Beneath the Surface


Beneath the Surface

Chapter the Fourteenthe: The Mark of Integrity


“Well, if it isssn’t our precioussss Potionssss Massster.” The voice was cold enough to send shivers down Snape’s spine, but he had long since learned to steel himself in the presence of its owner. “You’re late again, Sssseverussss.”

Oh, how he hated the sound of his name hissed from those scaly lips. He bowed low to hide the disgust in his eyes as well as to show deference to the man before him.

Each time he was forced to kiss that hated boot, scenes of the consequences of that ill-fated decision he’d made years ago flashed behind his eyes. The force of them made his head ache with regret. He had been a different person when he’d embraced the darkness, but the monstrous doings of that man haunted him always in his memory. Professor Snape could never seem to escape what young
Severus had done to him.

And it was when he was in the thick of the shadows and smoke that he felt as if his penance could never be repaid.

“Forgive me... Master.”

~*~

He didn’t know it, but Hermione had been watching him when he’d winced in pain and grasped his left arm before swiftly exiting the Great Hall. He was usually so observant, aware of everything that was going on around him.

She lowered her head sadly, pitying him for being a slave to his addiction. Poor Professor Snape.

“Hermione?” asked a soft, now-familiar voice. She looked up to face its owner, who had taken the seat next to her as she always did since the two had become friends.

“Oh, hullo, Ginny. What is it?” Hermione responded distractedly. The other girl frowned.

“Well, I don’t mean to pry, but... are you ill or something? You haven’t been quite yourself lately.” Genuine concern laced her voice, which made Hermione smile at her gratefully. No one had ever used that tone with her until she’d gotten to know Ginny Weasley.

“No, I’m just fine, Gin. Just been working too hard, I guess.”

“Oh,” the younger girl said doubtfully. “Alright then.”

They ate in companionable silence, half-listening to Harry and Ron as they gibbered and joked with each other. As they always did, the two boys finished their meals long before the two girls across from them. Today they’d decided to go back to their Common Room for the remainder of dinner so that Ron could show Harry a new Quidditch magazine that he’d just purchased, and the two bid the girls a cheery so long as they rushed out of the dining hall.

Ginny had been waiting for the moment they’d leave her and Hermione to themselves before talking to the older girl again; she knew it was difficult for her to speak about personal things in front of the boys. She suspected she was the only person Hermione ever spoke to about such things, and was happy to be her confidante. They’d grown rather close in the past month or so, and were slowly coming to know more and more about each other.

However, there were certain things, dark things, that she could never tell her friend, but she valued their newfound friendship immensely.
And Hermione Granger was the only person who could help take her mind off of... him.

“Hermione?” Ginny asked again.
The older girl could tell by her tone that she was going to ask her the same thing she had earlier, only this time she expected the truth now that the boys were gone. Hermione had no intention of telling her everything, but she had wanted to give her more information. She could trust Ginny. She turned in her seat to face her, and the other girl eagerly did the same.

“Ok,” Hermione said, indicating that now was their time to talk honestly. The two giggled together, and Hermione leaned in closer to Ginny, her eyebrows furrowed as she searched for the proper thing to tell her. “You know how I have talks with Professor Snape sometimes?”

“Mm-hmm,” Ginny replied, nodding. Hermione had told her that she often went to visit their Potions Professor.

Though she’d told her it was mainly to be able to ask him follow-up questions on the fascinating potions they did in class and the like, Ginny sensed that there were other reasons her friend was drawn to their Professor. Reasons she was all too familiar with, and it was because of that understanding that she wouldn’t dare press Hermione for the truth.

“Well,” Hermione continued. “During our last discussion two nights ago, he suddenly grabbed his arm as if it hurt, and by the look on his face it must have been very painful. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me he’d hurt himself by accident while cutting up potions ingredients. I said I had work to do and left, because I knew he wanted me to. And just twenty or so minutes ago, I saw him grab his arm again as if it hurt and leave the Great Hall.”

“You were watching him?” Ginny asked quietly, her voice subtly suffused with meaning. Hermione looked away guiltily, her lips pressed together. Ginny smiled to herself. “I know, you’re only worried about him.”

“Yes,” Hermione agreed quickly, smiling in relief. She again faced Ginny with a look of conspiracy on her face. “So what do you think I should do? I know no one else would help him, and I don’t want him to have to live in pain. I consider him my friend now. What should I do, Gin?”

Hermione’s eyes were intent as they bored into Ginny’s, craving an answer. Ginny recognized her desperation, but knew not what she could say to allay the older girl’s fears. However, she would be strong for her. She was fast learning how to revel in her own strength, to trust in her own power.

“Maybe you should ambush him.” Ginny said dryly, then chuckled at Hermione’s blank expression before expounding on her words. “You know, after dinner, you sneak down to the dungeons, and wait in front of his room until he gets back. He’ll be too surprised to be able to hide much from you.”

Ginny shrugged with the simplicity of her statement, but Hermione took it as a beacon of light shining through to one trapped in complete and chaotic darkness. Spy on him! That was a wonderful idea! Why hadn’t she thought of it? So simple! So perfect. She opened hers tos to Ginny to engulf the younger girl in a smothering embrace.

“Oh, Ginny, you’re a genius!” Hermione exclaimed. “That’s just what I’m going to do.”

“Well, Hermione,” Ginny managed to squeak out, squashed as her face was against her friend’s shoulder. “It was only a suggestion. You know how Professor Snape is, I’d hate to be responsible for getting you into trouble with him.”

Hermione finally released the younger girl from her grasp to look at her seriously.

“Oh, no, Ginny,” she assured her. “You’re not responsible for any of my actions, you were only trying to help. And I’m so used to him now that I think I could get around his temper if he should get angry with me.” She smiled.

“I-if you say so, Hermione,” Ginny replied uncertainly. She hadn’t thought her friend would actually go through with her suggestion; when she’d said it she had meant it as a joke, but Hermione obviously wasn’t kidding. Ginny knew that when Hermione Granger was determined to accomplish something, nothing could stop her from at least trying her hardest to do so. So the most she could do was to wish her well and hope for the best.

Just then, their half-finished plates vanished from the table along with everyone else’s in the Great Hall. Dumbledore was rising to leave, which signified that dinner was now over. Hermione rose to her feet as well, bestowing Ginny with a slightly nervous yet resolute smile. Ginny returned it brightly, but concern for her friend
still shone in her eyes.

“Here I go. Wish me luck!” Hermione called to her from over her shoulder as she strode to exit the Hall.

“Good luck! ...You’re going to need it,” Ginny murmured to herself, then sighed. The smile fell from her face when Hermione disappeared from her view. Why hadn’t she just kept her big mouth closed?

Maybe she wasn’t as strong as she’d thought she was, but she prayed Hermione wouldn’t have to pay for her weaknesses like she knew she would have to.

~*~

‘Where *is* he?’

Hermione had been waiting in the dungeons for her Professor for at least an hour now. She’d had to hide herself several times in the places where the stone walls converged with one another whenever she heard footsteps approaching, in case whoever was coming wasn’t Snape. She couldn’t see much from within the blackened shadows of her hiding spaces, but she saw enough to be able to tell that none of the people who passed her by even remotely resembled Snape.
Irritated that he was taking so long to return, she brought her left wrist to her eyes for the umpteenth time to check her watch; it was 8:45p.m. She crept to the end of the hallway to peer stealthily around the corner. Still no sign of him. She sighed and returned to her post in front of the teacher’s stairwell.

What if he’d gone off on a... what did they call those things again? A bender! Hermione gulped down her terror at the thought.

But then again, she remembered, that occurrence wasn’t very likely; when people did those sorts of things, they usually didn’t return to their work for weeks, and her punctual Professor wasn’t the sort to miss even one class if he could help it. How long did it take for drug addicts to... what was that phrase again? Make a connection!

Hermione sighed again and leaned against the wall, her large eyes upturned and her overall demeanor that of a pining lover.

‘Oh, my poor Professor. Leave that horrible life and come back to me...’

Just as Hermione had thought those words, a brisk sweeping of coarse material could be heard making its way down the stairwell across from where she stood. No tapping of footfalls on stone accompanied the sound.

Hermione’s heart rose in her throat and a swarm of butterflies fluttered to and fro in her stomach; it was him. Even the sound of his movements were unmistakably distinctive.

Professor Snape had to brace his weary body with a shaky arm on each side of the stone archway of the stairwell when he reached the hallway. He had not been expecting—even in the furthest corners of his mind—to be met by Miss Granger, who was ratheelegelegantly gawking at him, upon his return. He stared at her for a long moment as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, his lips parted in astoundment. Finally, he pressed them together and blinked sharply at her, as if he’d finally registered just who she was in his mind.

“Miss Granger,” he ground out, knowing he hadn’t the energy for yelling at the moment. “Why are you here?”

The question was exceedingly simplistic; even Hermione in all her Gryffindor single-mindedness could sense that he was too burnt out, both physically and mentally, to articulate himself.

“I,” Hermione breathed, taken aback by his obvious exhaustion. Snape, while always rather pallid in complexion, was so white she could almost see his veins beneath his skin. He was swaying slightly where he stood, and his eyes were dull with fatigue. He looked deathly ill, and her heartbeat quickened as her worry for him escalated. “I saw you leave at dinner. I wanted to wait for you...” She trailed off, looking up at him with concern in her eyes.

The depth of it caught him off guard. But he was far too weak to analyze the child’s nonsense right now, and so sneered down at her contemptuously in an attempt to frighten her off and out of his way. The only things he needed right now were a large, comfortable bed and a vial of Dreamless Sleep potion.

“And why would you want to do that?” he asked her coldly, his voice deadened by his body’s depletion. “Since when did my personal business become your concern?”

His scorn steeled Hermione’s anger; of course it was her business to help another human being who nd itd it! Whether he knew it or not, her Professor was on death’s door, and it was up to her, as the only person who recognized his state for what it was, to steer him away from it. Her eyes were defiant as they squinted up into his.

“Since your first order of business became centered on killing yourself!” she all but shouted at him. What was left of his color drained from his face, and his fine, black brows slowly knit together as he stared at the child with a look of incredulity in his eyes. After a long moment, he sighed softly, resignedly, and a frail hand rose to massage his temple.

“Miss Granger, I think you and I should have a little talk,” he told her. Hermione nodded.

“I think so, Professor,” she agreed somberly.

Snape motioned for her to follow him before sweeping down the familiar route to the Potions room; she couldn’t help but notice that his gait was far less fearsome than usual, but perhaps that was because he was clutching his robes to his body rather than allowing them to billow freely about it. He murmured several incantations under his breath before opening the door, and, once again, allowed her to precede him into the room.

At least the drugs hadn’t affected his sense of civility, Hermione noted, a sad smile gracing her lips.

Once inside the room, Snape cast the ‘Lumos’ charm and wearily pushed the door closed. His charm only offered a meager amount of light to halo the front of the room; when a witch or wizard’s constitution was weak, so, too, was their magic. He grimaced at his insubstantial effort and rolled his eyes bitterly as if to say ‘this is the best I can do right now’. Hermione only smiled forgivingly at him.

He turned away from her and, with a brittle groan that he’d meant not to be audible, settled uncomfortably on the edge of his desk, as he often did during their discussions. But this was not to be one of those easy, affable conversations; no, they had serious business to speak of tonight.

“So, Granger,” he began in a unemotional, interrogative tone that Hermione was wholly unused to. “Tell me everything that you know, every single, tiny detail.”

Hermione’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. ‘I thought they were supposed to break down when confronted, or bargain...but *this*...’

“Well, I...” she began uncertainly, suddenly afraid to confront him. “I don’t know the details, Professor, but I do know the... your problem.” Now it was his turn to be perplexed.

“My ‘problem’?” His normal tone of voice was beginning to infuse with the cold, clinical one he reserved for informers, saboteurs and the like.

“Yes. You know,” she shot him a meaningful look, which he failed to respond to. Was he playing dumb? That was unlike him. Why wasn’t he screaming denials at her? Hermione took a deep breath, and braced herself the the full onslaught of his rage. She was going to have to spell it out for him. “Your heroin addiction. Sir.” She gulped.

“...My WHAT?!” Snape exploded after a very tense few seconds of total silence, no trace of stolidity in his voice.

Hermione had never seen him open his eyes so wide; along with his ghastly pallor, he put her in mind of a ghost.
She to hes hesitant step backwards, but her sudden withdrawal from him only served to encourage Snape’s curiosity, and he advanced upon her with renewed enthusiasm. She continued to back away from him until she found herself stopped by the wall as frs from the teacher’s entrance; she was trapped, and Snape’s merciless black eyes were only bare inches from her own. Then the strangest thing happened.

She felt a tickling sensation in an isolated corner of her brain, a feeling she knew she’d never be able to explain to anyone who hadn’t experienced it before. It was as if her mind were being invaded by invisible strings fashioned from the most diaphanous thread, as if tiny tendrils of light, itself, were probing her subconscious by way of her eyes. And it seemed their source was the very pupils of Professor Snape’s deep, dark eyes.

She fluttered her eyelids madly so as to drive out this unfathomable force, her mind going blank with the effort of it. This seemed to have worked, and when she opened her eyes again, it was to face a thoroughly dissatisfied Snape. She furrowed her brows in confusion, while he narrowed his eyes at her.

“Miss Granger,” he purred in a tone that was not to be trusted if one wanted to keep their information to themself. Of course, Hermione had no experience in the art of espionage, nor had she any need to. Thus far, anyway. “I want you to explain yourself in as thorough a manner as is possible for you. Step by step, girl.”

Hermione knew from experience that when Professor Snape wanted answers from you, he wanted them NOW, and she was in no position (literally and figuratively) to deny him them. She wetted her lips with her tongue before she spoke, taking a deep breath.

“Well, Professor,” she began. “If you’ll recall, at the end of our last discussion together, you suddenly grabbed your arm as if it was hurting you, when nothing actually happened that I could see.” She paused for effect.

“Yes?” he prompted her in a dangerously impatient tone. She rushed to continue.

“Yes, and I must admit that seeing you in such pain, um, worried me, especially when I didn’t know what was wrong. So I did a lot of thinking about what could possibly cause such a strange injury, and I happened to make the connection with that and things a muggle teacher told me about, er...drugs, and drug addicts.”

She was becoming increasingly nervous with Snape’s close proximity to her person, so the rest of her explanation spilled from her mouth in a hurried jumble.

“To make a long story short, I recalled a particular drug that is taken into the veins by way of a needle, so I put two and two together, and came to the conclusion that...” She sighed in remorse, then looked directly into her Professor’s captivating eyes. “That you are a heroin addict, Professor.”

“I see,” was all he replied. Whatever he thought of her words was completely concealed by an impenetrable mask settling over his features.

The tense silence he kept was baffling to Hermione; she had just confronted him with her knowledge, and all he’d said was ‘I see’?! He must be trying very hard to hide his misery from her. Her heart went out to him, and she took a step closer before bursting into sniffles (it would have taken far more to make Hermione Granger shed a tear), tiny fingers rushing up to obscure her face from his view.

“Oh, Professor!” she wailed, causing him to nearly fall backwards in his shock at her sudden change in behavior. “How awful it must be for you, to have to go out searching for your next... fix, to have to be a slave to that vile substance, to not know whether the next time will be the laste!” e!” She had gotten so upset that her words became punctuated by gulps and sniffles. “I’m so sorry you have to live like this! I’m so...” Here she had to gulp in a breath, as she’d lost all of her air to her emotional exertions. “Sorry!”

Professor Snape just stared at her, his eyes round and his mouth clamped shut. And he’d thought the girl was merely idiosyncratic.

However, his posture relaxed considerably when he discerned the point of her tirade: the girl hadn’t the slightest idea of his other identity; she merely thought he was hooked on drugs.

Drugs! He almost laughed out loud in relief.

For certain, he’d had experience (rather, a great deal of it) with the toxic substances, both muggle and magical, but he was never fool enough to believe the sun and the moon existed within their intoxicating thrall. Imagine, he,
Severus Snape, addicted to drugs, and muggle ones, at that! His face froze, then contorted in revulsion.

‘A MUGGLE addiction? ME?!’

“Now, see here, Granger.” He rose to his full height, folding his arms over his chest and peering haughtily down at Hermione. The snuffles and gasps immediately ceased, and dry eyes rose to meet his own. He sneered. “It would take a truly naive and gullible person indeed to come to such a ridiculous conclusion.” His expression grew pensive as he went over what she’d said. “Are you saying that you thought my arm was bothering me because I had needle tracks dredged into it?”

Hermione nodded mutely, her eyes wide and wary of the new direction he was taking their conversation to. So he *wasn’t* a heroin addict? Oops...

Snape returned the nod absently, his head tilted downwards, and she could tell that the wheels in his head were grinding away, debating whether or not he should divulge something important to her. His eyes flicked to her once again, and though they were extremely skeptical, his lips parted in preparation to speak.

“If only it were that simple.”

The cryptic statement intrigued Hermione, and she raised her eyebrows, urging him to elaborate. He averted his eyes from her, and if she had been looking, she would have noticed that he was clutching his left arm tightly to himself with his right.

“You see, Miss Granger, what I have embedded into this arm is more destructive, and affects a great many more people, both muggle and magical, than any drug could ever come close to wreaking.”

“What do you mean?” Hermione’s voice was tremulous. She couldn’t take her eyes from his tortured form, nor could she keep them from darting to and from the arm he clasped so tightly to his breast. She dared to step closer to him. “May I... may I see?”

Snape’s head snapped back to her, his features incensed with outrage. She winced from the power he radiated, but kept her eyes trained on his. With a pained sigh, his expression became neutral once again, and not a little bit melancholy. He nodded his consent to her query, and beckoned her to him with long, elegant fingers. She obeyed at once, her pace steady as she approached him.

Ever so slowly, he rolled up the long black sleeve that covered his left arm until it gathered in folds just above his elbow. Her eyes were riveted upon the arm, so she did not see that his were likewise fixated upon her face, absorbing and analyzing her slightest reaction to what he was showing her. He didn’t consciously know what he was doing, or why he was doing it. A voice in the back of his mind—his worn-out conscience, most likely—whispered that perhaps he would soon come to regret the boundaries he was crossing tonight, but he was far too tired to think through the consequences of his actions with thhildhild.

The arm was long and sinewy, its color as pale as his face, but the back of it was facing upwards so Hermione could not see what afflicted it. Finally, he rotated the limb so she could view it’s underside, but as she took in it’s expanse of white, delicately vein-lined flesh, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. She frowned as she studied it.

And that was when she saw it.

The hazy, translucent outline of a human skull inlaid with two serpents was centered perfectly on his upper forearm. The tattoo had been expertly drawn, and she wondered first why he would wish it to be so ill-defined and second why he had chosen such a nefarious design to be engraved into his skin in the first place. Still, it was a beautiful brand, fairly shimmering with the promise of darker pleasures; grotesquely hypnotizing. She smiled at it.

And he pulled the arm from her view, wrenching his sleeve back down to cover it once again. She looked up at him with wounded eyes as if he had hurt her. His gaze was tinged with regret, and she realized that he had been watching her face the entire time he’d bared himself to her.

“Why?” she asked him simply. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Everything,” he replied, his voice void of emotion. Then he favored her with a rare, kind smile. “Things that I will not tell you of tonight. Perhaps... someday. When you can understand what it all means.” The tentative promise surprised even himself.

Even more surprisingly, Hermione accepted it with a gratified nod and then let it lie.

“Alright, Professor.”

They stared at each other for a long time, digesting their words and understanding their shared silence.

Then, as if she’d craved the lighter air that usually permeated their interchanges, a mischievous grin spread Hermione’s lips and created sparkles in her eyes. Snape inwardly let out a relieved breath at her abrupt change of pace and smd, wd, willingly rising to her bait.

“Whatever that thing is,” she teased, motioning to his left arm, “I’m glhat hat it’s not heroin tracks.” Snape rolled his eyes mirthfully.

“Silly girl,” he taunted her wryly. “The very idea of a Snape addicted to heroin, or any other drug, for that matter, is ludicrous.” The snobbish demeanor he put on made Hermione giggle.

“So you do know what it is,” she mocked him playfully. She gathered from their discussions that he was a pureblooded wizard, and these people were notoriously clueless about any and everything that pertained to the muggle way of life. Snape sneered down at her again, but there was no trace of malice in his eyes.

“Of *course* I know what it is,” he told her in a condescending tone. “I know a great deal more about the muggle world than you would think, Granger.”

Hermione’s grin faltered at his use of her last name; it seemed to her that two people as familiar with each other as she and Snape were should call each other by their first names. Though she knew what his answer would be to such a suggestion, she got up the courage to make it anyway.

“Professor, what would you think about us... referring to each other by our first names now?” She cowered under his glare; never had she seen an eyebrow rise so high on one’s forehead. “Only in private, of course,” she added in a small voice.

“I would think, *Miss Granger*, that such actions would be highly improper,” he assured her. “Especially in private.”

She wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but his tone and expression brooked no argument, so she only lowered her head with a sigh.

“Very well, Professor,” she sulked. But she promised herself in that moment that someday, she and Professor Snape would be on a first name basis with one another. The same ‘someday’ that he had promised to explain his tattoo to her would be the day when she would call him Severus.

Snape rolled his eyes again, amused by her cheek. No one, child or adult, had ever dared to be so open and honest with him, so he didn’t know how he was supposed to deal with her impertinent behavior. When and if it escalated, he would see to stifling it, but for now, it was far too enjoyable tovokevoke her fiery temper.
Not to mention the fact that he was far too fatigued at the moment to know what to do with her.

...Yes! He’d forgotten that he was absoly exy exhausted! Better get rid of the girl now before she asked to stay the night. He smirked darkly to himself at the thought, which led to others that severely frightened him when connected to the child standing before him. He frowned and cleared his throat, which Hermione recognized as his way of either changing the direction of or ending a conversation, so she sobered and looked into his eyes expectantly. He offered her a tight-lipped smile. She beamed back at him. He averted his eyes and cleared his throat again.

“I must beg forgiveness, Miss Granger, for I am thoroughly exhausted from my... outing, and would like to get some rest. Would you mind terribly—”

“Oh!” She burst out, rushing towards him. Snape inched away from her, but she failed to notice his agitation. “Of course, Professor! I’m so sorry, I’d forgotten how ill you were.”

“Ill?” he repeated, offended by the term.

“Well, peaked, then,” she amended ebulliently. “Well, Professor, I’ll leave you to tend to yourself. Make sure to get lots of rest, drink lots of tea, and think about taking a day off from teaching tomorrow!”

“Miss Granger, I assure you, I’ll be just fine. I’m merely a bit tired,” he insisted, taken aback by the girl’s motherly instincts. After all, he’d barely experienced them with his own mother.

“Nonsense, Professor, you look positively drained! If I didn’t know better, I’d say a vampire got to you,” Hermione babbled pointlessly, as she tended to do when struck by feelings of overwhelming care for another.

“Miss Granger,” Snape entreated wearily, putting a hand to his head. “I do so *hate* to be rude, but will you please get out?”

Hermione laughed heartily at that statement; she knew from his tone that his cruel choice of wording was intended to be harmless. “Yes, Professor. Be sure to get a good night’s sleep,” she reminded him. He nodded tiredly, knowing that the best way to get the child out of his dungewas was to appease her.

“I’ll do that. Good night, child.”

“Good night, Professor,” she returned tenderly, and, after allowing her eyes to linger on his left arm for one last moment, she turned and left the dungeons as covertly as she had entered them.

Snape too stared at the arm with the mark inscribed into it for a long time after she had left, contemplating what he had told her about it and trying to decide whether or not he should have said anything at all. But alas, he was far too drained of spirit to come to a resolution on the matter. The matter of the child. The matter of the girl. Did the girl matter to him at all? Perhaps she had come to matter a bit more than he would have liked her to.

Gods, but he was unintelligibly exhausted. No time like the present to give in to the temptation of that big, comfortable bed and that nice, soothing potion.

~*~

‘Well, he’s not a heroin addict. *That’s* a relief! What a silly thing for me to have thought. Gods, I can be so stupid sometimes! When I get carried away with an idea...’

Hermione went over her previous concerns about and subsequent discussion with Professor Snape as she made her way back to Gryffindor Tower. She had grown so accustomed to the chill air which constantly flowed in the dungeons that the castle above them made her feel rather warm. She tucked a finger into the neck of her robe and tugged to loosen it. She was replaying the bit of their conversation where Snape scoffed at the very notion of him being addicted to any substance when a perturbing thought struck her.

‘If he’s not been going out to get drugs, then where has hen gen going when the pain hits him?’
His words of just a short time ago echoed in her mind: “I am thoroughly exhausted from my outing.” What outing?

She had agreed not to ask Snape about the story behind his tattoo until he was ready to tell it to her, but she’d never even thought about where he went when he was bothered by it. Though it hadn’t consciously occurred to her, she knew that he left the school whenever it flared up (however a tattoo could do such a thing; perhaps it had been incorrectly applied?).

Maybe it was because of her increasing sympathy for him, or maybe it was due to sheer Gryffindor curiosity, but Hermione decided then and there that she *had* to know where Snape went and what he was doing whenever he fled the castle.

Dangerous as it may prove to be, Hermione would follow through with her plan of that afternoon to spy on her mysterious Professor. She *would* know what he was up to, if not the reasons for it.

Ginny Weasley was far more intelligent than her elder brother gave her credit for.