Disguised Affections
folder
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Snape/Hermione
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
27
Views:
25,549
Reviews:
144
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
1
Category:
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female › Snape/Hermione
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
27
Views:
25,549
Reviews:
144
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
1
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter Eighteen
A/N: Here's chapter eighteen. I hope you guys like it.
I wanna leave a shout out to MollysSister from whom I stole the phrasing about spies reaching for the light, but being forced to wallow in darkness. It was too good! Thanks for the inspiration, ma'am!
Constantine stared at the vial in his hand. It would be madness to drink it.
His thumb traced down the glass side, considering. But it might contain the answers for which he was searching, and there was no doubt that with Lucius Malfoy, forewarned was forearmed.
He hadn’t seen Hermione since he had left her bound on the floor of the Potions lab the day before. Regret tinged his mind as he thought of her with her horrible hair and her sweet mouth. Of the paths laid before him, none of them led back to her. In fact, one led to Azkaban and one led to death. He wasn’t sure which he’d prefer at this point, knowing what he knew about himself, and missing Hermione so much that it was as if there was nothing but packed wool where his heart used to be.
No. Con had to face Malfoy, and to go in half-cocked with a gaping hole in his brain was foolhardy.
Carefully, he removed the stopper from the enhanced Wit-Sharpening Potion. He’d run though some careful Arithmantic calculations last night, and there was a 76 percent chance that this potion would provide the push his brain needed to access the rest of his memories. There was also a 7 percent chance that they had misformulated the recipe in such a way to cause uncontrollable vomiting, headache, and in extreme cases, death.
Well, he knew that taking on Malfoy wasn’t without risk, and this was the first battle in the war he’d declared. Bottoms up, he thought, and tossed back the potion.
Nothing happened.
Con sat on the floor in the greenhouse, worried that he’d lose his equilibrium and would fall. It was cold. And hard. He shifted, uncomfortable. The bones in his bum felt bruised from the flagstone tiles. His stomach gurgled, and he wondered if this was the initial onslaught of nausea that proved he was suffering from a misformulation in the recipe.
No, just hunger, he decided. Con hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before.
Three minutes passed, and leaned back against the tree that had grown into the walls of Greenhouse Eleven. Maybe his body just had to metabolize it before…
There it is.
The feeling was akin to Apparition, only instead of his body being forced through an invisible tube, it was his brain that was squeezed. And the tube wasn’t invisible, it was full of light. Only it wasn’t really light, it was shocking self and electric awareness. Con fell back on the floor, and let the memories wash over him in a riot of colors and noise and smells and touch. He was…
…sitting on a shabby floor playing with his favorite stuffed bear. Mum had magicked it so that when he spoke to it, it would turn its head and wave its arms. He’d initially found it alarming, but she had just laughed and told him, “Magic is a part of you. Magic is…”
“…a fucking useless waste of time! Can’t do anything proper with it, can you? Go ahead, boy. Twiddle that stick and make gobs of money appear. Make your mum twenty years younger with melon-sized tits. Get me a new job so I’m not sodding spilling my life’s blood at the factory, you twit. When you can do that, I’ll let you practice. Until then, no more foolish wand-waving in this house.” A crash of a glass being thrown against the wall, and the sudden smell of liquor wafted to his nose. His father opened his mouth again and said…
“…You’re a witch, aren’t you?” he asked the pretty red-headed girl. “Lily, I am too! Look!” He showed her the wand his mother had scrimped to buy for him. Her eyes widened in…
…shock. “How could you?” Her beautiful bow mouth was puckered, and tears were forming in her eyes. “You, of all people! I thought you were my friend, but I must have been wrong.” Her face hardened. “No friend would call me that name.”
“Lily, I’m sorry! Please…” he trailed off, feeling helpless. He tugged at his robes where they were still disheveled from the Marauders’ earlier prank.
“No! You leave me alone, Snivellus.” He stretched his hand out to her…
…and it was grasped by Headmaster Dumbledore. “My poor boy, whatever has happened to you?” His twinkling blue eyes were calculating as he looked at the state of his former student. “Come inside, son, and have a lemon drop. I’m sure we can find a solution to your current predicament.” The man reached up to wipe the tears and snot from his face…
…and felt the burn on his wrist, summoning him to the Dark Lord. He put down the glass of Firewhiskey that he’d been using to try and medicate his anger and depression and sent a note via floo to inform Dumbledore that he was being called. He picked up his ebony wand and pressed it to the mark on his arm, Apparating…
…to a house engulfed in writhing flames. He heard a beloved voice scream from the interior. “James! NO!!” He sprinted up the steps and followed the sound of Lily’s voice. He found a tableau out of his nightmares. James Potter lay sprawled like a doll on the floor at the feet of his wife. His eyes were vacant, and his glasses lay broken a half foot away. His dear, childhood friend stood over her lover’s body, fiercely cradling a child to her chest.
“Jusst give me the boy, and I will let you go, Mudblood. What iss this one half-blooded sssspawn to you? Your primitive type is fertile – you can have more babies sssuckling at your dugs in no time.” Voldemort reached out hungrily, his eyes burning with hatred.
“Never!” she hissed.
A flash of green and Lily was falling, falling…
…falling asleep at his desk, grading papers. He was a sour, dried-out stick of a man – teaching Potions to dunderheads who had no interest other than foolish wand-waving and fornication. James Potter’s doppelganger roamed the halls and haunted his Potions class. It was all he could do to keep from blasting Harry into perdition, but then… oh, then… he’d look into his eyes and see nothing but his Lily, the girl who had turned from him and never looked back. His fist clenched…
…as he was once more summoned to the side of Voldemort. The Dark Lord was back, and with a disgust that was so real it was nearly tangible, he slunk back to the side of his former Master, playing loyal Death Eater while he spied for Dumbledore. More death, more victims, more mayhem. It unspooled before him in a never-ending torment of innocent eyes, lovers clutching each other tightly in fear, and bawling children. Two and a half blood-drenched years passed until…
…until Voldemort collapsed with Potter’s wand pointed at his back. He’d exposed himself as a spy – a sacrifice for the cause, in order to give the boy a fair chance at the Dark Lord. He’d fully expected to die. He’s wanted it, really. He would have nothing left to live for after this was over. His debt to Lily had been repaid.
The hissing “Crucio” had covered him like fire wreathing his flesh, the pain so intense that he’d screamed until he’d voided his bowels and pissed himself. And then it stopped, leaving a wide-eyed Potter victorious and him lying on the ground in a pile of his own shit.
He blinked and opened his eyes. Cursing, Severus Snape stood up.
Hermione was incredibly worried about Constantine. Oh, she was furious, too. He’d left her on the floor with her shirt and bra gaping open, trussed up like a Christmas turkey. She’d expected the spell to wear off or at least weaken over time, allowing her to reach the wand holster strapped to the side of her thigh. But she’d never gotten the opportunity to test her theory because shortly after Con left, Slughorn had entered.
The pudgy, elderly teacher’s mouth had gaped open and shut like a fish while he stared at the half-naked young witch with perky assets for an entirely inappropriate length of time.
“Professor Slughorn, if you please,” she’d bitten off. Hermione put herself to rights as soon as he’d freed her from her bonds. Bitterly, she remembered that instead of magicking her bonds off, he’d taken the time to untie them with his sweaty hands.
It was twelve hours later now, and she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of Con’s shiny black head. Hermione didn’t know where he’d slept because he hadn’t curled around her last night like a parenthesis on the end of her thought, and Harry and Ron both said he hadn’t slept in his bed in the boys’ dorm. She sighed.
It was close now. She could feel it. The end was coming with all the implacability of death. It stalked her on silent paws, and Hermione was afraid. Con had unraveled in front of her, and her silence on his identity was no longer an option. Initially, although it had been selfish, keeping his secret quiet hadn’t been malicious. The thought of losing him had caused her to act only in her own interests, and she knew now that it was destroying him to know only the worst part of himself.
He saw all the evil and none of the good. Con remembered killing an innocent child, but didn’t remember all the times he’d passed information to the Order that saved lives. He didn’t know that as a spy, although he’d longed for the light, his position had caused him to wallow in the darkness.
Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. She’d done him a grave disservice by allowing him to sleep with her. When he regained his memories, he’d have to add sleeping with a student to the list of wrongs that he considered himself to have committed. Hermione knew him well, and he was not the type of wizard who would grant himself absolution for such a paltry thing as missing his memory. Sobbing now, she hung her head, and began to plan how to make it right – even if making it right precluded them being together in the end.
She took out a scrap of parchment and a quill. Dipping it into the inkwell on her desk, she carefully wrote:
How to Help Constantine Prince/Severus Snape:
1. Tell him the truth.
2. Apologize profusely.
3. …
She chewed on the edge of her quill, getting a tiny splotch of ink in the corner of her mouth. There was something she was missing, something obvious. Twining one curl around her finger, she admitted to herself that she was ashamed she had let her brain go to sleep while sunk arse-deep into her relationship with Con.
What was the common thread? What was the motivation? Her gaze sharpened suddenly. Yes, what was the motivation?
Why had Dumbledore decided to hide Severus Snape amongst the seventh-years?
Why had Dumbledore lied (well, obfuscated) when asked if Con was related to Professor Snape?
Why, when confronted with their relationship during the conference with Slughorn, hadn’t Dumbledore called an end to it? He had known it was an inappropriate relationship and had turned a blind eye to a professor screwing a student!
Something was happening that was far bigger than either Hermione or Severus, and she was determined to find out what.
3. Confront Headmaster.
As she was pondering further points to add to her list, she heard a soft knock on the door to her common room. She groaned and pushed back her chair, tucking her quill into her hair.
Professor McGonagall stood at her door. The woman’s face was severe, and made more so by the severe bun knotted at the nape of her neck. Her green eyes flicked quickly around the room as if to ensure that she was truly alone before she thrust a parchment at the girl. It was sealed with the wax emblem of St. Mungos.
“Headmaster Dumbledore asked me to give this to you, Hermione. He just received it, and the communiqué that came with it said it was quite urgent.”
The girl opened the envelope, and despite every dark thought currently weighing upon her, she laughed. Smiling at her professor, she said, “St. Mungos has accepted our request for them to do clinical tests on our modified Wit-Sharpening Potion. They think it has great potential.” She scanned the contents again. “Oh, but they need samples before five o’clock today.” Biting her lip, she glanced at the clock. “That’s in forty-five minutes. Thank you so much for delivering this to me, Professor, but I must run if I want to make it in time!”
Professor McGonagall’s eyes softened marginally. “Congratulations, my dear.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
Severus looked down at his skinny, twenty-something year old body and grimaced. “Lord, I was never attractive, was I?” He ran a palm over his face, feeling infinitely older than his thirty-eight years. He felt more centered now that his memories were back, understanding that everything he had done was for a purpose.
He was still a scarred husk of a man – no good for anyone, but at least he had the consolation of knowing that he wasn’t irreparably evil. He’d seen the error of his ways and turned back to the light, but not before…
…Well, not before committing more than one Unforgiveable.
Oh gods, Hermione, he thought suddenly. She has no idea she’s been fucking her Potions professor. Severus thought for a moment, extrapolating how she would react if he approached her and revealed himself to be her lover. He envisioned her lovely face paling as the gorge rose in her throat – the horror she’d try to mask behind those clever amber eyes as she remembered every sick and perverted thing he had done to her body. Would she pity him, the lovesick fool that he was?
Because, gods damn him, he still loved and wanted her. More than anything. His memories of that girl and her kind, undemanding love were the only good memories he had in a lifetime of darkness. The light that shone off his affection for the curly-haired Gryffindor cast an illuminating light on his obsession with Lily. Was he willing to debase himself to Hermione in the hopes that she might one day return his affections? Would he grovel?
Absolutely.
However.
However.
Was it right to allow Hermione to shackle herself to a bitter, much older wizard? Severus’s mouth twisted in pain when he thought of his lovely girl wasting any of her potential. Surely she would be better off without him.
He thought about her in the arms of Potter or Weasel and felt ill.
No, nothing had really changed substantially for him despite his three month residence in the Gryffindor (Gryffindor!!) boys’ dormitory. He was still alone, teaching idiots who were just as likely to put out an eye with a stirring rod than actually use it in a potion. Dumbledore was still a manipulative bastard.
Dumbledore, his lip curled. What had he hoped to gain from such an idiotic move? Giving him a name like Constantine Prince was as good as hanging an enormous flashing sign above his head that only Malfoy could see. The headmaster hadn’t changed his appearance except to make him younger. He hadn’t sent him to the Americas.
The bastard had set him up as a lure for Lucius.
Severus snorted. Dumbledore must be getting senile. He clearly hadn’t anticipated Snape getting his memories back before he hared off and killed Malfoy.
Now that he finally realized that he hadn’t been a Death Eater by choice in many years, the Potions master had no intention of further fracturing his soul with murder. The gods knew that it was already cobbled together with dust and old feathers and spit, and one more heavy blow would cause it to fall into its component parts.
No, Lucius was a sociopath. It wouldn’t be long before he broke and committed another sin that he would be unable to keep hidden, exposing the ugly canker of his soul to the Wizarding World. And he knew for a fact that the famous Malfoy fortune was already stretched nearly to the breaking point, having been funneled directly to Voldemort during the second Vold-War.
Severus smirked, and then his face fell. To the best of his knowledge, Hermione Granger was the only victim who’d ever been able to walk away from Lucius Malfoy. After himself, she was probably the person the pureblood most wanted to kill.
Hermione delivered the container of the modified Wit-Sharpening Potion to St. Mungos’ Research and Development facility. She’d had to apologize profusely when she realized she only had twenty-nine vials when the specifications they’d sent had stipulated thirty, but in the end they had been civil enough.
She walked down Diagon Alley and debated stopping in Flourish & Blotts. She knew that the newest volume of Ars Alchemica had just come out and that Con, no Severus, would be interested. Although she doubted he would be interested in sharing a friendly discussion on the journal once he realized the extent of her perfidy. Biting her lip, she sniffled slightly and remembered the way he liked to bury his face in her neck and breathe deeply as they were preparing to go to sleep for the night.
Hermione was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t put up a fight when Lucius Malfoy wrapped his arms around her from behind and Apparated away.
A/N: Like it, love it, hate it, review it!!
I wanna leave a shout out to MollysSister from whom I stole the phrasing about spies reaching for the light, but being forced to wallow in darkness. It was too good! Thanks for the inspiration, ma'am!
Constantine stared at the vial in his hand. It would be madness to drink it.
His thumb traced down the glass side, considering. But it might contain the answers for which he was searching, and there was no doubt that with Lucius Malfoy, forewarned was forearmed.
He hadn’t seen Hermione since he had left her bound on the floor of the Potions lab the day before. Regret tinged his mind as he thought of her with her horrible hair and her sweet mouth. Of the paths laid before him, none of them led back to her. In fact, one led to Azkaban and one led to death. He wasn’t sure which he’d prefer at this point, knowing what he knew about himself, and missing Hermione so much that it was as if there was nothing but packed wool where his heart used to be.
No. Con had to face Malfoy, and to go in half-cocked with a gaping hole in his brain was foolhardy.
Carefully, he removed the stopper from the enhanced Wit-Sharpening Potion. He’d run though some careful Arithmantic calculations last night, and there was a 76 percent chance that this potion would provide the push his brain needed to access the rest of his memories. There was also a 7 percent chance that they had misformulated the recipe in such a way to cause uncontrollable vomiting, headache, and in extreme cases, death.
Well, he knew that taking on Malfoy wasn’t without risk, and this was the first battle in the war he’d declared. Bottoms up, he thought, and tossed back the potion.
Nothing happened.
Con sat on the floor in the greenhouse, worried that he’d lose his equilibrium and would fall. It was cold. And hard. He shifted, uncomfortable. The bones in his bum felt bruised from the flagstone tiles. His stomach gurgled, and he wondered if this was the initial onslaught of nausea that proved he was suffering from a misformulation in the recipe.
No, just hunger, he decided. Con hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before.
Three minutes passed, and leaned back against the tree that had grown into the walls of Greenhouse Eleven. Maybe his body just had to metabolize it before…
There it is.
The feeling was akin to Apparition, only instead of his body being forced through an invisible tube, it was his brain that was squeezed. And the tube wasn’t invisible, it was full of light. Only it wasn’t really light, it was shocking self and electric awareness. Con fell back on the floor, and let the memories wash over him in a riot of colors and noise and smells and touch. He was…
…sitting on a shabby floor playing with his favorite stuffed bear. Mum had magicked it so that when he spoke to it, it would turn its head and wave its arms. He’d initially found it alarming, but she had just laughed and told him, “Magic is a part of you. Magic is…”
“…a fucking useless waste of time! Can’t do anything proper with it, can you? Go ahead, boy. Twiddle that stick and make gobs of money appear. Make your mum twenty years younger with melon-sized tits. Get me a new job so I’m not sodding spilling my life’s blood at the factory, you twit. When you can do that, I’ll let you practice. Until then, no more foolish wand-waving in this house.” A crash of a glass being thrown against the wall, and the sudden smell of liquor wafted to his nose. His father opened his mouth again and said…
“…You’re a witch, aren’t you?” he asked the pretty red-headed girl. “Lily, I am too! Look!” He showed her the wand his mother had scrimped to buy for him. Her eyes widened in…
…shock. “How could you?” Her beautiful bow mouth was puckered, and tears were forming in her eyes. “You, of all people! I thought you were my friend, but I must have been wrong.” Her face hardened. “No friend would call me that name.”
“Lily, I’m sorry! Please…” he trailed off, feeling helpless. He tugged at his robes where they were still disheveled from the Marauders’ earlier prank.
“No! You leave me alone, Snivellus.” He stretched his hand out to her…
…and it was grasped by Headmaster Dumbledore. “My poor boy, whatever has happened to you?” His twinkling blue eyes were calculating as he looked at the state of his former student. “Come inside, son, and have a lemon drop. I’m sure we can find a solution to your current predicament.” The man reached up to wipe the tears and snot from his face…
…and felt the burn on his wrist, summoning him to the Dark Lord. He put down the glass of Firewhiskey that he’d been using to try and medicate his anger and depression and sent a note via floo to inform Dumbledore that he was being called. He picked up his ebony wand and pressed it to the mark on his arm, Apparating…
…to a house engulfed in writhing flames. He heard a beloved voice scream from the interior. “James! NO!!” He sprinted up the steps and followed the sound of Lily’s voice. He found a tableau out of his nightmares. James Potter lay sprawled like a doll on the floor at the feet of his wife. His eyes were vacant, and his glasses lay broken a half foot away. His dear, childhood friend stood over her lover’s body, fiercely cradling a child to her chest.
“Jusst give me the boy, and I will let you go, Mudblood. What iss this one half-blooded sssspawn to you? Your primitive type is fertile – you can have more babies sssuckling at your dugs in no time.” Voldemort reached out hungrily, his eyes burning with hatred.
“Never!” she hissed.
A flash of green and Lily was falling, falling…
…falling asleep at his desk, grading papers. He was a sour, dried-out stick of a man – teaching Potions to dunderheads who had no interest other than foolish wand-waving and fornication. James Potter’s doppelganger roamed the halls and haunted his Potions class. It was all he could do to keep from blasting Harry into perdition, but then… oh, then… he’d look into his eyes and see nothing but his Lily, the girl who had turned from him and never looked back. His fist clenched…
…as he was once more summoned to the side of Voldemort. The Dark Lord was back, and with a disgust that was so real it was nearly tangible, he slunk back to the side of his former Master, playing loyal Death Eater while he spied for Dumbledore. More death, more victims, more mayhem. It unspooled before him in a never-ending torment of innocent eyes, lovers clutching each other tightly in fear, and bawling children. Two and a half blood-drenched years passed until…
…until Voldemort collapsed with Potter’s wand pointed at his back. He’d exposed himself as a spy – a sacrifice for the cause, in order to give the boy a fair chance at the Dark Lord. He’d fully expected to die. He’s wanted it, really. He would have nothing left to live for after this was over. His debt to Lily had been repaid.
The hissing “Crucio” had covered him like fire wreathing his flesh, the pain so intense that he’d screamed until he’d voided his bowels and pissed himself. And then it stopped, leaving a wide-eyed Potter victorious and him lying on the ground in a pile of his own shit.
He blinked and opened his eyes. Cursing, Severus Snape stood up.
Hermione was incredibly worried about Constantine. Oh, she was furious, too. He’d left her on the floor with her shirt and bra gaping open, trussed up like a Christmas turkey. She’d expected the spell to wear off or at least weaken over time, allowing her to reach the wand holster strapped to the side of her thigh. But she’d never gotten the opportunity to test her theory because shortly after Con left, Slughorn had entered.
The pudgy, elderly teacher’s mouth had gaped open and shut like a fish while he stared at the half-naked young witch with perky assets for an entirely inappropriate length of time.
“Professor Slughorn, if you please,” she’d bitten off. Hermione put herself to rights as soon as he’d freed her from her bonds. Bitterly, she remembered that instead of magicking her bonds off, he’d taken the time to untie them with his sweaty hands.
It was twelve hours later now, and she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of Con’s shiny black head. Hermione didn’t know where he’d slept because he hadn’t curled around her last night like a parenthesis on the end of her thought, and Harry and Ron both said he hadn’t slept in his bed in the boys’ dorm. She sighed.
It was close now. She could feel it. The end was coming with all the implacability of death. It stalked her on silent paws, and Hermione was afraid. Con had unraveled in front of her, and her silence on his identity was no longer an option. Initially, although it had been selfish, keeping his secret quiet hadn’t been malicious. The thought of losing him had caused her to act only in her own interests, and she knew now that it was destroying him to know only the worst part of himself.
He saw all the evil and none of the good. Con remembered killing an innocent child, but didn’t remember all the times he’d passed information to the Order that saved lives. He didn’t know that as a spy, although he’d longed for the light, his position had caused him to wallow in the darkness.
Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. She’d done him a grave disservice by allowing him to sleep with her. When he regained his memories, he’d have to add sleeping with a student to the list of wrongs that he considered himself to have committed. Hermione knew him well, and he was not the type of wizard who would grant himself absolution for such a paltry thing as missing his memory. Sobbing now, she hung her head, and began to plan how to make it right – even if making it right precluded them being together in the end.
She took out a scrap of parchment and a quill. Dipping it into the inkwell on her desk, she carefully wrote:
How to Help Constantine Prince/Severus Snape:
1. Tell him the truth.
2. Apologize profusely.
3. …
She chewed on the edge of her quill, getting a tiny splotch of ink in the corner of her mouth. There was something she was missing, something obvious. Twining one curl around her finger, she admitted to herself that she was ashamed she had let her brain go to sleep while sunk arse-deep into her relationship with Con.
What was the common thread? What was the motivation? Her gaze sharpened suddenly. Yes, what was the motivation?
Why had Dumbledore decided to hide Severus Snape amongst the seventh-years?
Why had Dumbledore lied (well, obfuscated) when asked if Con was related to Professor Snape?
Why, when confronted with their relationship during the conference with Slughorn, hadn’t Dumbledore called an end to it? He had known it was an inappropriate relationship and had turned a blind eye to a professor screwing a student!
Something was happening that was far bigger than either Hermione or Severus, and she was determined to find out what.
3. Confront Headmaster.
As she was pondering further points to add to her list, she heard a soft knock on the door to her common room. She groaned and pushed back her chair, tucking her quill into her hair.
Professor McGonagall stood at her door. The woman’s face was severe, and made more so by the severe bun knotted at the nape of her neck. Her green eyes flicked quickly around the room as if to ensure that she was truly alone before she thrust a parchment at the girl. It was sealed with the wax emblem of St. Mungos.
“Headmaster Dumbledore asked me to give this to you, Hermione. He just received it, and the communiqué that came with it said it was quite urgent.”
The girl opened the envelope, and despite every dark thought currently weighing upon her, she laughed. Smiling at her professor, she said, “St. Mungos has accepted our request for them to do clinical tests on our modified Wit-Sharpening Potion. They think it has great potential.” She scanned the contents again. “Oh, but they need samples before five o’clock today.” Biting her lip, she glanced at the clock. “That’s in forty-five minutes. Thank you so much for delivering this to me, Professor, but I must run if I want to make it in time!”
Professor McGonagall’s eyes softened marginally. “Congratulations, my dear.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
Severus looked down at his skinny, twenty-something year old body and grimaced. “Lord, I was never attractive, was I?” He ran a palm over his face, feeling infinitely older than his thirty-eight years. He felt more centered now that his memories were back, understanding that everything he had done was for a purpose.
He was still a scarred husk of a man – no good for anyone, but at least he had the consolation of knowing that he wasn’t irreparably evil. He’d seen the error of his ways and turned back to the light, but not before…
…Well, not before committing more than one Unforgiveable.
Oh gods, Hermione, he thought suddenly. She has no idea she’s been fucking her Potions professor. Severus thought for a moment, extrapolating how she would react if he approached her and revealed himself to be her lover. He envisioned her lovely face paling as the gorge rose in her throat – the horror she’d try to mask behind those clever amber eyes as she remembered every sick and perverted thing he had done to her body. Would she pity him, the lovesick fool that he was?
Because, gods damn him, he still loved and wanted her. More than anything. His memories of that girl and her kind, undemanding love were the only good memories he had in a lifetime of darkness. The light that shone off his affection for the curly-haired Gryffindor cast an illuminating light on his obsession with Lily. Was he willing to debase himself to Hermione in the hopes that she might one day return his affections? Would he grovel?
Absolutely.
However.
However.
Was it right to allow Hermione to shackle herself to a bitter, much older wizard? Severus’s mouth twisted in pain when he thought of his lovely girl wasting any of her potential. Surely she would be better off without him.
He thought about her in the arms of Potter or Weasel and felt ill.
No, nothing had really changed substantially for him despite his three month residence in the Gryffindor (Gryffindor!!) boys’ dormitory. He was still alone, teaching idiots who were just as likely to put out an eye with a stirring rod than actually use it in a potion. Dumbledore was still a manipulative bastard.
Dumbledore, his lip curled. What had he hoped to gain from such an idiotic move? Giving him a name like Constantine Prince was as good as hanging an enormous flashing sign above his head that only Malfoy could see. The headmaster hadn’t changed his appearance except to make him younger. He hadn’t sent him to the Americas.
The bastard had set him up as a lure for Lucius.
Severus snorted. Dumbledore must be getting senile. He clearly hadn’t anticipated Snape getting his memories back before he hared off and killed Malfoy.
Now that he finally realized that he hadn’t been a Death Eater by choice in many years, the Potions master had no intention of further fracturing his soul with murder. The gods knew that it was already cobbled together with dust and old feathers and spit, and one more heavy blow would cause it to fall into its component parts.
No, Lucius was a sociopath. It wouldn’t be long before he broke and committed another sin that he would be unable to keep hidden, exposing the ugly canker of his soul to the Wizarding World. And he knew for a fact that the famous Malfoy fortune was already stretched nearly to the breaking point, having been funneled directly to Voldemort during the second Vold-War.
Severus smirked, and then his face fell. To the best of his knowledge, Hermione Granger was the only victim who’d ever been able to walk away from Lucius Malfoy. After himself, she was probably the person the pureblood most wanted to kill.
Hermione delivered the container of the modified Wit-Sharpening Potion to St. Mungos’ Research and Development facility. She’d had to apologize profusely when she realized she only had twenty-nine vials when the specifications they’d sent had stipulated thirty, but in the end they had been civil enough.
She walked down Diagon Alley and debated stopping in Flourish & Blotts. She knew that the newest volume of Ars Alchemica had just come out and that Con, no Severus, would be interested. Although she doubted he would be interested in sharing a friendly discussion on the journal once he realized the extent of her perfidy. Biting her lip, she sniffled slightly and remembered the way he liked to bury his face in her neck and breathe deeply as they were preparing to go to sleep for the night.
Hermione was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t put up a fight when Lucius Malfoy wrapped his arms around her from behind and Apparated away.
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