It just...happened...

They apparated back to Hogwarts minutes later, Hermione wiping the tears from her eyes and Snape grasping her arm as they felt the cold stone of Hogwarts under their feet. Hermione felt his grasp around her arm lessen, and finally diminished.

It was darker, evidently the late afternoon and Hermione was about to ask Severus back to her chambers. She wanted him to hold her, to be with her tonight and there in the morning. It was an awkward thing to say, how exactly would she propose it?

\"Pr-\" Hermione started, but to her immediate shock saw that Snape had already left striding in the other direction towards his chambers, not caring that she had been about to speak with him.

Hermione feeling the first blows of heartache was about to follow him, tell him what she had about to say before when she heard McGonagall\'s shriek from down the hall.

Oh damn.

\"HERMIONE GRANGER!\" she called rushing down the hall, her large hat tipping with every stride, \"How dare you leave Hogwarts? Do you have any idea the danger you put yourself into? And Professor Snape? If it weren\'t for the Headmas-\"

Hermione felt her stomach drop as Minerva continued, in all that had happened she forgot she had childishly run off to go and save Harry, and while she had done so with the aid of many, she knew she had done something wrong...she could have been killed...Severus could have been killed.

\"But...yelpeelped to save us.\" McGonagall said, as the tears welled up in her eyes, she had hoped this would be a celebration for all. Hermione looked up to her Professor and her suddenly beaming face and in a confusing whirl, Minerva grasped the young girl in a warm embrace.

\"Thank you Miss Granger.\"

Hermione felt the happy tears slip down her cheeks, it was over. That weight that seemed to weight upon her was gone, and she was lighter for it.

\"I\'m sorry I left.\" Hermione said, wiping the tears from her face as she and Minerva pulled away, \"I just...I had to save Harry.\"

\"I was angry with you, Miss Granger,\" McGonagall nodded, \"But I understand.\"

They walked to the Great Hall and Hermione suddenly thought she heard the sound of singing going on and raised a quizzical look to McGonagall. Minerva gave her a knowing smile and motioned for her to follow.

The music was becoming more defined as she and Hermione walked towards the Great Hall, the music louder and louder and with every note Hermione\'s heart grew lighter and her spirit higher. What was that?

Finally the door opened and inside was all the children of every age from every house, all turning to look to her. There was a large banner in the Hall that read, \"Congratulations\" and Dumbledore looked as if he had just finished a speech. Harry and Ron stood beside him, both with shining medals around their necks.

A few mutterings ensued and then finally, to Hermione\'s shock all the students started clapping and shouting for them, even the Slytherins! The sound almost deafening. Hermione really couldn\'t keep the smile off of her face, McGonagall was clapping wildly as well.

Hermione saw Harry and Ron, beaming at her with those familiar smiles and clapping as hard as they could. Her face flushed and she ran to Harry and Ron as they did to her, her smile plastered on her face. She collected them into a large embrace, not embarassed at all.
They broke apart beaming, so this is how it felt to be happy again. She looked up to the Head Table where Dumbledore, and all the other Professors sat beaming and clapping.

All but one.

\"I can\'t believe it\'s all finally over.\" Ron said, shoving a drumstick into his mouth as they sat down, \"I\'m starved!\"

Hermione and Harry laughed, \"You always are.\"

\"This is for you, Hermione.\" said Dumbledore suddenly standing beside her, she looked to the medal in his hands and she bowed her head as he placed it around her neck, rather embarassed as the table clapped loudly, whistles sounding around them.

He patted her gently on the shoulder, \"I know you don\'t like to make a fuss.\" he said gently, \"But I want to thank you Hermione. For everything.\"

For some reason Hermione had a feeling \'something\' included saving a certain Potion\'s master as well, but she decided it was a rather awkward subject at hand. He left her to sit with her friends and talk.

It felt good to talk.

* * *

Hours later Hermione, Harry and Ron were still talking with all the students and having a great time at the celebratory party, Harry noticing how Hermione seemed quite distracted.

\"Who are you looking for?\" Ron said brashly as Hermione turned red, shrugging.

\"No one.\"

\"Not even a certain head of house?\" Ron said innocently, giving Hermione an angelic look that she rolled her eyes at, shoving him playfully.

\"Shut up Ron.\"

\"Good night then.\" Ron said moments later, yawning and waving to them as Hermione and Harry waved back. Hundreds of students were still swarming them, asking Harry how he defeated Voldemort. Hermione managed to slip away, not regretting it.

In the darkened and quiet hall she walked slowly, cold now and feeling rather sorry for herself. Why had Snape left? Why hadn\'t he been at the celebration dinner? Why was he still bitter? He was free!

No...he was never free. Now something else was bothering him. Would he never be able to find happiness? Would Severus Snape ever find the strength to live again?

Voldemort was gone. She was a hero of sorts. She should have been happy.

But she wasn\'t.

* * *

He knew as soon as she stepped into the room that she was nervous and a bit angry. He expected it.

He had come back to his chambers and started marking bloody essays. Of all the things he could have been doing. He was sitting there and marking essays. He had done so out of habit, wanting things to be as normal as possible. And he most certainly didn\'t want to partake in that idiotic little dinner above him.

\"I should have known you\'d be here as soon as we got back,\" Hermione said moving closer to him, her finger tracing the back of a chair facing his desk \"You love your solitude.\"

\"I\'ve never found a companion as companionable as solitude.\" he muttered, going back to his marking and most looking up briefly. He noticed her medal as he looked up briefly and she suddenly felt rather self conscious.

She saw the digust that swam in his eyes. He probably thought she liked the attention.

\"You would have gotten one.\" she said looking to him, feeling the need to explain herself. \"If you\'d come upstairs.\"

\"Mmmmm.\" was the reply, his eyes back on the parchment. Hermione began swaying back and forth, looking at his office with eager eyes and wondering why he was mad at her.

\"Why are you cross with me?\"

\"I\'m not cross with you,\" he snarled, \"I simply want some peace and quiet so I can mark these inept papers. While you come waltzing in here and expecting..what? What do you expect?\"

Hermione\'s eyes grew wide, \"I can\'t believe you\'re being like this. I thought things would be different. I thought, perhaps..\"

\"What?\" he asked blankly, \"That we\'d become an ‘item’?\"

Hermione blushed, attesting to his accusations. He sighed and decided to be as tactful as possible. Staying with him would only prove to hinder her great mind. She\'d insist they get married and stay with him here at Hogwarts,

perhaps teach a class or two..sure he\'d be happy and so would she...at the beginning. Then the fighting would start, over something stupid, like towels in the washroom. Then the blame. The hidden resentment finally rushing forth. She\'d blame him for not letting her pursue her academia and he\'d tell her that she\'de hde her own decision.

She was too young to know what she was asking, and so he would save her the trouble. He\'d managed to build up and tear down their entire relationship with one quick scan of his mind.

\"If you are pointedly asking me if I felt something for you out there in the woods, I won\'t dissuade you. I did.\" his dark eyes grew somber, his tone crisper.

\"But if you have deluded yourself into believing I am some kind of prince, or a romantic poet whom wishes to whisk you away to a castle were we can live happily ever after...well then I advise you to wise up, and quickly.\"

He turned back to his parchment, his hair falling into his face and Hermione could barely hold back the angry tears that had begun prickling the back of her eyes, glazing over until he himself was a blurry blob in front of her.

\"What do you want then?\"

He looked up from the glaring white parchment, seeing her small frame, hands on her hips and disbelieving eyes.

This was for the best.

\"I want you to get out of my office. I want you to go back to your rooms. I want you to graduate. I want you to leave Hogwarts. I want you to forget about me. I want you to go on and marry Potter or Weasely or even Krum. I want you to be successful. I want you to be happy.\"

She didn\'t speak at first, that lump in her throat inhibiting her to do so. Finally when she knew he was looking down at his parchment once more she spoke, her words trembling.

\"Why are you always like this?\" she said softly, blinking back the curtain of tears to see him look up, dark eyes trained on her. \"Why must you give up on everything and everyone? Why do you always have to retire into loneliness?\"

He frowned, obviously offended, \"Miss Granger, the English language has widely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word \"loneliness\" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word \"solitude\" to express the glory of being alone. I am a solitary person, you said so yourself, and I will be until the day I die.\"

A moment of deafening silence enveloped them, and as he went back to writing on his parchment her voice, small and dark leapt out at him.

\"You\'re a liar.\"

An eyebrow was raised as a warning, insults was not permitted, no matter what the circumstances. \"I think you have overstayed your welcome, Miss Granger. Good evening.\"

Hermione snorted, \"I overstayed my welcome the minute I entered your stupid coffin of an office.\" his eyes were smoldering, \"You can\'t stand yourself and in turn you have to push everyone away. You can\'t even accept the fact that I may love you-\"

\"Stop right there, Miss Granger.\" Snape said standing behind his desk, his hands on it as he glowered at her. This was a moment of pure and utter panic for him. Telling him that she loved him. Honestly. What was she? Seventeen? Eighteen?

Its said that you have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover\'s arms can only come later, when you\'re sure they won\'t laugh if you trip...but Hermione didn\'t seem to care. She seemed to be running at him, arms wide waiting for him...and he couldn\'t take it.

One of the oldest human needs is to have someone to wonder where you are when you don\'t come home at night, and as much as Severus Snape wanted that, he also had to be realistic. He was old, bitter and she was the exact opposite. She needed a life where she could actually move forward, not take a flying leap back.

\"There are two kinds of sparks Miss Granger, the one that goes off with a hitch like a match, but it burns quickly. The other is the kind that needs time, but when the flame strikes.\" Hermione\'s eyes were wide, her heart thudding painfully. But he continued, not letting her heart fool her.

\"We Miss Granger, burned very quickly. Yes, there was a mutual attraction, but we were also in the throes of panic. We knew we could be dead at any moment and we clung to each other. That\'s not love.\"

\"How would you know? You\'ve never been in love in your life.\" Hermione shouted, her dark eyes blazing, \"You can\'t fall in love, you\'re too scared! You\'re so scared you have to be alone!\"

Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head and neither feeling is quite within anyone\'s control, and so what Severus Snape said in retaliation to Hermione\'s outburst he should have tried to keep under control. But, with a hurt ego and a pained heart, he said the first thing to come to mind.

\"Well you know what they say,\" he said airily, not looking up to even meet her eyes, \"Better to be alone than in bad company.\"

\"You don\'t mean that.\"

\"Oh, but I do.\"

There was a frown on her pained face, as her eyes darkened further while she groped along the walls of his office and finding the door behind her, opened it widely and turned to face him. His eyes were dark and hidden but she felt him staring right into her.

\"I pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, and great enough to die for.\" she blinked back a few tears before continuing, \"Obviously I wasn\'t.\"

With that she whirled around and slammed the door. Loudly. He winced at the sound and retired back to behind his desk. His anger evident by the harshness of the quill on the parchment.

Latent in every man is a venom of amg big bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being the helpless prey of impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, and crowning injury inflicts upon him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself.

And at that very moment Severus Snape felt sorry for himself.
_____________________________________

authors notes:

Many quotes were used in this segment, they are by the following: Jonathan Carroll, Margaret Mead, Timothy Oliveira, Arthur Schoperhauser, Paul Velery, Henry David Thoreau, Paul Tillich, Dag Hammarskjold & Thomas Fuller...