Beneath the Surface

Beneath the Surface

Chapter the Twenty-Seconde: Unexpected Information and Shocking Revelations


“They won’t even speak to me, Severus!” Hermione exclaimed, throwing up her hands to illustrate her anguish.

They had just arrived outside of Severus’ secret reading room (since they had accepted their feelings for each other, they had begun to meet there instof iof in his classroom so as not to arouse suspicion), and he was in the process of unlocking the door with a large, iron key. is bis back was to the ranting child, he was free to snicker at her melodramatics under his breath.

The two illicit companions had met up at the large marble bust of a long-deceased headmaster, and then continued to their destination together from there (they had agreed to take alternate routes to the bust; again, so as not to arouse suspicion by their traveling together at night.

Though she had at first despised having to apparate through the ‘roller coaster room’, as she called the small, bare room to the utter mystification of pure-blooded Severus, Hermione now took great pleasure in being able to hold onto her professor’s arm when the queasiness caused by this mode of transportation came over her).

The girl had been griping about her recently querulous relationship with her two best friends, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, since she and Severud cod convened at the bust. Snape had listened to only parts of her tirade (as always, the girl had a tendency to ramble, and he hadn’t the patience to pay attention to all of her chatter), but had found out that Weasley was angry with her because her feline familhad had supposedly eaten his rat, and Potter, the petty prat, was angry with her because she had (rightfully, in his opinion) gotten a high-quality broom that he had been anonymously given confiscated.

Snape had succeeded in unlocking the old door, and held it open for her to enter the room before him. After several seconds had passed with no motion from her, he turned around and found the girl petulantly staring up at him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Well?” she asked in exasperation. He raised a confused eyebrow at her; he hadn’t caught the last thing she’d said. She rolled her eyes and heaved an impatient sigh.
“What should I do?!”

“About what?” Severus’ tone matched his perplexed expression.

Hermione’s own features tightened in irritation; she knew that his attention often wavered when she went on about something, and though she understood that he did not do it deliberately to hurt her, her feelings were slightly wounded all the same.

“About Harry and Ron!” she said through gritted teeth, willing herself to be patient.

She was coming to learn that Severus could be surprisingly childish when she got angry wiim, im, whether her ire was justified (which it often was) or not. When she called him on his callous and sometimes overtly cruel ways, he would become icy cold towards her, or worse, refuse to speak to her until she apologized to him---and even then he might remain distant for a time.

Snape’s eyes rolled heavenward, his lip curling as if in disgust at the mention of the two boys’ names. Even though she was disappointed in them, Hermione still cared for her friends; but she couldn’t ignore the butterflies that flittered to and fro in her stomach when Severus sneered. Strange girl that she was, it affected her the way that a sweet smile would an average person.

“Forget about those dunderheads and just get in the room, Hermione,” he said irritably, at the same time ushering her almost roughly into the small chamber.

“They are not worth thinking about.”

“But they’re my friends,” Hermione insisted in a small voice once she was inside the room. Snape had entered as well and pulled the door closed behind him, leaning his back against it. His black eyes pierced into her chocolate ones as if he could see right through them and into her mind. After a moment, he sighed wearily.

“Honestly, I don’t know how a person as intelligent as yourself could stoop to befriending such ignorant dullards as they,” Snape stated, sneering again distastefully. Hermione’s cheeks flushed at his accidental compliment of her. “But if they’re so important to you, then…” he flicked a hand dismissively, “I don’t know, go and tell them you’re sorry.”

“But they’re the ones who were wrong!” Hermione maintained fiercely, her faith in her innocence in the matter unwavering.

“I thought you wanted to be friendly with them again,” Snape reminded her, cutting swiftly across the room to sink into a wing chair. He leaned an elbow upon the velvet-encased arm so as to massage his temple with his fingers; this conversation was becoming very tiresome to him.

“I do want to be friends with them again, but I’m not going to compromise myself and LIE to do it!” Hermione pressed. Snape rolled his eyes, her insistent moralizing seeming pointless to him and rather aggravating as well.

“I don’t understand you at all,” he declared. Hermione huffed indignantly.

“Well, maybe if you’d ever had friends yourself, you’d better understand my predicament!”

Snape glared at her evilly, and she bit her tongue, instantly regretting her words.

“I had friends, they just weren’t Gryffindors,” he muttered petulantly.UnliUnlike Snape, Hermione’s grudges were never made of stone, and she had to allow a giggle at his small jibe at her House’s politics. The underlying point of his statement was that Gryffindors are hopelessly honorable and always strove to be good people, even if it meant entering into a war with one’s own friends due to a difference of opinions. Slytherins are clever and cunning people by nature; they would swallow down their pride and say that they were in the wrong when they knew themselves to be right about an issue if it ultimately served their purposes. Hermione still couldn’t decide which the better approach was, but she could definitely see the humor in either. Snape did not.

“And just what is so funny, girl?” he asked her archly. Hermione smirked at him playfully, knowing by now that the sting he put into his words was notlly lly meant for her.

“Nothing, sir,” she replied dryly, then turned away, suddenly slipping into a melancholy mood as she remembered the original topic of their conversation. “I just… wish they weren’t being so hard on me. Harry and Ron, that is. Even though I know that I’m right about Scabbers and the Firebolt, I’m almost ready to take your suggestion and pretend that I’m wrong just so thatan han have friends again.”

Her wistful expression and tone took Snape aback, and his irascibility of moments before was replaced by pity for his young friend. He could not empathize with the depth of closeness she shared with her friends, but he understood what it was like to be a child without them, and that appeared to be her plight at present. A surge of anger rose within him; because of the affects their childish grudges were having upon Hermione, he detested Potter and Weasley even more than he had before (which, even he knew, had already been a considerable amount).

“You were right not to apologize,” Snape said sharply, causing Hermione to turn puzzled eyes to him. “Forget about what I said before. I want you to be able to hold your head high when your honor is called into question. I don’t want you to be like… to make any decisions that you will one day come to regret,” he finished, his tone soft and distant.

Hermione’s brows came together, an effect of her deep contemplation on her dark professor; she knew that he’d had many miserable, possibly even horrendous, experiences in his life. She was clever and tactful enough to know that he would not appreciate her asking about them specifically; he would tell her these things when he was ready to, and she knew that he would be someday; if, of course, she managed to stay in his good graces that long, which she wholly intended to do.

Severus Snape never did anything unless he wanted to, and to push him to do otherwise would probably result in the immediate termination of their tenuous relationship, something Hermione could hardly bear to think about. So she would wait patiently for him to open up to her.

But in the meantime, it was obvious that whatever he was silently reminiscing about was not having a positive effect on his psyche; his eyes, sunken and haunted, were fixed unblinkingly on a small vase whose fairly simple design didn’t demand such intense study.
His thin, white hands were clutching the arms of the chair upon which he sat, as if he were unconsciously attempting to secure his body to the place in which it was situated while his mind wandered treacherously away from it.

Hermione, not knowing any linguistical way to comfort him, plopped herself down on the floor next to his chair and laid her head on his right arm very carefully, for she did not know what he would make of the gesture. His body tensed, but he did not move.

Encouraged, she placed one of her small, warm hands over one of his much larger, far colder ones. As it was already clenched to the chair as tightly as it could manage without causing him pain, his hand relaxed under her gentle grip of it. Hermione smiled to herself, closing her eyes so as to better savor their contact.

“Don’t worry, Severus,” she murmured contentedly. “I’ll never tell them I’m sorry.”
To the surprise of each of them, Snape chuckled under his breath.

“Good girl,” he praised her in a warm, low tone. Her smile widened.

The warmth of her head and hand began to spread through his body from where they were touching him, and he sighed, his spine becoming loose, allowing him to sink tranquilly into his seat. What a comfort this girl was proving to be to him.

He wished that this---this cozy, platonic togetherness---was all that she wanted from him. He wished that no heated need underlay her touches. He wished that the two of them could just sit like that forever.

But Severus Snape had never really gotten what he’d wished for out of life, not at any time; Hermione chose that blissful moment to speak.

“What do you know about Sirius Black?”

It took Snape a moment to process just what she was saying, so deepnsconsconced had his mind been in a haze of quiet contentment. She was asking him about that notorious scoundrel and now escaped convict, Black. Hearing that filthy name spoken in her sweet voice caused Snape’s body to become completely rigid, and a deep scowl etched across his face, seemingly of its own accord and independent of his control.

Hermione could easily sense his discomfiture upon hearing the criminal’s name, and though she tensed up herself in reaction, she did not move from his side, nor did she remove her hand from his arm.

“Sirius Black,” Snape spat out the name as if it carried with it a bitter taste, “was, is, and always will be nothing more than a vicious, scheming blackguard.”

Though they were not directed toward her, and though Black did indeed deserve them, Hermione winced at the harsh words that spouted from Snape’s mouth. She was surprised that he despised Black so; it would seem more in character for him to be largely indifferent towards the whole situation.

She waited expectantly for him to say more, but his lips had thinned and looked to be sealed tight. Always thirsting for information, Hermione would not accept his silence.

“Severus, you’re giving me the impression that you know more about him than the other professors do,” she prompted, watching him warily from the corners of her upturned eyes. He aped ved vexed at her for pressing him, but reluctantly unclenched his jaw in preparation to elaborate further on the subject.

“That’s because I do,” he bit out. “I was unfortunate enough to have attended this same school, and to have been in the same year, as the dastard. He made my life a living…” Snape’s black eyes flicked to Hermione and back to the door across from him. She could almost see him sifting and weighing his thoughts behind his eyes before he spoke again.

“He was a fiend then, and has not changed a bit to this day. That’s all there is to know about him.”

Hermione’s mouth opened reflexively, like a baby bird awaiting food from its mother, but she just as soon clamped it shut. She had already pushed Snape far enough; she could tell that by how tightly his fingers gripped the arms of his chair, by how a thin, solitary vein was pulsing just visibly on his temple.

She resolved to somehow rese thi this conjoined period of Snape and Black’s life later on in the library.

“Severus, do you mind if I study for a bit? I’ve got a big test tomorrow in Transfiguration that I want to get top marks on.”

That she did not question him further on the matter of Sirius Black and how he knew the man was uncharacteristic of her, but he opted not to call her on this unusual behavior out of his unwillingness to continue the conversation.

Despite his insistence that she seat herself in one of the other chairs that occupied the room, Hermione staunchly chose to remain on the floor beside him while she poured over various textbooks and parchments. Knowing that it was a tiring---and ultimately fruitless---endeavor to try and force her to sit in a chair like a proper person, Snape allowed her to lean against his chair while he himself delved into a novel that he had plucked out of one of the glass-encased cabinets.

After having occupied themselves in these respective ways for a lengthy period of time, neither Snape nor Hermione found it inappropriate that Snape’s had had wandered aimlessly to entwine its fingers in Hermione’s abundant hair, and eventually to softly stroke the rough tresses in a gentle, unconscious rhythm. Each found the contact singularly soothing.

And so they passed the evening and the greater part of the night, both of them fully concentrating on the texts that lay open on their laps. Only their bodies were aware of the physical contact that prevailed between them, and these visceral organisms saw no logical reason to alert their brains to it; for logic does not exist anywhere outside of the human mind.

Just sitting beside each other and enjoying the touch, the feel, of the other person was the most natural interaction that had ever taken place between them.

~*~

The very next night after classes, Hermione went straight to the school’s library, preparing to stay there as long as she was allowed in her search for the keys to Snape and Black’s mutual past: the artsarts school yearbooks from the years 1972 to 1978.

She had never before come across them in any of her explorations of the library, so she came to the conclusion that they must be sequestered away in some special area in which she, as a student, must not be allowed. Therefore, she knew she would have to ask the one and only librarian, Madame Pince, for permission to view the books.

The sour Madame Pince had, after having grown accustomed to seeing Hermione in her library at least once every day or so since she had first entered Hogwarts as a First Year (and more probably because Hermione revered and respected boos mus much as the woman who had made their upkeep her living), taken a liking to her.

Hermione was very grateful that she had, for it only took a bright smile and a very polite request to get what she wanted from the dour old woman, despite her obvious perplexity as to the girl’s interest in such old yearbooks.

Within ten minutes, Hermione received the volumes that she’d asked for, and had carried them covetously to her favorite secluded desk in the far back of the vast library. It was there that she would spend the next several hours, happily paging through the books from cover to cover until she located the classes that held her interest in each one. Fortunately, Houses Slytherin and Gryffindor had been placed on pages opposite each other.

After she’d located them in every yearbook, she spread out the books across her table in chronological order, so that year 1972 lay on the far left, and year 1978 on the far right. Once she’d finished this task, she stood back from the desk and quietly observed the class pictures.

Since the charm for animating photographs hadn’t been invented until late 1973, the photos in the first two yearbooks remained as still as their Muggle counterparts. The moving ones began in Snape and Black’s Third Year at Hogwarts, the very same year in which Hermione was now.

She skimmed the Gryffindor class pictures first, her eyes briefly taking in the form of Sirius Black as he grew from a charmingly cute boy into a rakishly attractive young man. As she had seen the decrepit way he appeared in his wanted poster, she was surprised that he had once been so attractive.

She noticed that he had a gleam in his sharp green eyes which could have been either confidence or rebelliousness. But despite this ambiguous gleam, the lad seemed to be a friendly and outgoing person. In almost evanimanimated photo, he had thrown his arms over the shoulders of the boys next to him and was silently laughing and talking with them gregariously.

She instantly recognized Harry’s parents, and smiled as she watched them mature from their First to Seventh years. In each class photo, the two moved closer together until they were standing next to one another and holding hands in the last. They really were a lovely pair of people, each of their faces exuding warmth and good humor. A wave of sadness engulfed her as she remembered that Harry would never get to know them; perhaps she would show him these pictures one day.

It was with a sense of great excitement that she turned her attention to the Slytherin class on the left side of the open yearbooks. The difference between they and the Gryffindors was instantly apparent; unlike the latter House, the Slytherins, save for a small minority, made much more of an effort to pose for the camera, and more than half of them were not smiling.

Severus Snape was at once recognizable; no matter where he was placed in each picture, he stood alone, the students surrounding him having allowed him a small circular space to himself. Hermione could not tell whether this was because they revered or reviled him, but she knew that even if his position in the pictures had not been so conspicuous, he would have stood aparom rom the entire class all the same.

In his First Year as a Hogwarts student, Severus was noticeably smaller than his peers, both in body and in attitude; even though the picture did not move, the pain and isolation the boy exuded was palpable.

A very thin and sickly looking child, his robes swam about his small body, and only his fingers, neck and head protruded the them. Though his head was bowed, his solemn little face was pointed directly at the camera, his desolate black eyes peeking through the longish, straggly tendrils of his jet hair, as if willing those that would later view the picture to see him most of all.

The child version of Severus was heartbreaking to Hermione, and she stroked his hair in the picture tenderly. It was with some reluctance that she moved on to view him in his Second Year.

Though placed on the opposite side of the student body than he had been in the previous photograph, his demeanor and pose was much the same as it had been in his First Year. The only difference was that his head was raised so that he faced the camera head-on, and a spark of defiance was beginning to cloud the vulnerability is eis eyes.

In the next picture, taken when he was in his Third Year, Hermione perceived a world of difference in Severus, and she did not believe it was all due to the fact that the picture was animated.

He had begun to grow into his height, and his robes fit him much better, despite how thin he’d remained. His seeming helplessness in the prior two photos had been replaced by a firm regality; he was standing up straight and tall, taking advantage of his new height, and his slim arms were folded tightly across his developing chest.

Noting this physical maturation, Hermione then took in the changes that had taken place in his body. His face had begun to take on the shape of an adult’s, his cheekbones more prominent and the line of his jaw more defined. His shoulders had begun to broaden and his hands seemed overlarge, his fingers too long, for his growing frame, but though he was now among the tallest in his class, he was also still among the skinniest.

He must have discovered the power and superiority that the raising of one eyebrow lent his serious face, for the boy was lifting his left brow tenuously, as if just becoming used to the expression.

Still a bit unused to the magical phenomena of animated photographs, Hermione’s eyes lit up with delight as she visually devoured young Severus’ movements. Or lack thereof.

The adolescent version of Snape stood so still and straight, one would have thought this a Muggle photo, but Hermione’s observant and hungry eyes drank in every intake and exhalation of breath that caused his chest to softly rise and fall; every slight lifting and resettling of his position as he transferred his slight weight every so often from one foot to the other; even the occasional barely visible shifting of his eyes from one direction to another.

Hermione reveled in his every movement; this was a moving picture of Severus Snape when he was the very same age, in the very same school, and in the very same Year as herself. If she had known a way to insinuate herself into that picture, she wouldn’t have a single inhibition about running to Severus, grabbing the boy about the neck and planting a passionate kiss upon his lips. She sighed wistfully.

Snape’s photographed image in his Fourth, Fifth and Sixth years were very similar hat hat of his Third in the way of his position and expression. The pictures differed only in the ways of his continued physical development, and in the increasing harshness and strength he projected in each one.

By his Seventh Year, Severus Snape appeared to be encased in his very own impenetrable, invisible shell. The sneer upon his face was a mirror image of the one he still wore to this day; his eyes, seemingly blacker than in the previous pictures, were stony and cold; and his posture was harsh and arrogant. The students around him had given him an even wider circle of space to himself, and he occupied it like a king on his throne.

Snape’s appearance in the photo was nearly identical to his current one, excepting the student robes, the length of his hair (which, in the photograph, was at least four inches longer than its present length), and his youthful face, which had not yet been etched by the shadows and lines of maturity and life experience.

Hermione knew that this---his Seventh Year---was the year in which this boy had fully become the incarnation of Severus Snape that people knew him as today. Her eyes lingered sadly on the picture for a moment, but she did not dare touch it with her fingers as she had done with the others; Seventh Year Snape was too intimidating even in print.

Hermione sighed tiredly and checked her watch: almost nine o’clock. She knew that Madame Pince would arrive to collect her at any moment if she did not report to the front desk in the library to return the yearbooks before leaving. The woman was suspicious even of notoriously rule-abiding Hermione Granger.

Hermione closed each book slowly, cringing slightly as if she thought the action would hurt the people inside, despite her knowledge that they were only animated replicas of the living on paper. She left the yearbook of ope open the last, allowing herself a final, longing look at Third Year Snape before gently closing the book on him.

The idea that hit her as she did so had the force of a current of lightning striking her brain. She remained standing, mouth agape, eyes wide, over the yearbooks for about half a minute as the thought sunk into her mind, easing slowly and becoming comfortable like a body into a warm bath.

She couldn’t do it; it was wrong, it was dangerous, it was illegal. And yet the very prospect was still so tempting. Could she really pull something like that off, leaving herself and others unscathed? She would never know unless she tried it, and Hermione Granger can not stand not to possess knowledge that she knew how to gain.

But now the clock was striking nine times, marking the hour. It was time to go. She would think more on this amazing and terrible revelation later, and vowed to come to an irreversible decision.