Beneath the Surface

Beneath the Surface

Chapter the Eighteenthe: The Root Which Bears Dead Flowers


Hermione’s feet flew over the cobblestone floors, up the granite staircases, and past the well-worn carpets of Hogwarts castle, stopping only when she reached the door to her dorm. Any who saw her pass them by in the hallways, friend or foe alike, did not dare to impede her flight by questioning her about her obvious chagrin. For, when Hermione Granger was chagrined about something, she was best left well enough alone, lest the unsuspecting well-wisher become chagrined themselves.

The experience with her Professor in his garden had been surreal, had been, dare she think it, romantic. She should have been overjoyed at this moment, positively elated in spirit. She had reached out to Severus Snape once again, and this time it seemed that he had been about to reach back! Why was that so frightening a prospect for her?

Probably because she had never really though through the consequences of such actions. True, she had spent many an hour daydreaming about what it would be like to be touched, kissed, and held by Severus Snape, but she had never truly thought that it would actually happen! Then what had she been thinking all this time? Had she really just been content to love him from afar?

No! Many a night had she lamented on the great chasm of propriety and morals that separated them from one another; many a night had she yearned to go to him and say ‘to hell with society! Let us be together’. Or something to that effect. But when she thought about it, really thought about it, she knew that she would be scared if Snape just reached over one day and grabbed her to him, possibly even scream if he tried to kiss her. He was her elder, her teacher!

Oh, she had never been so confused in all her young life. She still wanted him so badly, but was it just the idea of him, or the actuality, that she was craving? Thus far, she had been doing ok just living off of the idea of him (and the fantasies it provoked in her), but what good was ‘ok’ in the long run? What did she get out of it? Where would she be if she never took that risk and simply reached out and touched him, and allowed him to touch her.

Hah. As if he would allow himself to touch her.

In any case, her mind was far too inundated by these new possibilities (that shouldn’t have been ‘new’ to her at all) to be able to sift through them rationally on her own. She needed to speak to a friend, and help was just beyond the threshold before her.

When Hermione swung open the door to the Gryffindor girls’ rooms, she sighed in relief when she saw Ginny Weasley perched daintily in a chair by one of the far end windows, quietly studying a transfiguration text. Since the unfortunate events with Tom Riddle’s diary in her First Year, the girl had changed from a painfully shy little thing into an outgoing, openly friendly young lady. It was as if the havoc she had unknowingly wreaked upon the school the year before had not affected her psyche at all; nowhere could one find a more emotionally stable adolescent girl in the entire school.

But Hermione knew better. The two girls’ friendship had been cemented by the events of the year before, and they confided such personal information in each other that they wouldn’t dare let loose upon the ignorant ears of any other soul. Almost every night, Ginny would creep silently into Hermione’s bed, and the two would speak for hours of their sorrows, their regrets, their shames and their hopes for a better life for each of them.

This ‘better life’ for Ginny was one without the constant reminder of the charms and temptations of Tom Riddle; for Hermione, it was either one that did not include the ever-present shadow of her tempestuous Potions Master, or one in which and and Severus Snape lived happily together in a cottage by the sea, depending on her disposition towards the man.

Hermione had been greatly unsettled by her earlier rendezvous (if one could even call it that; Gods knew Snape wouldn’t) with Professor Snape in his garden, and she’d burst into the girls’ dorm in the hopes that her younger friend would be there. The red-haired girl looked up at Hermione’s breathy entrance, shock gently arching her brows and widening her green eyes, but she kept her small mouth shut, awaiting the older girl’s inevitable explanation for her distress.

“Ginny, I’m so glad I found you here,” Hermione panted, rushing over to take the seat opposite her friend.
A small table had been placed between these chairs, and on it was always set a small tea service, the pot of which was charmed to be forever filled with hot chamomile tea (intended to help relieve the stress of students who were studying for exams). Ginny poured Hermione a cup of it, and handed it to her carefully before speaking.

“Calm down, Hermione,” she said in that soft, soothing voice of hers. “What is the problem? Does it have to do with… him?” Hermione looked up at her friend knowingly.

“You know me too well, Gin,” she quipped uneasily, the confusion of the previous events with Snape were still causing her stomach to churn. “Isn’t it strange how, whenever we get close to getting the thing we most want, it frightens us when the time comes to claim it?” Hermione laughed mirthlessly. “I know that doesn’t make any sense, but…”

“No, I know just what you mean,” Ginny assured her, then looked down sheepishly. “Did you two… did something… happen?”

“No, no, nothing like that!” Hermione insisted, putting up a firm hand. “No, we just went outside for a walk. He took me into his garden.”

“Oh, did he now? Into his garden, eh?” Ginny asked, mischief twinkling in her eyes. Hermione punched her shoulder playfully, and they both giggled. Then Hermione became serious.

“He has this… sort of private garden that no one else visits but him, and it’s so hard to find I don’t think even I remember how to get to it,” Hermione began. “The trees and plants were untended and wild, and the grasses were overgrown, but… the sunset, and the sky and the clouds, they were so vibrant, and the contrast of their colors to the darkness of the trees… It was the most beautiful place I’d ever been to in my life. And he was just sitting there, silent as a statue, as I looked around. I think he went off somewhere then, somewhere in his memory…” Hermione smiled self-consciously, realizing that she had been rambling. But when she looked over to Ginny, the expression on her friend’s face was one of serene happiness.

“I think that’s wonderful, Hermione,” Ginny said, putting a gentle hand on her friend’s. “He invited you into his garden, into his private place, and let you look around.” But then she cocked her head to one side, her features growing pensive. “Then why did you run away from him? What frightened you?”

“His sadness,” Hermione answered without thinking. Then she ducked her head, knitting her eyebrows broodingly. “I don’t know, Gin… it was like I didn’t deserve to be in there. Like I could never hope to understand him and what he loves, if he loves anything at all.”

“If you hang about a while, maybe he might love you,” Ginny teased her, winking suggestively. Hermione giggled and scoffed in mock exasperation.

“Ginny, really!” Hermione laughed with her friend for a moment, but then a shadow of darkness crossed over her features, marring them from the light the two had previously shared.

“I’m afraid of myself when I’m with him,” she said softly. “I do and say things that appall me when I am away from him, I just don’t know where they come from. It’s like I’m mplempletely different person when I’m with him, one completely driven by---” She could not bring herself to finish her sentence, but she did not need to. Ginny Weasley understood what Hermione was feeling all too well. She reached out and took her friend’s hand in her own once again, cradling it gently as the two looked out the window in silence.

“I know, Hermione,” Ginny all but whispered. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“You know what what means?” a voice suddenly cut through the two friends’ silent reverie. Hermione and Ginny’s heads whipped around as one to face the intruder; two pairs of eyes rolled and sighs were released as they realized who the disturber of their peace was.

“Ron, you’re not supposed to be in here, it’s the girls’ dorm,” Ginny scolded her brother, then fixed him with a wicked expression. “Unless there’s something Mum’s never told us.”

Ronald Weasley sneered at his younger sister and turned his attention to a giggling Hermione.

h, wh, well, Fred and George say they’ve invented a new creation and they want everyone down in the Common Room to see it. Me and Harry came to fetch you two,” he explained. Harry’s head miraculously popped out from behind Ron’s shoulder upon hearing his name. He was looking around the room warily, having never set foot inside the girls’ dorm before.
Ginny blushed and bowed her head, causing Hermione to shoot her a conspiratorial glance. Ginny had always been in awe of Harry\'s fame, and in a young girl, that often translated to feelings of a more romantic nature as well. Ginny was no exception.

“Alright, we’ll be down in a moment, alright?” Hermione told the boys. Ron nodded.

“Alright, but hurry up! I’ve a feeling you won’t want to miss this!” he said excitedly, and then disappeared from the room, leaving Harry standing awkwardly in the doorframe.

“Er…yeah,” he mumbled, eyes still darting cautiously about the room from behind his thick glasses. “See you, then!” He offered the two a clumsy wave and then was gone faster than you could say ‘skiving snackbox’. Harry was very timid when it came to members of the opposite sex, and merely being in the girls’ dorm seemed to have overloaded his mind.

Hermione and Ginny both had a good laugh at the boys’ expense before deciding to join their comrades in the Common Room for whatever elicit entertainment the infamous Weasley twins were sure to have cooked up.

~*~

Severus Snape stared unwaveringly at his reflection in the large, ancient mirror that was perched atop his equally antique vanity table. The man who was looking back at him appeared very tired and slightly distraught. There was a deeply etched crease carved into the very center of his dark brows which feathered out into several fainter lines in his forehead. Severus sneered derisively at his own face before allowing his head to fall limp.

He had taken a scalding shower in an attempt to scrub off the filth that his mind had produced in the garden with that child, but the memory woult let leave him. Most people would not call the desire to be held by another who cared for them a dirty one, but, remembering his past and knowing his weaknesses, Severus would.

His longish black hair had been mussed by the raking back of long, thin hands, and jagged chunks of it framed his defined cheekbones and tickled the tops of his naked shoulder blades. He had a very long, elegant neck which led to a masculine yet elegantly crafted set of clavicles. His torso was lean and streamlined, but the faint shadowing of muscles rippled down its expanse, as did the stubborn impressions his ribcage and bones made in his pale skin.

His long, strong and sinewy arms rested gently on the table top before him, andtooktook a moment to study the indigo-colored veins which lined their way delicately from his wrists to the croof hif his elbows. His hands were beautiful beyond compare; both so hard and so soft at the same time, they were like wrought iron molded into flesh. Unnaturally long fingers extended with the utmost grace and gentility from skin that appeared to be crafted of the finest marble. His hands were white as snow and just as cold to the touch, except for his palms, which contained within them the heat of all the extraordinary magical power he possessed within his body.

Severus thought long and hard about just what these hands were capable of; instances where he remembered demonstrating their despicable power flitted past his eyes like cards in a slide show. He did not wish to view each spectacle in its entirety.

Tainted hands such as his should never be allowed to touch anything that is good and pure. He should never touch her with these hands, not even in the most innocent of manners, never.

‘Who do you think you are, snake, that you would dare to desire such a creature of the light? Deep in the darkness is where you belong, and that is where I will make sure that you stay.’

Severus sighed in resignation. There was no arguing with that logic, he knew it to be correct.

The bright yellow flowers that Hermione had given him in the garden had been placed in a small urn atop his vanity table. Somehow, they had remained clutched in his hand as he made his way back to his rooms. He had seriously thought of throwing them into the fire, so as to literally burn away the memories that now clung to them (a practice of which he was fond); but before they could fall from his hand and into the flames, he clenched them even more tightly and swiftly turned from the grate.

He could not let them go. For the worthless life of him, he could not let her flowers go.
So here they stood, already wilting in an inappropriately harsh and cold black urn, a small altar to the girl’s compassion for him next to his mirror.

He would keep these simple blossoms there long after they had dried up and wilted, and would gaze upon them whenever he had let loose his anger upon the girl, had rejected so pitilessly her feelings and shut her out of his life.

He would always let her back in again, but until that joyous reunion, he would content himself by concentrating on the dry, dead flowers and hoping against hope that she knew that he was thinking of her.