Beneath the Surface

A/N: Hello readers^_^. I am sorry that this took so long to write and to post, but I was having troubles both with real life and with writer’s block^^;.
Anyway, this chapter doesn’t have much to do with canon, it’s just a reverie of Hermione and Severus together, to show how their relationship is coming along and developing.
However, if I may be so bold, I would now like to ask for help from my ‘audience’ here. Is there anyone out there who has read all of the HP books (or at least up to POA), and could help me out with some plot difficulties here? As anyone who has been reading this fic knows, it is meant to be a re-telling of canon events in my own twisted version of two characters’ points of view. Problem is, I have not yet read POA, and don’t know when I am going to get the time to do so, so I’d love it if someone would like to sign on as sort of a beta for me and just help me develop this story while keeping the original book plots intact. I would be MOST grateful to anyone who would be willing to do so^_^!
In any case, you are all wonderful readers, and most of you have given me very encouraging and helpful reviews, so I thank you immensely for that. It means more than you think it does, trust me! :D
Ok, on with the show, as it were ;D :


Beneath the Surface

Chapter the Seventeenthe: A Yellow Flower and a Red Sunset


“I’ve told you ‘no’ for nearly half a year, you silly girl, what makes you think I’ll change my mind now?” Severus Snape yelled out before slamming and locking---both magically and manually---the door to his chambers. He leaned heavily against it (as if the action would aid in keeping the girl on the other side of the door at bay) and sighed in exhaustion. This routine was really too much for his nerves.

Of course the tenacious girl had found out the location to his private rooms by now. She would have made an excellent spy were she not so guileless and clumsy with her emotions. A true Gryffindor through and through, Hermione Granger was.

As it was, though, he was beginning to feel stalked by her. She was coming to see him almost every other night now. The girl was now nearly halfway through her Third Year! She was far too old to still be playing at this silly conquest of him. He was a *man*, not a boy, and reacted far differently to her juvenile flirtations than would one of her own age.

“Professor, please let me in!” Hermione cajoled from the other side of the door. “I promise I won’t even mention it again.”

‘At least not tonight,’ he mentally scoffed. ‘I know you too well.’
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was developing a throbbing headache.

It was as if everything that had taken place between them within the past year had not occurred at all. As if she had never clumsily confessed her feelings for him and he’d never rejected them flat out. They had never spoken of what had transpired after it had happened, but the silent consensus between them was that it could never happen again. Or, that Hermione must never again allow her heart to show on her sleeve, as the saying went.

He should have known that his efforts to distance himself from the girl this year would be futile once puberty set in. Was he the only one who had remained relatively sane at that age? Most likely so.

“Fine, be that way!” Hermione spat indignantly from the other side of the door. He could visualize her features twisted into a childish pout.

He held his breath and pressed an ear to the oaken door, body tense as he waited. Finally he exhaled the air in his lungs and his body sagged against the harsh wood in relief when the sharp tapping of her footsteps receded from the range of his hearing. She was gone.

‘This is ridiculous. Me, Severus Snape, reduced to a quivering mass of nerves over fear of a teenaged girl! I shame myself.’

Ashamed is what he told himself he was, but amused was what he knew himself to be. Though he’d been the hapless victim of many a student’s crush (that strange term the children used for what had been called ‘puppy love’ in his day), never had he---dare it be said---cared this much for the perpetrator of such a crime.

Yes, he did have feelings for Hermione Granger, but they were not of a romantic nature. He admired her courage, respected her intelligence, and found her unique eccentricities endearing. She was a child he was proud to call his student (if only to himself), and a person he was glad to have befriended.

Of course, he would be lying to himself if he were to deny the existence of an occasional, if fleeting, flare of arousal which enflamed his body whenever the girl drew too near to him or whispered words in too brazen a cadence. He was a human being, a hot-blooded man like so many others in this world; and what man could completely ignore the overtures of so willing a person?

It especially did not help him that the child had metamorphosed over the summer from a frail, skinny little girl of thirteen into a comely, budding young lady. She was still pale and underweight, but the curves of her body had rounded tentatively into the likeness of a woman’s form, and she had gained several inches in height (the top of her head was now level with Snape’s shoulder). Her face had matured as well; the planes of her cheeks had hardened and become more defined, her lips more shapely and full. And, worst of all, an awareness of all this now sparkled in her eyes that had not existed last year. She was gaining more confidence in her own wiles, and this was not good at all for Snape.

“The age of fourteen always does such things to a person,” he reminisced aloud with an air of melancholy.
But Severus was---or had become---a man of honor, and valiantly stood firm against the oftentimes overwhelming determination of his student to coax him into a romantic relationship with her. But whenever the temptation to give in to her, if only the slightest bit, came over him, he had but to turn and look at her and the desire would vanish from his mind.

For, however intelligent and beguiling a creature she could be, Hermione Granger was but a child, slight of form and inexperienced in the ways of adult interaction. When he saw her as she was, the most Severus could make of her stubborn pursuance of him was that it was ‘cute’, and he made next to no efforts to hide this opinion from her.

Much to her chagrin. He chuckled softly to himself.

As Severus Snape pd awd away from the door and strolled to his bedchamber, he reveled smugly in the fact that he, over all of the multitude of students and dozens of staff that populated Hogwarts, was the one person who had captured the heart of Hermione Granger of Gryffindor.

He had to admit to himself that this little crush of hers was amusing, very amusing, indeed.

~*~

“Amusing?” Hermione echoed in disbelief. “You find me *amusing*?!”

This evening, like many others as of late, found the two alone in Snape’s classroom. He was trying to grade parchments while she distracted him with idle chatter. Once again, she had manipulated the subject into that of the dreaded ‘state of our relationship and the direction in which it should be going’, and, as always, Snape had scoffed at her hopes and provoked an argument out of her. Fighting with her was always better than being at her mercy, in his mind. He really couldn’t fathom why he kept agreeing to see the girl. It was certainly a thought which deserved deeper digestion.

Snape put a hand to his lips to muffle a laugh at her expense, but the gesture did nothing to lessen the blow caused by his words. Hermione’s cheeks rouged and her lips trembled with anger. She turned away from him petulantly, emitting an indignant ‘humph’ as she did so. Snape rolled his eyes but decided to indulge her.

“Now, Miss Granger, don’t be that way.” He set aside his quill and turned in his chair, focusing his full attention on her. “Turn around and face me.”

“Why should I?” she asked over her shoulder. “You won’t even call me by my first name. That’s not very friendly of you.”

“Oh, stop being stubborn. It is not proper for a teacher to address his student by their given name, nor for a student to call that teacher by his…or hers,” he put in after receiving a scathing glare from Hermione. “And you know it.”

“Yes, but what about a friend?” She had turned completely around now, her eyes bright and imploring. They moved him not.

“Miss Granger, however much I’d like to waste my time arguing over the same old things with you for the umpteenth time, I have a great deal of work to get done for tomorrow,” Snape said pointedly, glaring down his long nose at her. “Perhaps you’d like to take your leave of your tired, old Professor early tonight.”

“You’re not *that* old!” Hermione exclaimed, venturing closer to him. It was obvious that departing the room was the last thing on her mind at the moment. Snape rose from his desk and made to usher her out, arms slightly outstretched.

“I’m sure you haven’t finished that essay I assigned to your class yet, so---wait a minute,” he crossed his arms and glared down at her with narrowed eyes, her earlier words having just registered in his mind. “‘That old’? Are you implying that I AM old at all?!”

“You said it yourself, Professor,” Hermione started.

“I was making a joke! Forgive me if I’m not up to date on the latest pointless chitchat,” he said, tone dry as a bone, and sneered at Hermione, who, to his irritation, had begun to giggle. “What in Hades is so funny now?”

“You, Professor,” she replied laughingly. “Just you.”

He rolled his eyes and pursed his lips, willing himself not to snap at the girl for her insolence. He’d already paid the price for such carelessness before, and did not wish to invite such punishment upon himself again.

He allowed her to study him for a moment but did not return her gaze, opting to survey his empty classroom. A hot, tingly sensation wrung its way through his body and he knew before looking at her that Hermione was fixing him with ‘that’ expression once again. Sure enough, those warm brown eyes were brimming with adulation when he met them with his own obsidian orbs. The compassion within them was so intense that it made him angry, angry that she would so thoughtlessly look at someone like him that way.

“Get out,” he hissed, his lips barely moving.

Hermione remained still and unruffled; she had received such callous treatment from him many times by this point. She knew it was because her affection was starting to get to him, creeping into the confines of his soul, and he didn’t want it to. She cared not; she would see this through to the very end.

“No.” Her voice was soft, but it resonated. She did not move her eyes from his, and he was too proud to look away no matter how furious with her he became.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” he whispered, the shock in his voice a contrast to the blankness of his facial expression.

“Just what I said,” Hermione answered softly, and with a finality that he hadn’t the strength to counter at that point. She surprised him then by offering forth a small smile, the timidity of which was unlike her at this stage of their friendship.

This unexplainable shyness suffused her movements as she drew closer to him, but this time he did not recoil from her when she stopped just before where he stood. It was with a detached manner that he watched her hand rise carefully, slowly to his face---as if she were dealing with a skittish animal---and begin to ever so gently stroke his lank tresses back from his eyes, tendril by tendril. Her touch was so soft he barely felt it; it was as if the faintest of breezes had blown the hair from his face, rather than the girl’s fingertips.

“There,” she said at last. He realized with a tinge of regret that the hand had been removed from his hair. “Now I can see what you are thinking.” Snape scoffed, but the sound contained only a shade of its usual cruelty.

“How can you tell what one is thinking simply by looking into their face?” he muttered. She had caught him so off guard with her actions that it was difficult for him to remain in his aloof and standoffish persona. His mind felt fuzzy, his thoughts out of focus; all he could decipher through the haze was that this girl shouldn’t be standing so close to him. Why couldn’t he bring himself to move away from her?

“Haven’t you ever heard that old saying, ‘the eyes are the mirrors to the soul’?” Hermione asked. It was apparent by his blank expression that he had not. An airy giggle floated past her lips. “Well, I believe that it is true.”

“How can you believe something so stupid?” Snape’s long-held frustration with the ways of the human race had awakened him from his calm stupor, as if awakening a slumbering dragon from its cave. He raked a hand through his hair roughly, as if to eradicate from his senses the feeling of Hermione’s fingers running through it. Hermione blinked in surprise at this sudden return of her snarky Professor.

“W-what?”

“Don’t stammer at me, girl, you know what we’re discussing here,” Snape began in his harsh, lecturing tone. “Some people are far too skilled in the art of deception for someone like yourself to be able to read their true emotions off of their faces like words in the pages of an open book. It’s practically impossible.”

“I’m going to choose to ignore that ‘someone like yourself’ remark,” Hermione started, her stance and tone rigid with the now familiar suspicion and affront he tended to provoke in her. “But I must ask you why you feel
this bizarre need to hide yourself even from the people who care about you! It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, it wouldn’t, to someone like yourself,” he said again with a withering sneer, openly mocking her. But instead of storming off in a huff like she knew he’d expected her to do, Hermione refused to be cowed by him in the way he intimidated everyone else. She decided to shock him into silence---the way she liked to deal with him---by doing something that would be, by his moralistic standards, appalling.

“Professor, would you like to go out for a walk with me?” she asked softly, a mysterious sparkle in her eyes. He gaped for a momenhen hen buried his hands in his thick, inky hair. He would not even try to decipher the girl’s logic at this point.

“And why would I want to do that with you?” he intoned dryly. “Do you have any idea of what time it is, you silly girl?”

Hermione grimaced at the name, but was determined to get her way. She forced a bright smile onto her lips, an energetic gleam to her eyes.

“Of course I do, Professor. It’s only eight o’clock,” she replied blithely. “Don’t you know that twilight is the most peaceful time to be outside? Especially around here. Just look through that window there! How can we not take advantage of the gift of such a beautiful landscape when it is presented so welcomingly before us? I’m not sure if I believe in any God or not, but one has to think twice when gazing upon the miraculous splendor of---”

“Alright, alright!” Snape threw up his hands in defeat. “We’ll take your bloody walk, but then I don’t want to see your face around here for at least a week afterwards!”

“Of course, Professor,” Hermione acceded, barely being able to contain the laughter from creeping into her voice. As he had done many other times during their acquaintanceship---much to the surprise of himself more than to anyone else, were they to know of them---he opted to ignore her teasing.

He rose wearily from his seat and led his excited student through several twists and turns in the dungeon hallways (all the while praying fervently tha mem member of his house saw the two together) until they finally reached a small, fairly inconspicuous wooden door that had been inlaid into the stone of the castle. He knew that it lead to one of Howgwarts’ many courtyards, but, due to its location in the school, had become overgrown and somewhat wild from lack of upkeep and patronage. He had spent hours of his youth reading books under its shady trees or simply lying down and thinking on an expanse of its soft, lush grasses. The place had once been vspecspecial to him, and he briefly wondered why he was taking Hermione here.

When Snape wrenched the rusting door open, it appeared that the garden hadn’t changed a fraction since his last visit there, as if a limit to how dense it was allowed to become had been placed upon it. A gentle gust of fresh air from the doorway wafted over their faces and ruffled their hair; a stark difference from the castle’s stuffier atmospheric conditions. One would think that the small courtyard was welcoming them into its gnarled, outstretched arms.

Snape sniffed in the breeze hungrily, eyes closed, and pretended to ignore Hermione’s deep intake and then exhalation of breath as he preceded her outside. She was the one who had insisted upon this evening trek, he saw no reason to extend any politeness towards her.

However, Hermione seemed not to notice his lax in courtesy, so taken were her senses by the graceful swaying of the branches, the musical chirping of the crickets, and the deep blues, purples and magentas of the celestial coat that the sky had decided to don for that evening. There were no stars; only blue wisps of clouds streaked the darkening sky to decorate it.

It was the most beautiful sight Hermione had ever seen, and she silently thanked nature for her graciousness in providing it for her. And for Snape.

Snape. She looked around for him, as she had completely forgotten his presence for the last few moments. There he was, perched almost comfortably upon an ancient, intricately carved, white stone bench. Though from what she could make out in the encroaching darkness, his expression was uncommonly serene, there was a heavy sadness which clung to his posture and weighed down his figure. He was like a solitary black storm cloud in the center of a sunny sky, but he could not rain down his troubles. Hermione stalked closer to him, not wishing to disturb whatever solitude he may have been experiencing at that moment.

“You’re not walking, Professor,” she whispered, a touch of mirth in her tone. He smiled, but did not face her.

“I’m very tired, Hermione,” he murmured. “Forgive me.”

Hermione’s heart stopped dead in her chest for a full three seconds; Severus Snape had just spoken her given name for the second time, and this time she was sure she wasn’t mistaken. She knew that anything that she could possibly say regarding that ‘slip-up’ would not be tolerated well by him, so she decided to file it away in her memory for obsessing over later.

She stood there for several long moments as he sat still as a statue on the bench, observing him without using her eyes. With her head turned towards the ground, she happened to notice that some small yellow flowers were blooming in various patterns around the garden. They were the only species of flora that were visible to the naked eye in the small tyartyard, and were all the brighter and cheerier for that reason.

Hermione got an idea just then, one of those that come to you without truly thinking them through, and leaned over to carefully grasp a handful of the little yellow blossoms tightly in her palm. Quietly, she stepped over to where her Professor was sitting and stood next to him, not daring to take a seat beside the imposing man. She reached out a small, cautious hand, and placed it so gently upon his shoulder that he wasn’t quite sure he felt anything at all. Snape remained motionless when she bent in close to his ear, but he did feel the coarse tendrils of her hair brushing against the shell of his ear and collar as she did so.

“Here.”

The word had been whispered so softly, he could only hear her because her lips were right beside his ear. Her breath tickled him, and for a moment he yearned for those soft lips to draw closer to him, to make contact. He turned to reach out a hand to her, but felt only the tips of her ragged tresses graze his fingertips as she flew from him. In a far corner of his mind, the sound of the old, rusty door creaking shut registered.

She was gone. He curled his long fingers tightly, frustrated and confused.

And then stilled immediately. There was something frail and soft in his right hand, and he was grasping it. He knew that if he gripped his fists any tighter, whatever it was would crush and fall away to the ground. Slowly, ever so slowly, he inclined his head downwards to look at his hand and see whatever object was clutched within it.

Flowers. He was holding little yellow flowers. He hadn’t touched or even noticed a flower in… oh, not for years now. Such a very long time ago. He should let go of them, let them fall to the ground and into the dirt from whence they came, forget about them. But seconds, minutes, hours passed by, and he didn’t let them go.

Hermione had given him little yellow flowers, and Severus was crying as he held them in his hand.