Understanding

Understanding
Chapter Nineteen:
Taking Over Me

****I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you
But who can decide what they dream?
And dream I do
I believe in you
I'll give up everything just to find you
I have to be you
To live, to breathe
You're taking over me
Have you forgotten all I know and all we had?
You saw me mourning my love for you
And touched my hand
I knew you loved me then
I look in the mirror and see your face
If I look deep enough
So many things inside
That are just like you, are taking over me
I believe in you
I'll give up everything just to find you
I have to be you
To live, to breathe
You're taking over me****


I woke up at six o'clock in the morning with a burning need to use the bathroom.

Ooh. Bad choice of words. Yuck, actually.

Rolling to the edge of the bed, I began to sneak through the bedroom as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake Severus. However, as I glanced at the bed, I noticed he wasn't there.

God help me, Severus, if you are in the bathroom I'm going to pee on the floor!

But he wasn't in the bathroom, nor anywhere else in my house. Slipping back to my bedroom, I hastily pulled pajama pants and an over-sized t-shirt, all the while thinking of a million and twelve excuses why Severus wasn't there.

He'd tried to make me breakfast but there wasn't enough food in the house. He'd gone to buy eggs and probably some flowers for me.

He'd forgotten to tell me there was a staff meeting this morning.

He had a nagging sensation that he'd cauldron bubbling.

Making my way into the sitting room, I began to cry as I saw the roses he'd brought for me still filling every nook and cranny of the room.

Don't cry, Hermione. He's not gone for good. He can't be.

But no matter what I told myself, I could not convince myself that he would be returning. I sat there on the couch, in the middle of the virtual garden he'd conjured for me, looking out the window all morning like a dog awaiting its master's return. I perked up every time a car passed even though I knew he couldn't drive.

The morning turned to afternoon and the afternoon to evening, and by night I admitted what I'd known all along- he wouldn't be coming back. On a tearful whim, I summoned an owl. Composing a rather emotional, disjointed letter, I begged him to come back to me. I promised I'd change whatever I'd done wrong. I told him I loved him and that I would love him forever. I swore up and down that I wasn't mad at him and that if he would just come back everything would be fine. I told him there was no one else in the world for me and that I would die without him.

Sending the owl off, I made it very clear to the bird that he was not to return without a response. He was to make sure that Severus read the letter and replied. The bird had nodded its acknowledgement and sqwacked when I denied it its treat until it returned. Within an hour the bird had returned to my house, but attached to its leg was none other than the letter I'd written, unopened and unread. I shut the window violently and really didn't care that the stupid dirty animal hadn't been rewarded for its efforts.

I guess in a way I had received my response from Severus.

My life went on as though nothing had happened, and though time passed agonizingly slowly, it passed surely enough. I had tried to contact Severus several times more, but each and every time the owl came back with my note still attached to his leg. After a few weeks I gave up. None of the owls in the neighborhood wanted to take my letters anyway. Seems I'd developed a rotten reputation withing the owl community.

There was no point setting myself up for heartache. Severus didn't love me. I would just have to get used to that fact.

It wasn't as if Severus' unexpected and abrupt departure had surprised me. Don't get me wrong, I was heart-broken, miserable, and pitiable, but on some instinctual level, I wasn't surprised. I had learned long ago that Severus was not the world's most stable man, but like the silly girl I knew I still was, I had believed that I could make him happy.

I had always thought that girls who tried to change men were stupid and selfish, but that was exactly what I had been doing with Severus. By nature, Severus was a miserable creature, and by trying to make him smile and feel loved for once I had sunk to the level of girls who make their boyfriends wear khaki pants and button-down shirts. Of course Severus wouldn't want to stay with me. Who wants to live a life when they can't be themself? And Severus, hands-down the least cheerful person I'd ever met, would certainly never be happy being...

Well... happy, I guess.

No, I wasn't surprised by Severus' departure.

I was devastated.

For the first time I knew all was lost for me, and I was resigned to the fact. I was depressed and apathetic. I stayed up all night and slept all day. I rarely remembered to eat, and when I did, I could not keep anything down. Regrettably, it was even rarer that I remembered to feed Crookshanks, so he'd taken to going outside and hunting for his dinners. I had not changed out of my pajamas since the day Severus left almost a month ago, and I had not listened to anything but sad love songs for just as long. In those weeks, I didn't even pick up a book to read.

In fact, the only thing I read during those awful weeks were the horrible threats from Malfoy. Each one was more crude, lewd, and threatening than the last, but instead of terrifying me as the first ones had, they were simply bits of parchment which served as distraction for the thirty seconds it took me to read them. I suppose the threat of Draco Malfoy was nothing to me since I had no one and nothing to live for. He wasn't a particularly good terrorist, as I was in no way scared of him.

He should have checked if I wanted to live before threatening to take that life away.

***********
Returning to Hogwarts was not exactly the happiest point of my life. It did not help that Minerva had cornered me the moment she'd first laid eyes on me that day, asking what happened with Hermione and wasn't I happy? She backed away immediately as I snarled at her, and I honestly think that for the first time since we'd been colleagues, Minerva was actually scared of me.

I stormed to the dungeons and barricaded myself in my rooms, drinking myself into a stupor. What had I done? The only woman who had ever loved me, and I'd gone and fucked it up again! It was becoming a pattern!

But I had had my reasons. I'm sure it would hurt more later when she abandoned me. It would hurt more if we had been together for years, if I'd asked her to be my wife, if she'd had my children. It would definitely be worse then. It would definitely hurt more then.

Drunk by eight in the morning, I passed out around midday only to be awoken by the wretched tapping against my window by a very frazzled looking bird. I opened the window immediately (well, as soon as I could stumble toward it) and allowed the bird entrance. My stomach turned as I saw the familiar handwriting on the front of the parchment.

Hermione.

With shaking hands I retrieved the note from the bird's leg. Slowly, I unrolled it, and as I read tears once again coursed down my face.

Severus,
I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you leave. Please come back. You are the only man I'll ever love- you're the only man I've ever let touch me. Please. Whatever I did, I'm sorry. I love you, and I always will. I have meant every single word I've said to you. Everything I told you while you were recuperating, every word I sang for you. Please, please just come back. If you do, I won't ask any questions, I won't be mad. Just please, Severus, please, come back to me. You're all I have, and without you I will die. Please, Severus. I love you.
Love Always,
Hermione

Closing my eyes against all of the conflicting emotions in my head, I re-folded the letter and resealed it magically. Attaching it to the bird's leg once again, I sent him off, knowing that Hermione would hate me after that, and that's how it would be best. Hermione did not belong with me. She deserved much better, and just because she didn't know any better, I should not allow her to throw herself away on me. It was as much for her own good as it was for mine.

And somehow, no matter how many times I repeated that line, I could never convince myself of its validity.

But my little plan backfired. Hermione did not hate me. In fact, for the next few weeks, I received many more owls, each one more plaintive and desperate than the last. It took all my strength not to go to her, but I maintained that it was the right thing to do.

The ones who suffered most from my emotional tailspin were the students. I deducted House Points like it was going out of style. Ten points just for being Gryffindor. Twenty for sitting in Hermione's seat. Fifteen for getting an answer wrong that Hermione would have known. I made one Ravenclaw cry after ridiculing her mercilessly. There was no real reason except that she'd mentioned she liked the band whose songs Hermione had sung to me.

My behavior had, of course, been noticed by my peers, but no one had the balls to say anything to me. Dumbledore was steering clear of me with a very "I-told-you-so" kind of look on his face, though I hadn't told him what had happened. McGonagall had tried to talk to me a few times, but each time I actually growled at her. She backed down those times which is why I was surprised to see her storm into my office one day in early October, face red with fury.

"I want to know what happened with you and Hermione," she demanded. I simply glowered at her and continued marking the essays I had spread out in front of me, ignoring her completely.

"Severus, look at me! We've been worried about her. You know she was one of Malfoys targets! We've had surveillance on her since her birthday, and she hasn't left the house once! What happened?"

"I don't believe that is any of your business," I stated coolly, not even looking up from the crap my second years had turned in. Suddenly, Minerva's fist slammed into the middle of my desk, startling me and causing me to look up at her.

"Severus Snape, you will not do this to Hermione, me, or yourself! I know you left her- there is no way she would have kicked you out! What the hell is your problem? That girl is in love with you, and it scares the shit out of you! Stop being such an uptight arsehole and go back to her!"

I had stood during her tirade, suddenly furious.

"You know nothing about it, McGonagall! Get the fuck out of my sight!"

"You love hSeveSeverus- I know it! Get the fuck out of my sight, and go tell Hermione you love her! Go tell her you need her! Go and fuck her senseless! Do what you need to, but do it soon! She is not in the right state of mind to deal with abandonment. Do you want to be the one responsible if she hurts herself? Do you want to have her blood on your hands?"

"That is out of line, Minerva!" I growled. Sadly, I was so defensive since that had been my deepest fear all along. I knew Hermione was not in the best place mentally, but I really doubted she would hurt herself. But, as has been illustrated previously, I have been known to make poor judgement calls.

"Maybe it is, but know that I will hold you personally responsible if anything happens to that girl. And if you don't go back to her on your knees grovelling and begging for forgiveness, you're a bigger idiot than I ever imagined!"

And with that, she stalked out of my office without a backward glance.

***********A/N*************
Thanks everyone! I'll write personal notes w/ the next chapter since this is a super-fast update! You rock!