew he had to go easy on the alcohol. So he limited himself to a single glass of brandy and returned to his seat in front of the fireplace, where he spent the next hours staring fixedly into the flames.  Yes, his life had again taken on a semblance of normalcy. All in all, it was as it had been before he felt that spark of whatever it was for… her. A good life.  A relatively simple life. But all the same, to him it seemed that he hadn’t returned but regressed. Damn that girl! He flung his empty glass into the fireplace, watched it burst without feeling any satisfaction, extinguished the flames and went to bed.

**°°**°°**

“You know,” Cassandra Snape said, looking pensively at Ginny Potter, “if you were a little less feisty and, above all, unmarried, I think you might have made a good wife for my son, too.”

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment,” Ginny answered, grinning broadly.

Just like Hermione—only without the somewhat subduing effect of being completely awed by the impressive witch—she had taken an immediate liking to Mrs. Snape.  This was not the first time they met; in fact, it was the third, and Ginny had the impression that, after having been deprived so brutally of a company she had been looking forward to for the next weeks, Mrs. Snape was grateful for having someone to chat with. On Ginny’s part, the affection she felt for the Potions Master’s mother was partly due to spontaneous sympathy, but certainly also to the fundamental difference the distinguished old lady bore to her own mother. At least outwardly. In terms of character, they were less dissimilar than their appearance might have suggested. Both were quite overbearing, overprotective and meddlesome; but that was the same as saying that both sun and moon are luminaries. Sure, both emanate light, but that is about all they have in common.  In the end, Ginny thought, as a mother her own mum was the one she preferred.  Too much perfection and self-control and impeccable behaviour didn’t do a child any good. Noise and chaos and dirty sweaters might be tiresome at times, but on the whole there was more warmth. Sun and moon. Just the appropriate simile. But as a kind of friend or aunt, Mrs. Snape was absolutely perfect.

Mrs. Snape smiled. “It was meant as a compliment. But tell me, what news do you have of Hermione?”

“Not much, to say the truth. She’s been back at work for… well this week, and I heard from my father that she told the guys at Research she had been ill. Dad saw her once and obviously had no reason to doubt that.”

“Poor girl,” Mrs. Snape sighed, “it must have been very hard on her. A pity that we cannot tell her that her sufferings should soon come to an end.”

“Mmh,” Ginny agreed, around a mouthful of Piggy’s chocolate cookies. “And what did Professor Dumbledore tell you about Professor Snape?”

A frown and a vigorous shake of the head betrayed that Mrs. Snape was vividly disapproving of her son’s conduct. “He has finally emerged from his dungeons.  But it seems that he is withdrawn, distant  and of insupportably foul temper.”

“Back to the old days, isn’t he?”

“Well, I seldom saw him back in the old days. He has been visiting regularly only since the war has ended. Before, he used to drop by for one or two days during the summer vacations, and I suppose he managed to control himself rather well for such a short time. Am I right in supposing that he was… well, a little strict as a teacher?”

Ginny stared at her. “Are you joking? He was, pardon my French, such a bastard that everybody would gladly have killed him.” She giggled. “If he’s like that again, just imagine the shock of those who thought the change would be permanent.”

“If we are lucky, it is going to be permanent. Which reminds me that we have to go through the preparation of our plan. When will you invite Hermione?”

“That’s the tricky bit, you know. What if she decides she doesn’t want to come?”

“In that case,” Mrs. Snape said nonchalantly, “We will have to stun him and Apparate him over to her flat. This should not pose a major problem. The charming Mr. Black and Albus have already agreed to play their respective roles.  And it will be my extreme pleasure to deal with young Mr. Weasley.”

“Can’t say I envy him,” Ginny remarked dryly. “And, yes, you may take that as a compliment, too.”

**°°**°°**

The first week at work had been horrible. Granted, it had provided a bit of distraction, but on the whole Hermione had had a tough time. On Friday evening she was so tired that she went to bed immediately after returning home—a very empty home, due to Crookshanks’s conspicuous absence—and slept through till Saturday morning. On Sunday evening, she received an owl from Ginny, inviting her to Godric’s Hollow for the following Saturday evening. The letter didn’t mention Severus or anything pertinent to her tragedy, and Hermione felt inexplicably piqued. She knew that she would have rolled her eyes and cursed Ginny for interfering if she had alluded to it, but the complete absence of any acknowledgement of her existence as tragic heroine was enough to miff her. So she decided to accept and let them see what a botched love affair could do to a girl that was supposed to be blossoming. She had lost weight and—loath as she was to admit it—she had been neglecting herself lately. But it went well with how she felt, and even though sometimes—in moments of absolute honesty—she had to admit to herself that she was deliberately preventing the wound in her heart from healing, she felt that she had a right to self-indulgence.

Her grief was still very real. She still cried every night, and her tears were by no means fake. But unfortunately, she had begun to put the blame for the unfortunate turn events had taken entirely on herself, to find imaginary faults in her character and appearance, so as to offer her mind, which was desperately searching for an explanation, a ledge to hold on to in a wall of cold, forbidding stone. She berated herself for being stupid, immature, girlish—too girlish for him, at any rate—clumsy, socially and intellectually inept. By leaving her hair hang in an untidy mess, not bothering to shave her legs or armpits, and running around in the baggiest and most colourless of clothes, she successfully created the image of a woman nobody, not even Snape at his worst, could possibly have desired.

This armour of undesirability got its first severe chink on the following Monday, the beginning of her second week of work after her holiday. The first person she ran into upon crossing the threshold to the Ministry’s hallowed halls was Ron Weasley. Tall, still gangly but very well-muscled, broad-shouldered, his face the colour of cappuccino, red hair swept wavily back, he smiled down on her in a most dazzling fashion. First, she was flooded with guilt, because, insufferable as his letter had been, it would still have deserved an answer. But she had simply forgotten. Right on the heels of guilt, self-consciousness came along and settled comfortably somewhere in her belly. Small wonder—she was looking awful. She had last washed her hair on Thursday. This morning, she had only given her face a perfunctory cold-water-splashing—cleansing milk, facial tonic and creams belonged to a long-forgotten past. Her fingernails were…she quickly hid her hands in the pockets of her jeans. She was wearing said jeans and a sweater that had a hard time deciding whether it was green-grey or grey-green.

“Hey, Mione!” Ron exclaimed. He rushed towards her, arms outstretched to hug her, but, at closer examination, settled for a hearty handshake. “Long time, no see. How have you been?”

She had of course seen the hitch in his movements and interpreted it correctly. Well, what else could she have expected? Young men, especially when good-looking, didn’t voluntarily embrace scarecrows in public places. But he had written that he loved her… “Hi, Ron,” she said, trying to keep her voice from quivering, “Fine, more or less. I… I have to apologize. I got your letter and I didn’t answer…”

“Oh, that,” he said, with a careless little wave of his right hand, “Don’t mention it. Probably it was a stupid idea after all. No grudges, however. We can still be friends, can’t we?”

Hermione swallowed. The word ‘love’ had been there, she had seen it, for God’s sake! It was the word that had destroyed everything she could have had with Severus, and now it turned out that it had just been an empty shell? Something to be chased away like an obnoxious insect? “Y-yes,” she replied, “I suppose we can unless my silence hurt you too much.”

“Hurt me? Now really, Mione, I’m not that sort of guy. I asked you, you didn’t react, so I guessed the answer was no. Where’s the problem?”

Now anger was boiling up inside her. “You wrote that you loved me and wanted to marry me. I just reckoned that it might have hurt you to see your words completely ignored. Or didn’t you mean what you wrote?”

“Of course I meant it,” Ron affirmed, a little hastily, “But more in the sense in which you say ‘I have money’ when you’ve mortgaged the house. You know that, some day, the balance will be even, because then the house will be yours again.  Love would have come with time, I suppose.”

The monster of ire that had been patiently lurking in the depths, feeding on misery and self-hate and guilt, suddenly rose with a mighty roar that made Hermione’s ears tingle and her view go blurry. “Are you saying,” she began, her voice still low but gradually rising, “Are you saying that letter, that incredibly arrogant, condescending letter, the style of which was, by the way, abysmal, are you really implying that it was all made-up?”

“Not really, I—”

“Do you know, Ronald Weasley, that you destroyed, yes, destroyed, don’t give me that look, because I’m NOT hysteric, you destroyed a very promising relationship? I was in love for the first time in my life! I was happy! I felt loved, truly loved, by a man who understood me and respected me! And you ruined it all, you bastard!”

“Hermione, please, there are people here who—”

“I don’t bloody care!” she yelled, glaring at the small crowd of latecomers that had gathered in the hallway. Most of them backed away. “I don’t care who hears what I have to say, because I’m not the one who ought to be ashamed! You are the one, Ron!”

“B-but… but…” he spluttered, “nothing… happened, Mione!”

“Nothing happened? I saw the look on Severus’s face, you blundering idiot! I saw the hurt and the humiliation! And I felt my own heart break when he threw me out of the house! So don’t you dare—” she stepped forward, and Ron backed instinctively away “—don’t you dare tell me that nothing happened!”

“Severus?” he echoed, his voice almost a squeak, “As in Severus Snape?”

“That puzzles you, doesn’t it?” she said, smirking. “What are you thinking now, eh, Ron? The Monster and The Bookworm? What a fine couple? Well, let me tell you, immature, benighted git, that it would probably have worked. The Vampire and the Bookworm would have been very happy hadn’t it been for you.”

This was exactly the moment Ron made a big, big mistake: he laughed, a cackling contemptuous laugh. It cost him the perfection of his profile, two front teeth and a canine. To Hermione’s surprise, the bystanders applauded.

“Fuck you!” Hermione said with relish to the prone figure of Ron Weasley, gave him a last vicious kick in the ribs, vividly regretting she was only wearing trainers, and then turned away from him. “Excuse me,” she said to the assembled crowd, “Could you please let me through? I’m already late.”

**°°**°°**

Cursing under his breath, Severus Snape returned to the safety of his dungeons.  One week of teaching under these circumstances had been enough to wreck his nerves completely. Of course, Albus had had to provide the icing on the cake under the form of a staff meeting on Saturday afternoon. It had been long and tiresome, and he longed for the peace and quiet of his living quarters. He’d rather be damned than to come out again before Monday morning, and had already told the Headmaster so.

“I will not be present at meals, neither today nor tomorrow, Albus. Needless to say that I would appreciate it very much if nobody disturbed my well-deserved weekend rest. In other words: stay clear of the dungeon and tell the others to do likewise unless they desire to pick their limbs off the ceiling.”

“Of course, Severus,” Dumbledore had responded, completely unfazed by the acidity of his words and as amiable as ever, “You are not in your prime anymore and need your rest. I understand. Would you like me to tell Acantha to take over for the weekend?”

The impertinence of the first sentence being tempered by the alluring offer of the second, Snape bit back a vicious retort and merely said, “Yes, please. That would be most kind.”

Now he was back in his quarters, had shed his teaching robes and gotten himself a double brandy. With a sigh, he sank down into the depths of his favourite armchair and tried to relax. The pair of brown eyes, bright with tears of hurt, hovering before his mental eye, made that a little difficult. So he got up again and went into his bedroom to fetch the book he had started reading last night—to be on the safe side and avoid any possibility of romance, he had chosen the Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, although the thought of how embarrassing it must have been for the worthy philosopher to introduce himself to English-speaking people made him chuckle involuntarily. Reading the text required immense mental focus, and soon the brown eyes had faded a little. Soon after he had become so absorbed in the crystal-clear prose that they had vanished completely, he was jerked out of his concentration by Dumbledore’s voice.

“Severus,” his head called from the fireplace, “Severus, are you there?”

“Of course I am,” Snape replied surly, rising and stepping into the Headmaster’s line of view. Upon seeing the expression of deep worry on Dumbledore’s face, his voice softened a little. “What is it, Albus? You seem upset.”

“Sorry to disturb you, my friend. But could you come to the infirmary? I’m afraid Sirius might need your help.”

“Black? What has that moron been up to now?”

“It seems that he needed some fresh air after the staff meeting and changed into his dog form to go for a walk. From what I understood—he isn’t very coherent—he managed to catch a rat. It appears that the creature had ingested poison.”

Snape commented this with a string of astonishingly florid invectives. “I’ll be with you immediately,” he finally snapped, “I just have to get a basic antidote; it might help until we find out what in hell he got into that flea-bitten belly.”

He quickly strode out of the room and thus didn’t see Dumbledore’s head grin after him in a most diabolically satisfied fashion.