A Terrible Temptation

A/N - I would write longer author\'s notes but I would rather save the energy for writing the story. :) Thanks to Kate, evermore for wielding whip and chair and keeping me on the straight and narrow writing path.

Thnaks to all of my reviewres whom I adore.


Chapter 21 – One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

Hermione was looking out her bedroom window remembering the end of last year. She doubted that the sight of Voldemort standing coolly poised in the center of Hogsmeade while chaos reigned around him would ever quite leave her. She recalled with perfect clarity being dragged into an alleyway by a Death Eater, screaming her head off, trying to get her wand hand out of his grip so that she could hex him. Then, the cold modulated tones that had shredded her so often in Potions Class had cut across her panic.

“Please do not use your formidable talents against me, Miss Granger.” The sarcastic tones turned what might have been a grudging compliment into an insult, but her relief to realize that it was Snape holding her had been enough to make her go limp against him.

“Professor.” She had acknowledged and he had sent her running back to the school for reinforcements while he saw to it that Harry was kept . Th. That was the moment she supposed when her fear and anger had dissipated. All the cruel comments and vicious cuts he had leveled at her were wiped away. That moment in the Hospital Wing, when he had raged at Fudge, screaming and frothing, had shifted in her mind from disgusting to merely sad.

She had come to pity him to a certain degree. Still, the months at Grimmauld Place -- watching him, always apart, always alone, had given her insights into him. The pity had faded to compassion. She had studied him, finding that he was deeply complex and passionate, with chill isolation wrapped around him as insulation against rejection and cruelty. His solitude was armor but it also prevented him from ever coming fully alive. He was quietly brave and silently dangerous, not an object of pity by any means.

Watching him lying in the Hospital Wing, she could see his history, the pains and stresses of his life washed away. He had seemed far less threatening and almost attractive. She snorted to herself. Of course he was attractive while he was unconscious, his mouth was closed and he wasn’t glaring.

Still, in the dreams she had been having lately he seemed lonely and filled with a sad longing. She wondered what the dreams were. Did they come from her own subconscious or was there something else?

The garden was dying; there was no one to tend it anymore. It must have been quite beautiful once. What had happened to bring the frost? What was killing it?


Severus stood shakily on legs almost too weakened to support him. Six weeks of immobility had taken its toll. He watched Potter bounding about like a puppy, all excitement and energy and he felt bitter envy stirring in his heart. Enough already, his inner self muttered to him. You’ve been in the boy’s shoes; you know his life isn’t paradisiacal. It was time to get over it all and to get on with killing Voldemort. The boy was so excited he was already heading out the door and Severus halted his progress with some annoyance.

“Mr. Potter.” His voice was neutral rather than sneering; it was the best he could do at the moment.

“Professor?” The young man edged up to him as though he expected Severus to revert to type at any moment. Honestly, the boy’s wariness was enough to calm him down and make him behave more civilly.
After all, he wouldn’t be able to connect to Potter’s mind well enough to hand over those memories if he didn’t relax.

“I need to give you my memories of the last six weeks, remember?” Potter blushed and Severus stamped down on a sarcastic comment that was trying to get out of him. A deep breath and he pulled the censored version of events from his mind and handed them over to the wide-eyed young man.

“Of course, sir.” The voice was no longer the piping tones of childhood but the deeper sound of a young man. It made Severus feel old to know that James’ son was seventeen. So was Hermione, his inner voice whispered. Pedophile, it added, pervert, monster, to even think of her like that. He wrenched his mind back to the immediate past with some difficulty.

Sharing memories was, of necessity, an intimate process and one that he would have preferred not to undergo with Harry Potter, the-boy-who-lived-to-tick-him-off. However, the job of a spy was about doing things you hated in order to save the things you loved. He hated sharing memories with Potter but he loved Hogwarts and so he found himself giving something rather intimate to someone he rather disliked.

The spell was simple enough and he spooled out the thoughts so that they passed clearly through Potter’s mind. He also purged his own file of Potter’s memories with a feeling of blessed relief. The burden of his own past was hard enough; adding Potter’s abominable childhood to the mix was far too heavy to bear for all time.

“Professor?” Harry was frowning. “Um, about Hermione…” The lanky boy began. Despite the careful deletion of his own feelings on the subject, Hermione’s crush was still readily apparent in those memories. He could have left the boy to flounder, leaving him no clue about the girl’s feelings, but he was simply unwilling to hurt Hermione that way. Having Potter return a blank look to her when she asked the inevitable questions would be agonizing for her.

“That subject is not one I wish to discuss.” Severus retorted rather stiffly and swept from the room with little of his usual grace. His body ached and his hands were shaking. He hated Gryffindors for very good reasons: the boys were idiots and the girls invariably broke your heart.