Needfire

Chapter 17 – Hinc illae lacrimae.

\"Between violence and silently seething
Between my fist and my Pollyanna flower
Between \"Fuck you!\" to your face and \"It\'s all right.\"
Between war and denial.\"

--Pollyanna Flower. Alanis Morisette.


The letter arrived at breakfast. It had been carried by an ordinary looking school owl that had carelessly dropped it over Hermione\'s breakfast of bran flakes; wholemeal toast (thinly spread with butter and marmite); fruits-salad and yogurt. The owl stopped to nibble some cornflakes off of a nearby dish, then spread its wings and flew away.

Her eyes narrowing suspiciously, Hermione picked the edge of the longish, Muggle-looking envelope between her thumb and index finger, shaking off the tiny bits of bran flakes still sticking to the crispy paper. Her face – usually clear as an open palm at mornings – distorted with distaste when she noted the Granger\'s clinic\'s logo tattooed on the soft flesh of the envelope. Like a scar.

\"Is everything all right, pet?\" Harry, at her side, was leaning over his repulsive breakfast of grease-soaked food, scanning the envelope with a worried expression.

She wanted to fist some cornflakes from the public dish and hurl them in his face. \"I told you to stop using endearments with me, now didn\'t I?\"

\"Sorry, Hermione-\"

\"What\'re you two whisperin\' \'bout?\" Ron asked with his mouth full of egg and bacon.

\"Ronald Weasley!\" she cried angrily, clawing at this little piece of distraction like rabbit clawing the ground, the wire quickly fastening around and into the flesh of her leg, \"how many times have I told you not to speak with your mouth full?\"

\"Hermione received a letter from her posh parents,\" Harry teased, probably thinking that humouring her might lift her spirits a little. \"Don\'t they always send you stuff? Come on, Hermione, open it, what can they possibly want?\"

Only my soul, she retorted silently. \"They sometimes send me things I request, true, but they never use-\" She pursed her lips, ignoring the wire\'s bite. They never send mail from the clinic, damnit; never with the clinic\'s logo, never when they should be tampering with some patient\'s orifice; too busy to usually remember they actually have a daughter.

\"Come on, Mione,\" Ron joined the celebrations. \"If it\'s that kind of letter, you should really open it.\"

\"Patience is a virtue,\" she burst, igniting at the slightest provocation. Oh, God…! Why couldn\'t he just shut up?? \"Now stop making pests of yourselves and finish your breakfasts.\"

Subduing herself into calmness, she cleaned her knife with a napkin. Then, using a short, punctual move, she opened the envelope with one clear stroke. Inside laid a single sheet of the same crispy, expensive paper. Hermione had immediately recognized Donna\'s script.

She scanned the lovely, carefully fashioned letters, wondering sarcastically if Snape would show at her funeral, as she read the perfectly composed paragraphs. Her keen sense for dissociation allowed her to observe things from a distance, and reading briefly through her mother\'s words, she had simultaneously watched the mimicry of her own cheerful expression slowly crack; thin lines of blood interlacing the fine, marble knobs of her eyeballs, horror staining and dimming the soft, bivalve hue of her complexion.

… Breathe in when you go down, allow the air to inflate your abdomen; she reminded herself. Breath out when you go up- let the air form a column of calmness and peace from your Root Chakra up to your Crown Chakra, ascending from the base of your spine to finally circle your head and induce a sense of serenity…

Alas, she thought with tears in her eyes, momentarily blind to her surroundings. Tu quoque, Severe, amans mei? Hinc illae lacrimae.

I trust that you do know, however, that the traitor\'s head belongs on a spear, displayed over the castle\'s walls for all to see.

* * *

Hermione stepped calmly into the Potions classroom, bolting the door behind her and warding it carefully. Then, at last, she cast a strong silencing charm. Snape, at his aphrodisiac-waxed desk, raised his eyes from the current heap of essays he had been grading, and gave her an enigmatic gaze. She stifled the urge to go straight for the throat – reminding herself one should bring their opponent as close as possible before sticking the dagger – and eased her way over to sit on his desk.

\"Bastard.\"

Snape sighed.

Well well well, at least he knew what she was talking about.

\"We had an agreement,\" he said at last.

\"An agreement that you\'d approach Professor McGonagall, so she would grant me her permission to leave Hogwarts during the school year, in order to visit St. Mungo\'s,\" she reminded him coolly. Frost was ascending from her belly, shooting straight from her womb, wrapping around her vocal cords on its way up to blow in smoky words into his fey, harsh face. \"An agreement, may I remind you, which had nothing to do with approaching my parents.\"

\"Professor McGonagall and I felt it would be best for you.\"

She pursued her lips. Wonder how long I can keep this façade before snapping, or turning into ice myself.

Darling Professor, she thought, hardly restraining a sudden wave of hurt and betrayal: if you could only look inside my head, you would be surprised to see the murderous jumble you put there. Nevertheless, I\'m straying. Bring near first, stab second. Then you can hurt yourself all you like. But first, get the job done.

\"You thought it would be best for me, now did you?\" Hermione\'s legs were hanging from the table, swinging lightly. \"Didn\'t it even once occur to you that I might differ with you?\"

The Potions Master, apparently tired with her, pinched the bridge of his nose. \"As I told you once, you may have to trust my judgment.\"

She nodded. \"You also told me that at any time I could stand up and walk away. You didn\'t give me that choice, though.\"

\"I had your welfare in mind, Hermione.\" A hint of impatience crept into his voice.

\"If you had my welfare in mind, you would not be sending me home for Christmas,\" she said gently. \"If you had your own welfare in mind, you would not have approached my parents.\" If you had had my welfare in mind, you would not have betrayed my trust, so I wouldn\'t have to hurt you the most; so I wouldn\'t have to hurt me afterwards, because I have no doubt it would be too much to contain. God, didn\'t he keep his reserve scalpels someplace near, in one of the upper drawers? It had been years, and yet she had failed to find a better solution. Failed to grow out of the childish self-destructiveness of a lonely, helpless, thirteen-year old girl.

Snape leaned back in his armchair, his eyes gleaming. The gleam was part amusement, part a threat. Once it would have made her afraid, but not anymore. She knew she could stand up to him.

\"What is this game you\'re playing?\"

\"I\'m not playing. You warned me not to play games with you,\" she said. \"And I, unlike yourself, bear such requests in mind.\"

\"Fine.\" He nodded. \"A threat, then.\"

Hermione shook her head. \"I don\'t make idle threats.\"

\"Really?\" A trace of a smile floated in his grey, dark eyes. \"Foolish girl. Go back to the sandbox where you belong.\"

His face, she thought. It might be a Jack-O\'-Lantern sculpted to show a horrifying vision of mockery, lit from inside by those rare smiles of his; but whether he would light a shadow-ridden field where a headless dragoon decapitates innocent villagers, or a small porch where a she-cat and her cubs are entangled in a knot of cattish limbs – well, that was another question altogether.

Hermione breathed, rubbing her eyes tiredly. \"Yes,\" she replied. \"Soon enough I\'ll return to the sandbox. That is where you sent me and that is where I shall go. However, seeing that you betrayed my trust, I\'ll make sure you suffer the consequences.\"

He arched an eyebrow. \"Explain yourself.\"

\"Ah, Professor Snape. Darling Professor Snape. Notorious Head of Slytherin House, Suddenly interested in the mentally ill Gryffindor Head Girl. Dear child,\" she mocked with feigned empathy. \"Just look at her hands! Those sore, red hands!\" Hermione looked at her lover, having no doubt he knew full well where she was heading. \"Poor Miss Granger, she must be really disturbed to hurt herself this way, the little darling, such a bright girl she is… And this vile Potions Master, an ex Death Eater, you surely know, taking advantage of someone of her-\"

A muscle in his jaw clenched, his pupils so wide and dilated that for a moment, she could discern no grey in them. Not even once had she seen him so angry, and a frozen, beautiful satisfaction poured into her circulation like an injection of new fallen snow.

\"Enough! Enough!\" Snape roared. \"You ungrateful, little bitch-\"

She blinked, blinked again, and without much ado, slapped him across the face. \"You watch your mouth when speaking to me.\" Having her fingers scorch his cool, pale skin with her heated anger was somehow elating.

Snape uttered a noise of total surprise. She expected him to reach for his wand, and welcomed the bliss of whatever curse he might chose to launch at her. However, nothing happened.

Hermione swallowed, forcing spittle down her suddenly arid throat. Midnight\'s vultures were gliding above, lazily waiting for what might be left of her soul when he finally finished with her. The sirocco was curling in her hair, scorching her lips, hurling dust in her dry, narrowed eyes; the sands were endless, dune after dune of rich, golden sands. All of Midas\'s gold lay bare in front of her, hers to kneel before and bury her hands in. The glowing eyeball of the sun made her own skin a molten gold, but it was the mirage of his eyes; the dark, bubbling ponds of her lover\'s eyes that led her forward, stumbling across another dune toward an oasis… But there was no oasis: only the repulsing lips and fingers that she hated – to lick the sun induced gilt off her skin – and Donna, turning her back to them. There was no well, no pond… the mirage was swiftly ascending off the sands, out of her reach, out of her sight… and Snape, sprawled in his chair, was still scrutinizing her with the same cool, impersonal look that made first years shiver. She wanted to shiver, too. Wanted to put her hand in her mouth and chew on her fingers. She didn\'t. Not yet. Not while he was watching.

\"Well,\" he said at last. A scowl flashed on his face, but just as quickly it faded. His reactions followed each other quickly, changing from one to the next almost faster than she could register them. What was he thinking, behind that flickering mask? What would he do to her for her effrontery?

She felt too small to move – the terror in her lower abdomen piercing her, affixing her to the desk\'s surface – and yet, offered him a daring look. That\'s right, Snape. Pain me until I\'m numb, and then, perhaps, I am at peace.

He kept watching her. No longer scrutinizing; only, it seemed, a tad sad. \"I\'m removing myself from your chessboard,\" he said at last. \"Go and implement your little scheme, you\'re free to go. I won\'t contradict you. However, I won\'t be your substitute for a razor. If you wish to hurt yourself, go do it somewhere else. You won\'t have me as a willing participant, Hermione.\"

She stared at him. \"It\'s not like that.\"

He sighed. \"I don\'t believe you. Now, the door is that way. Please see yourself out.\" His voice was chill. Turning back to the papers on his desk, he reached for his quill, stopped by her small cry.

Swallowing, she forced back the tears. \"I told you, it\'s not like that! \"

Snape tilted his head, suddenly leaning forward, lacing his fingers. \"Isn\'t it? Then tell me, Hermione, how is it, exactly?\"

A sob escaped her tightened lips, and she averted her eyes, unable to look at him. He was too close, all of a sudden. Calm down, she rebuked herself, you worthless, quivering baby. Calm down this instant and take it like an adult. Taking a calming breath, Hermione made herself face Snape once again. \"Even if it was like that, it is none of your God damn business,\" she said through gritted teeth.

\"The hell it isn\'t,\" Snape retorted. \"It became my bloody business the moment you made me a part of it.\"

\"I never forced myself on you.\"

There was a long moment of silence, Snape\'s grey eyes holding hers, assessing, mathematically perfect in their calculation of her reactions. When he spoke, it was very quietly, almost with regret, but clearly, like acid dripping, each word striking her skin; burning there. \"You never let me help you either.\"

She closed her eyes, feeling how the tears gnawed their way like tiny, blind moles through the dusty tunnels of her memory: they chewed their way through her firmly rooted fears, down, to the terror in her lower abdomen and the frost in her womb, they ate the lint of repulsion and disgust, scattered like moss all over her internal organs, and finally split her skin like the larva\'s worm, finished, at last, eating its way through its host\'s body. Go on, she thought, do your job and chew away this thin, waxy coating of dirt glazing my skin, but the moles only stared, stopping in place, apparently repulsed, too, by the ear-wax-like substance. And then, one by one, they dropped from her arms, belly, legs and chest, and there were no tears: just junk memories and a clot of ear-wax stuck in her throat, unable to break free. \"You c…can not…\" she stuttered, trying, with all her might to look at him. \"Y-you can… n-not help me.\"

His voice was so soft she wanted to break. \"Why won\'t you let me try?\"

She never intended to scream. Never intended for her voice to be so loud and shrill, like a banshee\'s cry, but when she suddenly spoke, all her fury and indignation at his betrayal formed her words into a hoarse, raven-like hoot of grief. \"Because you fucking sent me back to him!\" she yelped, her voice singed and ghastly. \"How can you possibly help me? I should kill you, I should wring your bloody neck, I should gut you and serve your heart in the Great Hall, damn it,\" tears running all over her face, she suddenly leaned over the table, hastily scrabbling for one of the reserve scalpels she knew he kept in the upper drawer to the right. \"Yes, I knew it would be here-\" She snatched one and was about to plunge the blade into the skin of her left wrist, far too occupied to notice Snape\'s hand, which reached to capture hers in a deadly grip.

Hermione gave a sharp cry of pain. \"No!\" she shrieked. \"Release me! It hurts, it hurts, you idiot, it fucking hurts…!\"

\"You give me that knife this instant, you bloody fool.\" He wrenched her wrist backwards, prying at her fingers.

\"All right!\" screaming, she released her hold of the scalpel, which Snape hurried to take away. \"I\'m giving it to you, here it is, here, take it, just please let go of me, let go of me, and don\'t touch me…!\" Sprawled on the table, she curled into a tight ball, heaving; loud, shrill sobs shaking her body. \"I told her that he touched me and that I didn\'t like it-\" Hermione yowled. \"I asked her… I asked, if she would please please tell him to stop, and she said, she said, why,\" a sob crashed through her already torn lungs, \"she said: whatever is the matter with you, Hermione, can\'t you see that he loves you?\"

Behind her, she could hear Snape\'s robes rustling as he rose from his seat.

She screamed. \"Don\'t touch me!\" Curling tighter still, her arms reached to cross protectively over her torso; red, raw hands, like claws over her face.

A second later, he was crouching in front of her, kneeling on the floor of his office. His eyes, those cool, bubbling, mystical ponds, were looking for hers in the semi-darkness of the office. \"Hermione, who are you talking about?\" His voice hoarsened and he added, barely controlled now, \"Who touched you? Who wouldn\'t stop him from touching you?\"

She clearly heard the lethal note behind each syllable he spoke. Anger, but not directed at her. Directed at... someone else. Finally, someone else. Trembling, she lifted her eyes, bloodshot and teary, to look at him. Her mouth was dry. \"My…my parents.\"

Snape swore silently, never averting his gaze. \"I should have known.\"

She moistened her lips. \"Please, please don\'t make me go home for Christmas.\"

He shook his head. \"It\'s not up to me, but I\'ll make sure you are allowed to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas.\"

Good. So there would be no visiting home for her: no confronting Donna\'s lipstick worry and her father\'s… she choked, Lester would be so disappointed, and she wouldn\'t be able to look him in the eyes, nor would she be able to look at his hands, but then- it was the least of her problems at the moment. Consumed by her anger and her tripled sense of betrayal ever since the owls\' arrival at breakfast, she finally managed to push away the one man who righted her. Not blindly ignoring who and what she was, but while seeing and accepting her flaws. She could not – would not – lose him; he was too important. He had every right to toss her out of his office, and she would probably deserve that: it would probably be enough to stir her into a cleansing lament and make her taste blood whenever she saw him in the future. Want it or not, Snape, but for me you are a razor and I am wounded just looking at you. The notion, she thought, it was enough to cut into her flesh- enough to form a substance sharp enough to cut into one\'s marrow. Fuck you, Snape; I never meant you to become my homeport. Merlin knows you suck.

Forcing herself to breath, she ignored her fear of rejection and made herself look him in the eyes. \"Do you still want me out of your life?\" she uttered in s trembling voice.

\"I never wanted you out of my life.\"

\"Will you want me in your life after I\'m graduated?\"

He seemed a little surprised to hear that, but he didn\'t say no, either.

\"Would you?\" she pushed, overwhelmed by a sense of urgency.

\"If you still want me.\"

She nodded. \"I thought… well, I thought you might take me as your apprentice for the summer – your Potions apprentice,\" she clarified, \"so that I can still stay here at the castle. I\'ll be going to University in November, but there is nothing to prevent us from seeing each other-\"

At that, Snape reached out a hand, sealing her mouth with the tip of his index finger and softly caressing her lips. \"Let\'s see how the year ends,\" he said quietly. He didn\'t mention the war, but both of them knew it was the final battle – most likely due at the end of Harry Potter\'s final year at Hogwarts – that he was talking about. \"First you all graduate, then we can see about this apprenticeship.\"

\"So…\" she looked at him, unsure. \"You don\'t… mind, me… us?\"

He looked worn. \"I- I mind having slept with a student. I mind being used to assist self-mutilation,\" Snape sighed, running his hands through his fine, oily locks. \"You are complex and obnoxious, and I don\'t have the time or the tools to deal with your complexity. And yet I am compelled; bewitched.\" He tilted his head, watching her with the same detached, impersonal look, as if she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. \"I know that if I tap right here,\" slowly, as to not to scare her, he reached to touch two fingers to her forehead, \"and if I touched you just this way…\" the two fingers roamed to the pulse point under her ear, then wandered to her chest, just over her heart. \"I know that you would click open, and there would be a land of milk and honey.\"

She was hardly aware of his words until the hand fell aside, neither was she aware of him gingerly, tenderly touching her, up to the moment the words finally died on his lips. I am desynchronizing him, she realized at a moment of clarity, dissociating him when he says I\'m beautiful: I tell myself there is Professor Snape and Snape the Druid while those are only masks he wears to hide. Even from himself. I ate my biscuits, Daddy, she cried silently: I ate my biscuits and nothing was well. Why is it I keep dissociating my lover even though I no longer have to?

Gulping for air, she was painfully at a loss for words; unsure whether she should give up for the sudden hunger for the warmth and comfort of another body, or whether – for the sake of her own sanity – she better stay away and keep her distance. Pain was easy: it was something she knew, and up to certain degree, embraced. Over the years, she learned that the cleverest thing is to control her own pain, and controlling meant leveling. When she was the one causing herself the greatest pain, she had been safe. Even when at the risk of being mentally beaten to her last shard of sanity, she knew that afterwards, it could always be herself and her demons, and she could yet bleed more.

Solace, however, was dangerous. Looking at him, she thought there was nothing more dangerous than solace. That she might reach for him, and that he might refuse her, and then there would be no more blood to extort. No dignity to spare. That by reaching for him, she was giving him the power to either restore, or break her, and that he might choose to withdraw. Nonetheless, she mused, never bothering to withhold the tears, I think I might break just from craving; just from being one twisted knot of hunger for your skin against mine. \"I think…\" she began, her voice breaking, \"I think I\'d like you to hold me.\"

Snape cocked an eyebrow, and yet, did not refuse, and to her almost breath-taking, convulsing relief, had quickly swept her into his arms. Having her request accepted brought another wave of tears: so light, so emancipating that she might actually be beautiful. Is that your land of milk and honey? Hold me, she pleaded voicelessly. I used to believe that deep inside there is a place no living soul is allowed, that one can only stand aside and watch us wither: touch me like Harry said one person can touch another; touch me out of the cupboard and out of my father\'s clutch; touch me out of my loneliness and out of your loneliness; touch us out of the metaphorical cage of our souls.

Hold me until I\'m cleansed…

\"You can put your arms around my neck,\" she heard Snape murmur into her hair, his low, rich baritone stirring her into cold, dreaded realization. \"You might find relief just in holding onto me.\"

Hermione swallowed, stiffening at once. This was not at all what she asked for. \"If sex is what you want right now-\"

\"It isn\'t,\" he said softly. \"Just like sex doesn\'t necessarily mean a cock; touch doesn\'t necessarily mean sex.\"

Quietly, he made the way to his living quarters, where he sat – Hermione in his arms – in the leather covered armchair in front of the mantel. Reaching for his wand, Snape started a fire, and with the amber, gold and red flames shining in his eyes, reached to brush aside a stray lock of untamed hair, glued to her wet face. Taking her hand, he put it on his shoulder, then repeated this action with her other hand, shifting her body in his lap so she would feel most comfortable. At last, he tangled his fingers into her bird\'s nest hair, nestling her scalp in his palm, and rested her head against his torso.

Hermione remembered crawling into Lester\'s lap, where it would be both comforting and dangerous, and her fingers unconsciously dug into the pale, tender skin of her lover\'s nape. She didn\'t know she was clinging to him, or that her teeth were biting into the cloth of his robes. She did know that there was warm body underneath her; a tear soaked fabric below her cheek and some desperate need to sink her teeth into something solid. She wanted to gnaw on her hand, and when he wouldn\'t let her, trapping her hand in his own, she bit into his palm, the saline ambiguity of tears and mucus mixing with the milky sweetness of the white-blue skin.

Snape probably thought she was attempting to hurt herself again, and she was too submerged in her own misery to explain this to him, but this was not about self-mutilation and had nothing to do with pain. Biting and nibbling the delicate flesh of his hand, the stress had somehow faded; the acid buildups keeping her cognition in a state of high alertness warmed and slowly diffuse until she could feel her eyelids drop: a small child sucking on their thumb, lulled into an infant\'s sleep.

It was a while before the wrenching subsided, and when it did, Hermione was surprised to realize she was still gently chewing on the curve of his palm, sometimes nibbling the long, elegant thumb; sometimes taking his index finger into her mouth and sucking on it.

This spot, she knew, where Snape\'s index finger sloped back into his hand, just before the first metacarpal bone jutted from the base of the palm – where blue-white, almost transparent skin covered the concaved dent on which she could close her lips and suckle like a baby – this exact spot – was a haven.

If only for her orally fixated self.

~@~@~@~

- \"Tu quoque, Severe, amans mei?\" – \"You, too, Severus, my love?\" (And thank Doomspark for the Latin).

- \"Hinc illae lacrimae.\" – \"Hence these tears.\" Terence.