Six: Unexpected
She woke, being shaken by someone, and hearing her name repeatedly being spoken. Hermione looked groggily up at Harry, whose hand still rested on her shoulder, and then she looked ashamedly away from his concerned emerald gaze. He must have heard everything from Ron. He must have been angry with her, too, but simply was better at hiding it.
Realising suddenly that she had fallen asleep on the Common Room couch, Hermione sat up slowly, trying to shake sleep from her head. She felt the beginnings of a sleep-induced headache �if that was possible �starting up just at the back of her head, in the worst place, in her opinion. Refusing to look at Harry, Hermione stood and walked to the stairs to the girls� dormitory. She didn�t look back to find out Harry�s reaction to her just slight animosity.
Hermione noticed as she entered the girls� dormitory that both Parvati and Lavender were asleep, for which she was very thankful. They weren�t like Harry, quite; they didn�t know that when she was in a mood like this talking about it was not going to help her. They would probably invade her bubble and ask questions that she did not want to answer, or even hear asked of her.
Grabbing her suitcase from the floor, she plunked it down on her bed as quietly as possible. She didn�t want to make much noise, since the last thing she wanted to do was to wake her roommates. Unzipping it, she rummaged through it a moment until she came up with a pair of slightly clingy black slacks and a midnight blue button-down blouse. She took along with them a pair of blue socks and her tennis shoes.
She took these with her to the bathroom, empty due to what Hermione had found out was a rather ungodly hour for vacationers, and placed them on one of the shelves as she went to turn on the shower. There had never been a time she wished more that she knew the current password to the Prefect�s bathroom. She could have done with a long, hot bath right now.
With a sigh she undressed and then stepped under the stream of water. Her motions were listless, like she thought them pointless things to do in a world such as this. It was as though she would rather have just lain there on the Gryffindor Common Room couch all day, simply existing and not even thinking. Oh, to be free and inhuman, she thought silently as she finished washing and stepped out of the shower.
Drying herself with a simple spell and pulling on her clothes, she returned to her dormitory only briefly to put away her clothes of yesterday �which still held a bit of Snape�s scent, she realised with a pang �and to grab her cloak. This time she really did want to go for a walk. As she descended the stairs to the Common Room, she noticed immediately the back of a head of flaming red hair, Ron sitting on the sofa. There was no way to get to the door without passing him. She tensed.
As quietly as she could, Hermione walked by, but she did not reach the portrait hole without a confrontation, as she had wanted to. Almost inaudibly, Hermione heard her name. Slowly, she turned. Ron gazed at her silently, and she looked back at him, feeling a swelling balloon of guilt in her ribcage, threatening to break her ribs if it did not stop growing sometime soon. She could barely breathe as she waited for him to speak. It was he who had to speak. It was his turn.
"I�m sorry," Ron said. If Hermione was unsure whether she had actually been speechless before, she wasn�t now. What could she say to an apology from the one who she had hurt? She simply stared at Ron. What did he have to be sorry? It was her fault. She hated people being unpredictable.
Though she still did not understand what he meant, she nodded slowly, and then she turned and walked through the portrait hole. Silently, absently, she walked through the school, out into the winter air. Here, she paused to drape the heavy black cloak around her shoulders, closing it with silver clasps.
Trudging across the snowy lawn, she made her way towards the mirror of the lake. There was a path she knew of that went around the entire lake, and such a long walk would have been helpful, both in getting exercise and giving her time to sort through her thoughts.
Finding the beginning of the path, she stepped onto the frozen earth, cleared slightly of snow, probably with some simple spell. Hermione listened to the crunch of her footsteps for a while, not even bothering to think. She felt hollow, she noted languidly. She wanted Snape, but that seemed just to dig a hole into her heart, as he did not want her as much as she wanted him. Not only that, but she had a chance that one of her friends would not want to speak to her again beyond his apology.
She was a hopeless failure as an adult, having used up her fair share of glory-time in school. Luck had loaned her some, and then it came back wondering when she was going to pay up, along with all that interest. Hermione sighed, digging her hands into her pockets. Maybe she was wrong, though. Maybe she had been making her own luck for that entire time, and simply had forgotten how to make it, sort of like she�d forgotten a while ago what the first potion she had made in first year was and how to make it.
Hermione glanced up from the ground occasionally as she walked, and at one of these occasions, she noticed something that had not been there before, a stone bench beside the path. Pausing a moment, she eyed it carefully, wondering if it really was an addition to the scenery, or if it was some kind of animal that could morph into different things.
If it was such an animal, it would be thinking that if it morphed into a bench, once she sat down it would eat her, gullible witch she was. Anyone else wouldn�t have though of things in this manner, but really, in the wizarding world one could hardly be nonchalant about unfamiliar objects. Of course, what did she have to loose if it was some wild, man-eating changeling sort of animal?
Sitting down, Hermione sighed in relief that it was just a stone bench, and nothing more. It was freezing stone, though, and Hermione nonsensically imagined that her bottom was going to turn to a block of ice. Settling her elbows onto her knees, she looked out at what she suddenly was a very picturesque view of the lake and the mountains off in the distance, slightly blurred on this cold and foggy day.
The lake was a reflection of the sky, cool grey and silvery and cold, and the wind whistled lazily but coolly all around this picture, lifting the hair off of Hermione�s shoulders with a frigid breath against the back of her neck. This day matched her soul, she realised, bleak, cold, and wearied. She felt like a prisoner in this evil world, a world that mocked her very being.
Suddenly, Hermione heard the footsteps of another off along the path, and she straightened. She listened as the footsteps came closer, on the left. Just around the curve, now, of the path. Then, she frowned at who appeared there, and wondered why he had to interrupt her thoughts, especially in a place that she had now dubbed as hers. Draco Malfoy stared at her, not apologetic or angry or even hateful. He simply was, something strange when describing Malfoy. He had never worn such an expressionless mask before, and Hermione actually felt a brief ripple of worry. What was wrong with him?
"Granger, it�s cold as hell," he said suddenly, still looking at her in that unnerving, calm and indifferent manner.
"Hell�s not cold," Hermione heard herself say. Draco�s eyes finally showed a hint of emotion, but nothing that had been there before. They sort of were pitying, like she didn�t know something and he felt sorry for her because of it.
"You haven�t been," he said. Hermione gulped at his words, knowing that he was vaguely referring to his family�s displeasure when they found out that he wouldn�t be a Death Eater. She was actually surprised he was still here. She was also surprised that he hadn�t even insulted her.
"Do you want to sit down?" Hermione asked, and had no idea why she had. Draco gazed contemplatively at her for a moment, his piercing blue eyes softening slightly.
"All right," he said, striding across to the bench and took the seat beside her. For a moment, Hermione looked away, at the lake, in silence. Then, Draco spoke.
"Why�d you come here, Granger?" he asked. "If it�s so cold, I mean."
Hermione felt a little awkward, as if she shouldn�t be talking to him because he was also someone that Ron hated. "I needed to get away from everyone."
Draco didn�t make the snide comment that she continued to expect from him. "I suppose it�s not strange that I�m not the only one who would do that," he said, and Hermione felt strange, again, like Draco wasn�t Draco. She remembered her comment on the train. Perhaps she�d been right; maybe Draco Malfoy had grown up.
"Most of the Slytherins idiots?" Hermione asked, botching her attempt not to be sarcastic. Draco glanced at her for a moment, like he was sizing her up, considering her words quietly. He was different, yes, and Hermione wasn�t sure if she liked it. She almost wanted him to shout at her for insulting his house.
"Sometimes," he said finally.
Hermione looked away again, this time at her hands, stark white in her lap of black fabric. She clasped them together to keep them a bit warmer, though that attempt was failing. She realised how garishly girlie they were, with their perfect long nails and smooth, pale skin. She almost wished that she had ugly, bitten nails and little hangnails on all her fingers. She was more deserving of ugliness and imperfection, with the nasty, selfish person that she had suddenly become.
"What reason did you want to get away from everyone for?" asked Draco, and Hermione looked at him briefly.
"To think," she said simply.
"About what?"
Hermione looked at him again, this time her gaze lingering on his eyes, which had reacquired their piercing quality. He was talkative and nice and willing to listen and she both hated him and was grateful to him at the same time. Confusing.
"Well, I have this friend," said Hermione, carefully choosing her words so that she wouldn�t actually be revealing anything to Draco. "And she�s in love with someone who she shouldn�t be in love with and who probably isn�t actually in love with her, either. She tells me that she thinks she just lost one of her friends because of that unrequited love, and she feels horrible and she doesn�t know what to do. She asked me for advice, of course, like everyone always does, and I don�t know what to tell her. For the first time in my life I really don�t know what to say."
Draco looked away, looking at the distant mountains for a long time. He was silent during this duration, and his silence lasted so long that Hermione wasn�t sure that he would answer. After a long time, though, Draco turned to her, with an answer that wasn�t quite reassuring.
"Tell her this: Real relationships are priceless. She must choose which one really matters to her, which one is the more real, because if her friend is angry with her for loving someone, which she technically can�t help, then maybe her friend isn�t quite worth having as a friend in the first place," he said. Hermione averted her eyes as he spoke, listening but thinking at the same time. Ron not worth having as a friend? She shivered, and this time it wasn�t because of the cold. But Ron had always been her friend.
Hermione looked at Draco, and this time he had a completely rare reassuring smile for her, faint though it was. "Helpful, Granger?"
"Yes," Hermione said. She smiled at him, too, and then they both looked at their own items to distract themselves from the former enemy at their side. Hermione looked at the lake, and Draco looked at the cold, black, scraggly branches of the trees. For the first time ever, Hermione felt warmth in the presence of Draco Malfoy, and she realised that she actually preferred his new, nice but slightly aloof attitude. It suited him.
Simultaneously Severus sat alone in his office, staring at the fire and wishing that he had windows in his office, and that it wasn�t underground. It was too dark, though that was a rather strange thought to him considering the fact that he favoured darkness. Still, with the light that had graced him the evening before, he couldn�t help but feel that to sit in the dark alone and angry was the worst possible thing for one�s health. Not that many of his habits were healthy, anyway.
For example, lusting after the body of one far too young for him couldn�t possibly be a good thing for him. Still, his awful, lecherous desire was growing and he hated that he was thinking of Miss Granger in such a way, thinking that really he should be paying more attention to the intellectual qualities she had rather than the luscious physical ones.
When she had kissed him like she had, though, he had suddenly been far too aware of the lovely curves she possessed, the undeniable grace in the shape of her hips, the gentle weight of her breasts pressing against his chest, the delicious roundness of her bottom. Gods, he hated himself. She was not some piece of meat to be inspected for quality. To add a classic cliché to the mix, it�s what�s inside that counts, even if the outside can be quite alluring at times.
But still, her supple lips under his had put a throbbing tingle into his bloodstream and had scalded him with fiery desire. He decided, now, as he thought about it, that he hated her, too, for pressing her body to him deliberately, for wanting to make him want her. He already did want her. She didn�t have to increase that want simply to frustrate him, but Granger had always wanted to frustrate him, it seemed.
You know how you have to solve this, don�t you, old boy? Severus asked himself. You have to talk to her, get to know the real her, and maybe she�ll be even more of a beautiful personality than a beautiful body.
He looked away from the fire, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead and closing his eyes tightly. With learning about someone, though, came letting someone else learn about oneself. He didn�t want to subject Hermione to his wretched self, his horrible past, or his base mind. She was too perfect and too innocent to be subjected to anything like that.
He wanted to remain the aloof professor, but with this problem of her wanting him to touch her, which he too wanted, that was going to be hard. No. It would be difficult. He didn�t want to hurt her, and he had a feeling that if he laid with her only knowing of her as a student, she would be hurt. He would had gotten what he wanted and she wouldn�t have gotten all of what she wanted, what he wasn�t willing to give. Love.
What a womanish thing, Severus thought as he returned his gaze to the undulating blaze. Love was silly, pointless, and didn�t accomplish anything. Love was also dangerous, the most dangerous thing he had ever encountered. He wouldn�t admit he was afraid of it, although he was. He would admit, though, that he was getting ahead of himself with thinking of love.
She didn�t love him. It was even possible that what she felt was similar to what he felt. Still, women always wanted it to mean something. To him, it had never meant something. He didn�t often experience it, however, so perhaps that had something to do with it.
Besides, if she did feel the way that he did, she would have chosen someone else, someone handsome, not the introverted, ugly Potions Master of Hogwarts. After all, what was the point of sex if one�s lover was not at least somewhat attractive? He continued to wonder if he was misreading Miss Granger�s attempts.
I have to stop thinking about this, he told himself. He had been thinking about it quite long enough, as thinking about it at all was probably long enough to do so. There had to be something to take his mind off of this. He looked around his office, and his eyes landed on the bookshelf on the left side of his bedroom door, the only bookshelf that held books for pleasure reading, instead of books on Potions. The Inferno, which he had been reading, awaited him patiently on the second shelf from the top.
Snape reached for the book, and picked it up, taking it back to his seat and settling back, opening the book to the page that he had marked the night before when he had finished reading. He soon realised that to concentrate was impossible, and that he had been staring at that same page for about five minutes while the fire crackled calmly and reassuringly in the background, trying to soothe his mood but failing pathetically.
He glanced at the parchment and inkbottle on his desk, winking at him. For a moment, he calculated the possibility in silence, and then the sudden loud popping as a log fell in the fire urged him onwards, not before substantially startling him, of course. Standing, he walked to his desk, and began to write, wondering if he really knew what he was doing. Still, trying was worth it, especially in this case.
Later on, at lunch, he watched Hermione, while trying not to be obvious. He assumed, though, that Albus had noticed, since he winked at Severus about halfway through the meal, possibly irritating the anxious Potions Master more than he already had been. Still, Severus managed to be unable to tear his eyes from the beauty at the Gryffindor House Table for what seemed like ages.
When the tawny screech owl arrived and dropped the letter into her lap, the only lap that a letter had been dropped into, she was obviously surprised. Severus decided to look away at that point, since she was going to look at him next. He instead responded to Minerva�s slightly lame attempt to make conversation.
Severus could feel Granger�s chocolate-brown eyes on him as he talked to the Deputy Headmistress, but he refused to meet her gaze or even glance at her. He wondered vaguely if she would respond to the letter, if she was brave enough to, but then he was distracted by the conversation with McGonagall, which was actually turning a little interesting.
If Hermione did respond, Severus could only imagine what might happen tonight.