Beneath the Surface

A/N: Quotes on the Basilisk and a sentence or two spoken by Mcgonagall taken directly from ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’, by J.K. Rowling et al (as we all know; certain people get so picky out here:P), and some plot sequences copyrighted by the aforementioned are elaborated upon. But I would think that my plot-borrowing should be rather obvious by now^_~.



Beneath the Surface

Chapter the Sixteenthe: To Be Petrified

Days passed without a single word uttered between Hermione Granger and Severus Snape. Weeks flew by with more of the same purposeful silence. Months advanced quickly, turning the slight chill of late Fall into the merciless freeze of dead Winter. Still, not a single word passed from one to the other.

Severus told himself that their parting was for the best, that she had been starting to get on his nerves. Or under his skin.

He could not have that; the thought that she’d been truthful—and he knew that she had—in her confession of love (or lust; a pre-adolescent couldn’t possibly be able to feel anything more) for him was beyond disturbing. To be perfectly honest, it was frightening. He, Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was actually afraid of one of his students. And a Second Year, at that!

He feared her determination, he feared her courage, but most of all, he feared the depth of her feelings for him, implied by actions that he had overlooked and words that he had not listened to correctly.

He had wasted away many an hour attempting to figure out just what it was about him that had gotten her attention in the first place. And he’d come up with nothing! True, while certainly not a man whom one would call handsome, Snape knew that he was not without his charms, both aesthetically and intellectually.

He possessed a uniquely incisive wit that was known to reduce anyone at whom it was directed to babbling idiots before him. And if he chose to focus his legendary powers of persuasion on a person from whom there was something he wanted, it was needless to say that he got it rather easily.

But he had not directed any such overtures at his student. In fact, he had done nothing to warrant her affection, nothing at all! Then WHY in all creation did she want HIM?

He began to dwell on these confounding questions to which he could find no answer. Despite how thoroughly he ignored the girl in person, her presence dominated his mind in private. Anger budded red as his own lifeblood in his heart and throve like a rare Winter flower as the season itself progressed. Hatred towards she who had planted it by loving him.

Or so she said. The rage flared higher in his abdomen at the thought. And every thought was filled with her, consumed by her.

Their nightly talks together had ceased abruptly after that last one when she’d all but begged for his love and he’d refused it to her. He found that, while he was glad to be without her presence, save for in class, he missed the chances she gave for him to unburden his near desiccated conscience.

His chest always felt tight these days, as if his memories were being forcefully pressed against him. It was the way he always used to feel before... the girl came along. Apparently he’d forgotten it while in her presence.

Even at night—or especially at night, it should be said—it pained him. He was trapped within the castle walls, so there was no way to avoid it, save for distraction. And there was only one thing that had distracted him from the misery of his memories before the girl came along.

The light.

It was still there, as it had always been since its explosive creation, shining freely and fearlessly in a near perfect circle upon the center of his dark bed. He was sorry to have forgotten it, to have been able to sleep without knowing it was there.

So he once again gazed at it all through his nights until they became mornings, watching its shade fade and brighten as if reacquainting himself with a dear, old friend. And so it had been. And so it would be again.

Forever.

~*~

Hermione sighed as she closed yet another heavy tome and hefted it back onto its place on the shelf before her. She’d been in the Hogwarts library all afternoon (it was a Saturday, so there were no classes), tearing through one book after the other in her mad search for answers. Time was running out, and if she didn’t find what she needed by nightfall, another student could be petrified.

She was almost grateful that the school had been overtaken by fear of the Basilisk, who had thus far made its presence in the castle known three times, as she now had a very good thing to distract her from thoughts of her Potions Professor. She hadn’t thought of him once after that night, which she’d spent crying into her pillow, hoping to whatever God was watching over her that her dorm mates didn’t hear. Whether anyone had heard her or not, no one said anything the next day. She wouldn’t have expected them to.

She was scanning her current selection swiftly, a finger running under the words of each page to keep her place. She frowned, finding nothing.

If Snape’s presence arose even in the back of her mind, Hermione mentally shocked herself as penance for thinking about him. She’d sworn after that night never to even look at him again, and so far she’d been successful in that endeavor. No one had ever hurt her this badly, and she knew not what to do, what to feel.

So she closed herself off to the pain and felt nothing.

She researched tirelessly during every spare moment she had for any information about the location of the feared Chamber of Secrets, where the beast had lived since its birth. Though they were not with her today, Harry and Ron often worked alongside her in the library, and had proven themselves to be very diligent and resourceful in their studies, much to her surprise. Perhaps it was due to their fear of the Heir of Slytherin and the awesome horrors that could be wreaked upon the castle, and the world, if the Chamber was not found in time and destroyed.

Their other Gryffindor friends thought their efforts were all in vain; if Dumbledore himself didn’t know the answers to these questions, how were a trio Second Year students going to find them out? But the three ignored them, and continued searching day after day, and, in Hermione’s case, night after night.

She didn’t care whether she found what they were looking for or not (a fact which was distantly startling to the old, knowledge-hungry Hermione); it was the search she needed, the distraction.

Even Harry and Ron had become discouraged lately; they’d tried everything they could think of, up to and including the brewing and carrying out of the forbidden Polyjuice Potion. It had been a bit too easy to convince Hermione to venture secretly into Snape’s storeroom to steal the Boomslang Skin that they needed, but the boys were too grateful to question her about any ulterior motives she might possess. (And, to this day, if they mentioned anything about cats to Hermione, anything whatsoever, theyeiveeived a glare so cold that it could freeze water into ice.)

After that terrible night in the dungeons with Snape, Hermione’s demeanor had changed dramatically, so much so that even her friends noticed it. She was no longer the outgoing, personable girl they had once known. She had become sullen and even-tempered, a shadow of her former self. Her friends (that is, Harry, Ron and Ginny) questioned her almost every day at meals and in the Common Room about the strange changes in her behavior, but she dismissed their concerns every time, saying she was merely tired.

One day, when it seemed that the old excuse was not going to cut it anymore, she thoughtlessly joked that she was ‘pining for someone’. Unfortunately, her friends took it seriously and their queries now focused on who the object of her misguided affections was. When Harry happened to catch her staring at Professor Lockhart, well, that was it. As far as they were concerned, she was in love with him, and she did next to nothing to dispel that notion. After all, it was far better than if they were to guess anything that had gone on between herself and Professor Snape.

This book didn’t have anything either. She pushed it aside and yanked the next volume down.

She had begun to feel like a robot lately, as if she were constantly operating on automatic pilot. Her days were all exactly the same, each one interchangeable with any other. All she ever did now was go to class, study, go to meals and preten be be like her old self when talking with her friends. She didn’t sleep.

Suddenly she heard a rustling noise behind her, and whipped her head around to check. No one was there.

She rolled her eyes at her paranoia; this was a library, of course there would be others here. No matter that a game between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff was scheduled to commence in less than a half an hour and most of the other kids were probably rushing out to the Quidditch Fields to get good seats for it.

There it was again! Someone was playing a trick on her, and she wasn’t going to fall for it. She remembered the mirror in her pocket, and covertly took it out and held it before her so she would be able to see who was behind her when they came near again.

All was silent for the next few minutes, so she returned to her perusal of the book lying open on the wooden eave of the set of shelves in front of her. Her eyes widened at a passage she came across, finger halting abruptly beneath it. It was the most useful information that any of them had yet found. It read:

‘Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, also known as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are more wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.’

She rummaged through her bag for a piece of parchment, and in her haste, ripped off only a shred from her roll. She cared not, and grabbed her quill to quickly copy the passage down onto the small page. She read it over several times, memorizing it, digesting it.

‘So *that’s* what’s been doing those horr thi things! The thought of that creature in this very school right at this very moment is creepy. ...But how can such a large thing manage to get around without being seen?’

And then her eyes gleamed with understanding, as if lit from within, and she smiled triumphantly, the first time she’d done so in what seemed like ages. She scribbled the word ‘pipes’ underneath the paragraph she’d copied, and underlined it boldly. She’d figured out a very large part of the mystery! This was amazing! She folded the shred of parchment neatly and clutched it in her right hand; she’d have to find Harry and Ron immediately and tell them the wonderful news.

But before she could move to shove her things into her bag and rush from the library, she heard that strange sound again, as if someone were shuffling their feet on the ground behind her. They seemed to be getting closer, for the sound became louder and louder, until it was close to deafening in its volume. Now she was becoming afraid.

She grasped her small mirror tightly and turned it so she could see the space just behind her within it, and that was when she saw it.

It’s head filled the mirror completely, but she could only see the upper part of it’s face, so large was the repulsive creature. It’s scalere lre long, shiny and sharp-looking, and they were colored a mottled black-and-green. But the most amazing and hideous of all were its eyes; enormous, blood-red and focused directly on her through the mirror. Upon meeting them, she could not look away, though she so wanted to. All she could see were flames and blood, all she could feel, fear and death.

And then her vision went black, and there was nothing.

~*~

Snape was walking with his colleague, Professor Minerva Mcgonagall, to the Headmaster’s office late that afternoon. They’d both been summoned by him via their respective fireplaces, but the old man had not given either of them any reason as to why he needed to see them so urgently. Mcgonagall was anticipating the worst, as was evident in her brisk step and anxious frown; Snape, on the other hand, was used to such occurrences, and rolled his eyes at her concern, matching her pace easily with the larger strides his longer legs provided him.

“Severus, really, how can you be so relaxed? We are in the midst of treacherous times!” Mcgonagall huffed.

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Minerva.” Snape sneered. “It’s unbecoming of a lady.” His feigned prejudice against the female sex always got to the other teacher, who prided herself on her independence in a man’s world, and he smiled to himself as he felt her bristle beside him.

“Severus Snape, if I were not in such a hurry, I’d see to it that you’d regret those words!”

“Oh, really? And just what would you do to me?” he asked her smoothly, but the derision was clear in his voice. Her thin lips drew together tightly, a red, angry line.

“For starters, I’d transfigure that vile tongue of yours into a lead weight!” she ground out.

Sensing that her tolerance of him had reached its limit, as well as noticing her bony hand drawing towards her wand, Snape cleared his throat and let her statement lie. After taking a few moments to calm herself, Minerva was able to perceive his contrition (slight that it was) and favored him with the faintest of smiles, the lines around her cat-like green eyes softening.

“Honestly, Snape,” she teased him in a stern tone, reminding him of the time when she had bhis his Professor. “You’re such a schadenfreude.”

“Pardon me?” he asked her quizzically. She faced him fully, her eyes widening. He returned her stare warily.

“Are you telling me that the great Potions Master and all-around genius Severus Snape doesn’t know the meaning of a simple word?” she asked in an amazed tone. He scowled down at her.

“Simple? It’s German!” A vicious glint lit up his black eyes. “Though the German people themselves may be exceedingly simplistic in nature, their language is not.”

Mcgonagall gaped at his itinetinence and slapped his arm lightly. He knew she was half German, and proud of it, as she was of everything else about herself. He chuckled softly, and she knew that he hadn’t meant to insult her seriously. She rolled her eyes and continued walking, knowing he’d follow.

“A ‘schadenfreude’ is a person who derives joy from the troubles of others. The word was made for people like you.” The sneer she gave him could rival his own on a good day, and he laughed appreciatively.

“My dear Minerva, you are far too kind.”

They had finally reached the two stone gargoyles which guarded the stairwell to Dumbledore’s office. Severus looked expectantly at Minerva, for he did not know the password.

“Licorice all-sorts,” she pronounced, ignoring Snape’s snide scoff, and a grinding of stone heralded the shifting of the spiral staircase. They stepped onto the newly revealed entrance without preamble and waited in silence, Mcgonagall with her hands folded at her stomach, Snape with his arms crossed stiffly over his chest, as the stairs rose them to their destination.

Dumbledore came into view seated at his desk, his eyes serious though he was, as usual, smiling benignly at his guests. The two were surprised to see that the other members of the teaching staff were already assembled in the room, seated uncomfortably in a circle around their Headmaster. Snape frowned; perhaps the news they were about to receive was more serious than he had thought.

“Welcome, Minerva, Severus,” he greeted them. “Please sit down.” Snape and Mcgonagall took their seats in the only two of the comfortable wooden chairs that had remained empty in the circle.

Severus noted that Albus’ voice did not sound as warm as it did when all was well; that meant that he did indeed have bad news to tell them, but it was not exceedingly dire. On a scale from one to ten, one being trivial, ten being terrible, Snape deduced that what Dumbledore would say to them would be about a three or four. Severus Snape had always been a very perceptive man.

“I’m afraid that I have some rather bad news for you all,” Albus said, his tone more sorrowful than grave. “It seems that earlier this afternoon, Penelope Clearwater, a Ravenclaw prefect, and Hermione Granger, a Second Year Gryffindor, were the latest two victims of the Basilisk.”

Gasps and groans emitted from the professors around him, which escalated at Hermione’s name, as she was a favorite student of just about anyone who had the pleasure of teaching her. Snape’s entire body grew cold and his heart dropped into his stomach like a rock. He said nothing.

“But the good news, my friends,” Dumbledore continued, “is that these students, like the others before them, did not look directly into the Basilisk’s eyes. They have only been petrified, not killed, so I have great hope for their recoveries.”

Many of the teachers sighed in relief, some dabbing at tears in their eyes with linen handkerchiefs. Only Severus Snape remained perfectly still, complexion drained, eyes glazed over as they gazed unseeingly into his lap. He could no longer hear what Dumbledore was saying.

“Of course, as always, I don’t want any of the students knowing of that creature’s existence, so I’m sure that I can continue to trust you all to keep it a secret...”

‘She’s alright,’ a small voice in Snape’s mind breathed in relief. ‘Thank Merlin, she’s going to be alright! Oh, the poor little child...’

“Severus, lad?”

The gentle voice filtered into Snape’s mind and he looked up at Dumbledore slowly. The old man was smiling, but his sharp blue eyes were concerned. The other professors were quietly filing out of the room.

“Yes, sir?” Snape asked, obviously disoriented.

“The meeting has been concluded. Was there something else you wished to speak with me about?”

“...Oh. No, Headmaster, thank you.” Snape rose from his seat and straightened his clothing, too preoccupied with the plight of his student to conceal his consternation. “See you at dinner, then.”

Snape inclined his head politely at Dumbledore, who returned the gesture with a smile, and exited the office with just a bit less panache than usual. He was too shaken by Albus’ news to care much about appearances. Dumbledore kept his eyes glued to the spot where his Potions Master had been long after he left, pondering the man’s curious behavior. He finally shook his head and returned to the papers on his desk, lifting a phoenix-feather quill with a delicately wrinkled old hand.

‘That boy is in need of a female...or male, I can’t seem to remember which direction his wand is pointed in.’

Albus Dumbledore, world-renowned wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was not quite as omniscient as he was given credit for being. And cheerfully so.

~*~

‘I’ve got to go see her, I have to see for my own eyes if she’s alright!’ Snape’s inner monologue was assaulting him at a frantic pace, matching his stride as he made his way quickly to Hogwarts’ Infirmary. His left nostril was beginning to twitch, as it tended to do when he was fighting to hide his fear for another. Needless to say, that did not occur all too often in his life. He was feeling rather unhinged.

A small cluster of Third Year Ravenclaws practically leapt out of his way as he passed them, and stared after their Professor in amazement when he spared them not a glance. Snape hadn’t bothered to take any points from them for being too close to him in the hallway.

As he was hurrying through the Charms wing, his path was obstructed by the insistent body of a young Second Year Slytherin. He stopped and looked down at her, knowing that those of his House expected him to at least hear them out before dismissing them. What was her name again... Parrington? No...

“Yes, Miss...” He racked his brains for the name, but still could not remember it. He hated it when he didn’t know the name of one of his Slytherins.

“Parkinson, sir,” the girl said in a shrill, supercilious tone. She appeared to be hurt that he’d forgotten her name.

“Miss Parkinson, of course. Forgive me,” he apologized, his words genuine despite his desire to be done with her and on his way. The girl smiled and nodded, the pride gleaming in her small blue eyes making it evident that she had been flattered by his simple words.

“Sir, I was going to ask you if you had any time to help me with today’s assign—”

“I’m afraid I don’t have the time, Miss Parkinson. Perhaps we could schedule a meeting after class tomorrow, as the assignment is not due until next Monday. Good day.” With that, he offered her a small smile and a curt nod before brushing past her down the corridor.

He did not feel her eyes fixed upon his back as he walked away; cold, yet piercing and filled with desire. Though her face was calmly composed, a shade of disappointment would have been visible to Snape, had he turned to look back at her.


A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he finally arrived at the Infirmary, but the sight that greeted him from inside the room caused him to immediately shrink back against the doorframe. The shadows about the entranceway concealed his body, but his onyx eyes glittered like jewels in the darkness as they took in the scene before him.

The numerous crisp, white-sheeted beds that lined the main chamber of the Infirmary had four occupants that he could see, each spaced a good deal apart from the others. Hermione Granger had been placed on the last bed to the far left of the room, right next to a rectangular window with the shades drawn.

He could not make out many details in the dim light, but he could see that his student’s body had been frozen while she had been in an upright position, arms half-raised at different degrees to her face as if to ward off evil (which, he knew, was what she had been trying to do).

The fingers of each hand were tautly clenched, the second most obvious indication of the terror she had felt at the time she’d been frozen. The first, of course, being the expression on her face. Her eyes were glassy and opened very wide, brows furrowed high on her forehead as if she were in shock. Anyone looking directly into her eyes would think that the blatant fear contained therein was being directed at them, so focused were her brown eyes in her petrified sleep.

Madam Pomfrey, the school’s resident Mediwitch, was tending to the other recently afflicted girl, the Ravenclaw Prefect, in a nearby bed. The elderly woman’s gentle face was care-worn, lined from decades of work and experience in her craft.

Professor Mcgonagall stood tensely a foot or so from Hermione’s bed, hands clasped tightly at her middle. Her eyes were sad as they gazed into the sightless ones of her favorite pupil, but her expression was schooled into that of the consummate disciplinarian for the benefit of her seeing audience.

As she breathed, a small object in her hands reflected the light that peeked from the window across from her back and forth. Snape concentrated on it, squinting his eyes, and noted that it was a round, frame-less mirror.

On either side of Hermione stood her two troublesome friends, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. Their faces were turned away from Snape’s view, but he could pick up their sorrow from their body language. Their heads were bowed, shoulders slumped, spines relaxed. So they did care for their living encyclopedia of knowledge after all, Snape thought bitterly.

After several moments of this awkward, grieving silence between the occupants of the Infirmary, Mcgonagall cleared her throat loudly before beginning to speak, her rather heavy Scottish brogue cutting into the stillness like a sharp knife through soft bread.

“They were found near the library. I don’t suppose either of you can explain this?” She held up the small disc. “It was on the floor next to them.”

The two boys did not look up from their friend, but shook their heads negatively in answer to Mcgonagall’s question. The older woman sighed, then bustled forth to usher her two young Gryffindors back to their Common Room. They assented, albeit reluctantly, and whispered farewells to their comatose friend as if she could hear them.

As the Head of Gryffindor House and her two charges approached the door of the Infirmary, Snape slunk away from it and glided swiftly down the corridor that led to the opposite direction of the Astronomy Tower. He did not run, for he thought such an action to be cowardly and beneath him, but there was still no trace of his presence when the four appeared in the hall.

‘I had not thought this through. What excuse would I have given to Pomfrey for visiting the girl? No... when it is too late for the students to be in the halls and for the staff to be awake, I will go to her.’

~*~

It was well past midnight when he had finally gotten a chance to visit Hermione. Like a hunted fugitive, he prowled through the halls of Hogwarts, keeping close to the walls and the shadows they provided. Lady Luck must have found favor with Severus Snape that night, for the only people he passed on his way to the Infirmary were Argus Filch and several of Hogwarts’ resident specters (whom he still counted as people; being deceased didn’t change that fact).

Hooded in darkness, he reached his destination unhindered. The door was locked, but a simple Alohomora took care of that. (Pomfrey wouldn’t have dared to lock her patients in by magic, lest there be an immediate need to get in or out of the room). He pushed the door open carefully with one hand, watching the room come into view as the door swung back on its hinges.

First there was the Mediwitch’s small office, but as the room had no windows it was pitch dark, save for the glinting of certain tools that had been left on the desk and of the cabinet windows across from it. The door to the much larger room beyond, where the patients were kept, had been left ajar.

The shades of the large windows on either side of this room were raised (as was always done at night), and the entire room was bathed in the silvery glow of the near full moon that was shining outside. The patients were resting awkwardly atop their beds, and if one who was not familiar with the nature of the malady which afflicted them were to have seen them now, eyes wide open and bodies frozen in motion, they would have thought them frightening, grotesque. But Snape only felt regret as he looked at them.

With one last look over hisuldeulder and an intake of breath, Snape snuck into the office, closing the door behind him. With much trepidation, he made his way into the hospital room and toward the last bed on the left. He gulped down the guilt and nervousness he was feeling and approached the foot of Hermione Granger’s bed.

With his hands delicately clasped at his waist, his ebony-haired head bowed low, and his straight, penitent posture, he appeared a mourner, the unforgiving black of his clothing and robes contrasting starkly with the pale white of his hands and face.

He hadn’t looked into the face of this student once since their last private meeting together. He was momentarily taken aback by how, due to her being petrified at a terrifying and vulnerable moment, her large eyes appeared to be accusing him and imploring his forgiveness at the same time. It was as if they had never left each other’s side, ais lis last words to her returned to echo painfully in his memory.

‘This abomination will never come to pass… It is wrong and it is unforgivable… I cannot love you and I do not…’

He squeezed his eyes shut in remorse. Though he still held on to the belief that what she had been asking of him was not only inappropriate, but impossible for him to commit to, he did intensely regret the words in which he’d expressed his rejection. He, who was more than familiar with rejection, if in different ways, should have known better than to have said such things to the child; this innocent, lovely little girl who now lay motionless before him, who could neither walk, nor speak, nor most likely even think.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, Miss Granger… Hermione,” he whispered softly to her. “But I have to tell you that I never meant to hurt you, never. I wish I had the courage to say this before, when you could understand me… I hope somehow that you do now, all the same.”

He reached out and gently closed his fingers around those of one of her outstretched hands. Her skin was cold and unyielding, and he did not squeeze her hand due to his absurd fear of breaking it in his. He gazed into her unseeing eyes steadily, pretending that she could hear him.

“I am sorry, Hermione, so very sorry…”

~*~

As the weeks went by with no solution to the riddle of the Chamber of Secrets, Severus Snape continued to visit Hermione Granger in secret once every few days, shrouded in shadow and concealed by nightfall.
As the girl could not communicate with him in any way, he would bring a book along with him and read the entire thing from cover to cover by her side, seated comfortably in one of the well-worn wooden chairs that had been placed next to each bed.

The gnawing guilt he felt at the vile words he had spat at her when last they spoke as well as for her current condition (though he knew he’d had no hand in what the Basilisk had done) brought him to the Infirmary night after night, but his fondness for the child kept him there for hours on end.
He found that just being beside her created a comfortable calm in him that he did not experience with anyone else.

Not one person knew of his clandestine meetings (for they could not be called ‘their’ meetings, as one of the two was not aware of the other’s presence) in the Infirmary, but still he took every precaution when undertaking them.

One temperate night during mid-spring, Severus looked up from his reading with a weary sigh, realizing with irritation that he was far too tired to finish ‘The Lord of the Rings’ by J.R.R. Tolkien for the umpteenth time in his life (he preferred the fictional literature of muggles rather than wizards, as the works of the latter tended to be dry and unimaginative. But then, when one lived in a world where nearly anything was possible, what was there left to imagine?). He placed the book on the sterile white night table next to Hermione’s bed and leaned back in his chair, concentrating on relaxing each limb and every muscle in his long, slender body.

After gazing out of the window at the magnificent view of Hogwarts’ surrounding lands at night, the grasses whispering in the soft wind and the pond shimmering in the luminous moonlight, his eyes fell upon the still form of Hermione. She had been in the same clothes for at least a month now, yet they always looked fresh and unwrinkled. Her hair also seemed to be perpetually clean, despite its stubborn tangles. Idly, he wondered if Pomfrey had been casting regular cleansing charms on the petrified victims. Most likely.

Perhaps it was due to the level of his exhaustion, but the girl’s hair appeared to have grown very long during her stay at the Infirmary. It lay wreathed upon her pillow, its many tendrils curling around her face like golden-brown snakes. The shine of it was almost overwhelming to his eyes, and it looked so soft that he was feeling the most pressing desire to reach out his hand and touch it. The desire was born more out of sheer curiosity than anything else, and he scoffed at himself as he would have at a child who just had to touch everything it saw at a museum.

Eventually, however, the curiosity won out over his sense of propriety, and he allowed one of his hands to slither towards the gleaming mass of Hermione’s hair. He was so cautious in this maneuver that one would have thought the girl’s tresses really were composed of snakes that would bite him if he was not careful in his approach. When at last his hand reached its destination, he was startled by the actual texture of her hair as opposed to what he had thought it would feel like.

It was extremely coarse, rather like wool, and he gripped a thick strand of it softly in his fingers, savoring the feel of it. He had run his hands down many a silky-maned head, including his own, and so his sense of touch was being harshly assaulted by the raw feeling of the child’s waving hair. He found he preferred this texture to that of silk; it was honest and Earthy.

After several moments, he disentangled his fingers from her hair and began to gently stroke it back from her forehead. A smile formed on his lips before he could stop it from spreading.
Unlike most people, Severus Snape tended to genuinely smile only when he was melancholy.

And before he could ree whe what he was doing, let alone stop it, he found himself bent over her bed, his lips softly making contact with the tender spot between her furrowed eyebrows.

He verily flew to the window beside her bed, back turned rigidly from her. For a moment there, it had felt like she were his child. He shuddered.

He had to swallow a painful lump that had manifested in his throat, for it threatened tears, and he could not abide crying. He had stopped doing it long ago, when he was sta yoa youth.

For, looking upon the open, naive countenance of this dear child, he was forced to remember who he had once been, and what he had long since lost.

His innocence.

~*~

They had done it. Those two bloody *children* had done it. They’d found out the location of the Chamber of Secrets, actually ventured inside of it, and defeated the mighty Basilisk, as well as its master, Tom Marvolo Riddle, the preserved teenaged version of Lord Voldemort. Snape couldn’t believe it.

‘At least Lockhart will soon be as absent in body as he now is in his mind.’

Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley were now in the Headmaster’s office, being briefed on their recent adventures in the Chamber. Mcgonagall had opted to join them so she could hear their accounts firsthand.

As for himself, Severus Snape had far more pressing matters to attend to than the briefing of those two meddlesome prats (it mattered not to him that they’d saved tntirntire muggle population of the school from certain death at the hands of a madman and his medieval monster); the Mandrake root had finally matured to the point where it was ready to be administered to the petrified victims. He had to be there when Hermione woke up.

~*~

“You’re alright now, calm down, Miss Clearwater,” Madam Pomfrey was saying to the recently revived Ravenclaw prefect, who had begun to hyperventilate upon her awakening. The poor girl must be very confused, Snape noted. He hoped Hermione would fair better when her turn came.

Snape had slunk into the Infirmary so quietly that it took the Mediwitch nearly five minutes to notice his presence.

“Severus?” she asked, her tone suggesting that she couldn’t believe her eyes. He met her incredulous gaze with a dry sneer. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Does it really matter, Poppy?” He moved to the other side of the oblivious Miss Clearwater’s bed and crossed his arms. “Perhaps I came to assist you.”

He hadn’t bothered to speak convincingly, but even so, Pomfrey had known that her colleague was not one to confess his true intentions to anyone. All the same, she knew that she could really use his help at this moment, for young Colin Creevey, who had seemed to be doing well when she’d awoken him, was now throwing a small hissy fit in his bed across the room, and she had yet to awaken Miss Granger.

“You want to assist me? Then make yourself useful and give this to Miss Granger,” she said brusquely, thrusting a goblet of the concentrated Mandrake root at him. He just managed to grab it in both hands before it fell to the floor, but when he looked up to scowl at Pomfrey, she was already quite busy trying to subdue Mr. Creevey. Snape walked over to his newly acquired charge, clutching her remedy in his hands apprehensively.

‘Do I really want her to be able to speak again?’ Was the thought that flew through his mind. She was so much more pleasant to be around when silent.

During their time apart, he’d discovered that he had grown too accustomed to her friendship to be able to go about his life in content without it, but he’d been selfishly enjoying the comfort a wordless Hermione brought him.

The manner in which she had professed her affection for him was just too frightening for him to have to endure again, and he had a feeling that if he reinitiated their prior relationship, that was just what would eventually occur.

When he really thought about it, though, was he really more afraid of her feelings for him or what he himself would do if she continued to assault him with them?

Before he could come to a proper conclusion on this idea, however, Colin Creevey took that moment to run shrieking from the room, with the Ravenclaw prefect following shortly after. Comely ely overwhelmed by this turn of events, Madam Pomfrey threw up her hands and turned to regard Snape in irritation.

“Get on with it then, boy! Can’t you see I have enough to do right now? I thought you were here to help out, not to hang about!” she shouted as she took after the escaped patients at a pace that was surprising for a witch of her age to be capable of.

That woman would always see him as a teenaged student, no matter how old he got. He shot her departed back a withering sneer before he set the goblet on the night stand and took his familiar seat next to Hermione.

His hands were shaking as he placed one at the base of her skull to raise her head, and gripped her chin with the other to open her mouth. Once her teeth were a sufficient distance apart, he removed his hand from her chin, took the goblet in his fingers and pressed it to her lips, but he paused before tipping it.

‘Now or never, Severus,’ he reprimanded himself. He closed his as as he finally allowed the liquid to slide down the girl’s throat. It was like pouring water down a tube; there were no protestations on her part, nor did she stir.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, beginning to worry. She was just as she had been for the past month and a half; no change had been wrought by the medicine. What if she had been differently affected by the Basilisk’s stare than the other victims? Snape’s heart skipped a beat.

“Miss Granger?” he whispered, his voice infused with tremulous hope. Still, there was nothing. Only those wide, haunting eyes piercing his. Frozen. “Hermione?”

And then she blinked, in so terribly slow a motion that he wasn’t sure he’d seen it at all. He held his breath, keeping his eyes glued to her face. She blinked again, several times in succession and with increasing speed. Her eyes dragged over his face torpidly, focusing on each of his features until they finally halted at his own eyes. gul gulped in air, and he could see the skin over her throat contracting in his peripheral vision.

“P-Professor Snape?” Her voice was very dry from lack of use, and only a bit louder than a whisper.

A long breath, heavy with joyous relief, escaped his parted lips. He nodded and smiled at her widely, the foreign expression completely relaxing his tense features. The crease between his brows disappeared, but thin lines feathered out from the corners of his eyes. He figured that she had never seen him smile thus, for the look on her face suggested she didn’t recognize him.

“Is that you?” she asked in a quavering voice. He chuckled softly, but tried to school his expression back into its accustomed impassivity.

“Yes, Herm—Miss Granger, it’s me.”

“Where am I? What’s going on?” she asked, darting her eyes about in confusion.
But before Snape could respond to her queries, Hermione bolted up in her bed, then swayed with the unfamiliarity of her movements. He put a hand on one of her small shoulders to steady her.

“I have to warn Harry and Ron about the Basilisk! The Chamber—”
Snape held up a firm hand and used the other to push her gently back against her pillow.

“You have been under the Basilisk’s spell for a long time, Miss Granger. The Basilisk as well as the Chamber of Secrets are no more,” he explained to her in a calm voice. “Your two best friends have saved us all from certain destruction once again, and we may all return to our normal lives.”

An exceedingly baffled pair of large brown eyes met his black, placid ones, and he sighed tiredly.

“All will be explained to you later,” he assured her, then fixed her with a grave expression. “But for now, you must rest.”

She nodded absently, her mind still struggling to grasp the facts he had so briefly lain before her. For a long time, the two sat side by side in silence, Snape gazing out of the window, Hermione gazing at him. He finally felt her eyes upon him and turned to face her again, his eyebrows rising as he patiently awaited her inevitable questions.

‘She’s already showing some sparks of her old self; she’ll be back to normal in no time at all. Joy.’

“Professor, were you here the entire time?” she asked simply, honestly. He was taken aback by this; he’d thought that the Basilisk’s frozen victims were completely oblivious to anything and everything that happened to or around them for the entire duration of their petrification. (If he weren’t so reluctant to reveal his friendship with Miss Granger to the general public, he would have taken it upon himself to parade this information to the rather self-confident Madam Pomfrey.)

“Perhaps I was,” he half-admitted to her smoothly, opting to hide how worried he had been for her by feigning nonchalance. The ghost of an uncertain smile floated over her lips.

“So, does that mean that you aren’t angry with me anymore?” There was no pretense in her eyes, though her demeanor was uncertain.

“No, child, I am no longer angry with you.”

Hermione beamed at him; Snape offered her back a shade of a smile.

Well, then. That was all that needed to be said to repair the great, bleeding gashes in their relationship. How tenuous is humanity, indeed. Snape cared not; he had missed her far too much to quibble over trivial differences (as trivial as one’s romantic feelings for another were, in his mind).

Suddenly, Hermione’s features became pensive as she looked at him. He mimicked her expression teasingly, which caused her to giggle. How he had missed that disharmonious sound!

“Forgive me Professor, as I may have only dreamt it, but... did you actually call me by my first name?”

Snape fairly shrank under her penetrating gaze. He wouldn’t have said it if he’d thought she could hear him! ...Or would he have? He cleared his throat and folded hims dms defensively.

“Of course not, Miss Granger, you must have suffered a bit of delirium as a side effect of your petrification.” He rose stiffly, making ready to let her to the solitude of the empty room. “You must be very tired, so I’ll leave you to your rest. I’m, er, glad that you have been revived,” Snape finished clumsily, being well aware of all the other things he could have and so wanted to say to her.

He pivoted on his heel and strode to exit the Infirmary, trying with all his might to ignore the crushed look that he knew adorned the girl’s features. He paused at the door, battling with his split conscience for a tense several seconds. Finally, decision made, he turned his sharp profile back to the bed-ridden child.

“You know I would never dare to call you Hermione,” he said softly, his tone almost playful.

Then he did leave the room, but the sound of her delighted gasp rung pleasantly in his ears all the way back to the dungeonis iis imprisoned heart had finally been breached.

Severus Snape smiled.