Heat, Light and the Properties of Plants

Chapter 19 ...Tears...

Snape still sat, his head in his hands, an aloof and forbidding figure. Hermione timidly touched him on the shoulder. \"Professor Snape?\"

Snape looked up at her from between his fingers. \"Miss Granger.\"

\"Professor - the potion?\"

Snape closed his eyes and sighed deeply. \"Do you remember that night about a month ago when Harry Potter came back to Hogwarts - Nymphadora Tonks had Metamorphmaged him to look more like his mother, Lily?\"

Hermione nodded.

\"Well, that night... \" Snape\'s breathing grew ragged; he steadied it with an effort \"... that night was the first time I\'d ever felt a real emotional connection with a sexual partner... \" There was a long pause. \"I couldn\'t cope with it.\" His voice dropped to a whisper; Hermione could barely hear him. \"And Merlin help me, I still can\'t.\"

He looked up at her. \"He\'s better off without me.\"

\"He\'ll die without you, Professor.\"

Snape shrugged. \"Maybe that would be better, than to live tied to someone like me.\"

\"But he wants to live, and with you,\" Hermione almost shouted. How could Snape be so dense? Couldn\'t he understand how Harry felt about him? \"He wants to please you. He even went to some shady studio in Knockturn Alley to get a naughty wizard photograph done to give you, and believe me, that\'s not like Harry!\"

But Snape scowled at her, unconvinced. \"You mean well, Miss Granger. But you have an overly-romantic view of Potter\'s feelings for me. I\'m sure to him I was nothing more than ... how do you youngsters put it? ... \'a good shag\'. He didn\'t bargain for a lifetime\'s commitment to someone who can\'t respond the way he needs.\"

\"That\'s just not true,\" Hermione said indignantly, furious with the way Snape was twisting things. \"He went to the Silent Witch that night knowing that you might be betraying him, but he still went, and he said ...\"

\"I\'m sure you believe what you\'re telling me,\" interrupted Snape with a sneer, \"but you always did see Potter through rose-tinted spectacles.\"

Hermione could have hit him. \"Why are you so unwilling to believe me?\" she demanded. \"I\'m telling you, you can ask Ron as well if you like. No matter who you are, no matter what you\'ve done, Harry is absolutely besotted with you!\"

Snape stared blackly at her. \"If Harry told me so himself, then maybe ...\" he murmured, then shook his head.

\"But he can\'t, can he!\" Hermione cried in exasperation. \"He\'s unconscious, and he\'s never going to come round unless you finish the potion!\"

Hermione was so frustrated she almost screamed. If only Snape could have seen Harry in the wood by the Silent Witch, telling them that without him he didn\'t want to go on living ... she gasped, an idea striking her.

\"Professor Snape,\" she said urgently. \"Do you still have Professor Dumbledore\'s old Pensieve?\"

*********************

Up in the hospital wing, Harry stirs restlessly in his bed. Ron reaches out and grasps his hand comfortingly.

\"I\'m sure they won\'t be long, mate\" he says, his voice cracking with emotion. \"If anyone can make old Snape cry, it\'s Hermione!\"

He stares sadly out of the window, dusk is gathering outside. Soon it will be dark.

*********************

Hermione and Snape stand confronting each other across the professor\'s desk. Dumbledore\'s old Pensieve stands on the desk top between them. Hermione fixes Snape with a steely glare and touches her wand to her forehead. \"This will show you how Harry feels about you,\" she says, drawing silvery strands of memory away with her wand, and depositing them in the Pensieve.

Snape unwillingly moves closer to the Pensieve, leans over and sinks into its swirling silvery depths. He sees ...

Harry, flushed and attractive, his hair tousled, standing under a tree staring at Hermione and Ron. He seems surprised to see them. He asks them what they are doing there and where the others are.

\"Tonks is at the Ministry of Magic, keeping guard on Draco Malfoy,\" says Hermione. \"He\'s the one who made a Portkey to get us here.\" Ron glares at her. Hermione goes pink. \"And Remus is sleeping off the effects of the new Wolfbane potion, I think we must have made it too strong or something.\"

\"We\'d better check with Snape - \" Harry begins, then stops. A wistful look comes over his face, and he laughs ruefully. \"No, of course, we can\'t. It looks like he lured me here to hand me over to Fenrir Greyback. That\'s what the other Dark wizards in the pub think, anyway.\"

Ron looks horrified. Hermione frowns. \"Are you sure that\'s what he\'s doing?\" she asks. \"I mean, we have been wrong about him before ...\"

\"Thank you for that, Miss Granger,\" Snape murmurs.

\"Oh, I know,\" Harry says. His lips tremble. \"I\'ve been thinking of nothing else. Either he really has betrayed me, or he\'s pretending to, and means to grab Greyback when he comes out of hiding.\"

\"But it\'s really dangerous for you, either way, Harry,\" says Hermione, looking worried. \"Unless Snape\'s got a really good plan to protect you ...\"

Ron snorts. \"The only person he\'ll have a good plan to protect is himself, if you ask me. You\'re expendable, Harry.\"

\"And I won\'t forget that, either, Mr Weasley,\" snarls Snape, scowling blackly.

Harry nods. He looks worried. \"Yes, maybe.\"

\"So what are you going to do?\" asks Hermione.

\"Well, I got here using this - \" Harry picks up his backpack and rummages around until he finds the parchment. \"It showed me how to Apparate to this wood. Here - \" he holds it out to show the others. \"I\'m supposed to wait until there are further instructions - \"

\"You mean like these?\" asks Hermione, pointing to another line of Snape\'s writing taking shape at the bottom of the parchment, faint at first then darkening so it could be read.

Harry leans forward eagerly to read Snape\'s words, his hair tumbling forward over his spectacles. He fixes his brilliant green eyes on the parchment...

\"So what are you going to do?\" Hermione asks again.

\"Simple, really,\" Harry says briskly. He straightens up. A look of determination comes over his face. \"I\'ll go.\"

The others stare at him.

\"And that would be because ... ?\" asks that buffoon of a Weasley.

\"Because I\'m going to trust him. I do trust him, deep down.\" Harry\'s face is serious. \"And if I\'m wrong, and he really has betrayed me, it won\'t matter. Because then I wouldn\'t want to carry on living anyway.\"

Snape gasps, the scowl leaving his face. He looks as if he\'s just been punched in the guts.

Hermione chokes, and hugs Harry tightly. \"Oh, I hope you\'re right about him,\" she whispers.

\"He doesn\'t deserve you,\" says Ron, looking angry. \"Well, we\'re coming with you.\"

\"No,\" Harry says firmly. He looks more determined, and - damn him - noble than Snape has ever seen him. \"He says come alone. And I intend to. If he has got a plan, I\'m not going to spoil it. And if he hasn\'t ... \" his voice falters. \"Well, I don\'t want you two getting caught as well.\"

The memory fades: Hermione gently pulls Professor Snape back from the Pensieve.

\"You see, Professor. You\'re EVERYTHING to him.\"

*********************

Up in the hospital wing Harry lies completely still. Ron leans over him anxiously to check that he\'s still breathing. He can just make out a very faint rise and fall of his chest.

\"Hurry up Hermione,\" Ron mutters to himself. \"He\'s not going to last the night.\" It was so unfair, Harry\'s life depending on that greasy old sod. He, Ron, would willingly provide all the ingredients for the potion himself, but he knew that it wouldn\'t do any good.

He stares out of the window again: it\'s completely dark now, and the stars are starting to come out.

*********************

Snape leant against his desk, taking shallow breaths with a long pause between each one, as if in great pain. Finally he managed to gasp \"Didn\'t - realise - he - felt so -\" He couldn\'t go on.

\"He loves you, Professor.\"

Snape winced and clenched his fists so tightly that the nails dug into his palms and drew blood. He threw his head back, took a long, shuddering breath and gave an animal howl of despair. Then at last the slow, painful tears came: he wept for Harry\'s trust, which might so easily have been misplaced, and for his own long-lost innocence, and for what might have been ...

He bowed his head helplessly over the Pensieve, heaving with harsh sobs, tears trickling down his face and splashing into the silvery depths. Hermione tucked her hand under his elbow and gently steered him over to the chair. As he collapsed into it, she drew a small glass bottle from her robes and pressed it into his hand.

\"You need to do this, Professor,\" she said urgently.

Snape stared up at her, his dark eyes wide with anguish. At first he seemed unable to move; then he slowly reached up, took the little bottle and unstoppered it with one hand. His hand shook as he pressed the neck of the bottle against his cheek to receive his tears.

Hermione tactfully turned her back and busied herself retrieving her memory from the Pensieve. When the sound of Snape\'s harsh sobs ceased she waited another few minutes to allow him to recover his composure, then turned back to him.

\"Er, Professor,\" she said. \"There\'s one more ingredient you need to provide for the potion.\" She blushed.

Snape looked at her.

Hermione reached into her robes and produced another empty glass bottle.

\"Here you are,\" she said, settting it on the desk. \"I\'ll leave you to it. But please, don\'t be too long. He\'s dying.\"

Snape glared at her in a brave attempt to return to normal. \"Are you sure you don\'t want to, ah, hold my hand for the final ingredient, too?\" he sneered.

Hermione refused to take offence. \"No, Professor,\" she said quietly, heading for the door. \"The only person who\'s entitled to do that is lying upstairs in the hospital wing.\"

After she\'d gone, Snape sat staring at the little bottle of tears in his hands. He sighed deeply. He\'d never felt less like wanking in his life.

TBC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>