Strength in What Remains Behind

Hermione

I stared at the back of the man who had just thrown me against a wall, feeling confused. For a brief moment, there had been a look in his eye that sent shivers up my spine. It was a look I had never seen before from any man, and it was both frightening and appealing at once. It was... I had no words to describe it.  All my anger drained away in the face of it, and yet it was so fleeting.  He had wiped it away as if it had never been, and now he wouldn't even look at me.

I wanted him to look at me that way again.  And yet... I was afraid that he would.

I took a quiet breath, and spoke as gently as possible, "Professor Snape, sir. I have never once in all of my years here thought that you were a fool."

He still refused to look at me. "And yet you don't respect me enough to leave when I ask you to.  What should I make of that?"

His tone was deceptively silky. I'd heard it before, right before he'd ripped a student's confidence apart. I swallowed as it recalled the fear I'd once held for him.  That I perhaps still held for him. "I can't leave now.  Clearly you have a problem with something that happened in my personal life.  Something, I might add, that you should know nothing about. I won't leave until we clear this up between us."

I saw him clench his fists at his sides, and winced in anticipation of another jarring introduction to the classroom wall, but after a moment he relaxed them again. "...I thought you were upset because the boy had rejected you and then ostracized you from your group.  Professor Dumbledore told me that I was misinformed.  I felt that the sympathy I'd held towards you was misplaced and that I had been deceived by you. Thus, my anger. Are you satisfied, Miss Granger?"

"No, because I don't understand.  Why would you care about that at all?" 

He half-turned to me, his face in solemn profile. When he finally spoke, it was so quiet that I strained to hear it. "Because... once, when I was a student, I was rejected in that manner."  He gave me a sidelong glance. "Please leave now.  I don't wish to discuss this further."

I felt sympathy well up within me as I understood.  He had identified with what he thought was my situation.  No wonder he felt betrayed by me!  But, he didn't truly understand.  I felt the words dancing on the tip of my tongue, words I had not yet spoken, not even to the Headmaster. Tears filling my eyes, I turned to go, but I was unable to reach the safety of the hallway before they spilled out of me, hot and breathlessly.  "I loved him.  I loved him and I gave him up anyway!" I leaned against the door as the tears rolled down my cheeks silently.

When I felt him place a hand on my shoulder, I turned to cry against his chest instead.