Revenant

Summary: WIKTT Challenge: The Hollow Man: Severus Snape is sentenced to an archaic ritual that destroys his mind and magic. Now that he is needed once more, can the Golden Trio find a way to bring him back? SS/HG

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I claim nothing.

Revenant


Chapter Two: Tea for Two


The days passed quickly, and Hermione slowly learned to cuer ier instinctual cringe when she encountered Snape. Her newly purchased house, which was large for her, was still small enough that she ran into him frequently. Crates had been scattered about, half-open with books and wrapping materials that cluttered the hallways. Strange and angular landscapes had been created, and Crookshanks would quietly disappear into them only to reappear later at night with a resounding crash. In defense of a full night’s sleep, Hermione had finally asked Snape to help her unpack the crates and organize things. Despite the compulsionary geas upon him, she waill ill surprised when he complied. And so her somewhat impermanent home became a shade or two more organized and permanent to her when she finally beheld her books unpacked and given order upon the shelves.

She marked the passing of days by the turning of pages in ancient texts as she struggled to find some clue that would help her release the otiootions master from his curse. The mornings were marked with an exuberant optimism -that today would be the day- while the evenings were etched with the frustration of failure.

It was in the evenings, after long hours of research and speculation; she would find herself curled before the fire in the main room regarding the form of her erstwhile professor as he silently awaited his next command. He seemed neither anxious nor sad; the only impression he seemed to give off was one of a supreme indifference.

Books lay scattered around her, forming a barrier of knowledge and theory that separated her and the dark man in both a very literal and figurative sense. Papers overflowing with bizarre and strange glyphs and equations had been crumpled and tossed into the vague direction of a waste bin only to carpet the newly discovered floor of her study. She was left with the feeling that she was missing someg; sg; something simple and elemental.

Finally crumbling under the unwavering dark and attentive gaze, Hermione sent Snape to the kitchen to brew a pot of tea, just to escape his patient presence. A relative silence descended upon the room after he left, relived only by the crackling of the fire, and the gentle creak of the house as it shifted and settled. Without his eternal presence, Hermione felt herself drawn back into an ancient grimoire, searching.

Hermione felt a measure of peace fill her as he left, dispellthe the tension that she had been living in for the past few weeks. When the knock came at the door it caused her to jump in surprise, and she dropped the text she had been reading to her lap.

She looked at the clock, and frowned to herself at the lateness of the evening. She quickly moved to the door and peeked through the hidden spy hole. With a jerk of surprise, she tugged open the ancient door.

“Harry!” She exclaimed, as she pulled her friend out of the cold drizzle of the night. “What are you doing here? Where’s Ron?”

“He wasn’t able to make it tonight.” Harry gave a hurried smile and stepped into the foyer, shutting the door and stripping the sodden cloak from his thin frame. Hermione quickly took it from him and pulled him towards the fire in the living room.

“I’m sorry for showing up so late.” He spoke quietly, “I just wanted to check on how things were going with- with Snape.” He seemed to choke a bit on the name.

Hermione gave a weak smile, and turned away from him to spread the cloak out in front of the fire where it began to steam as it dried. “It’s… well… I’ve not found anything yet.”

Harry nodded to himself and sat down on the couch with a barely suppressed sigh of fatigue. Hermione turned back to him, and was startled by how much he had aged in the two months since Lord Voldemort’s Defeat. He seemed older now, and more… well.. more defined. As if the battles with Voldemort had chipped away at his boyish exterior until the man beneath had been revealed. He was both older and stronger looking Hermione thought. “The Ministry still keeping you out at all hours of the night, shaking hands and signing autographs?”

For a moment he looat hat her, startled and hurt, then his face relaxed as he realized that she was gently teasing him. The lines on his face smoothed out, and for a moment Hermione was reminded of the young boy she had first befriended. His voice was dry as he responded, “Yeah, it’s not easy being the savior or the world you know.”

At that moment, Snape entered the room bearing a poorly arranged tea tray with two cups. Harry’s eyes widened and he looked at Hermione, who had the sense to look slightly embarrassed.

“Would you like some tea?” She asked.

“Well, as long as we don’t have to discomfort any house-elves, sure, why not?” He said, leaning forward as Snape settled the tray onto the side table. “Please pour a cup of tea for Mr. Potter if you would Mr. Snape.”

The silent man began the elaborate ritual of pouring tea, each movement precise and specific.

Harrs sus sure he detected a faint blush creeping across her cheeks. “You know,” he began to speak earnestly, “that it’s servants like these that take jobs away from hard working house elves.”

He leaned back into the couch and took a cup of tea gracefully from the ex-Potions Master’s hands. “I’m not sure how you live with yourself.”

Hermione rolled her eyes as he took a delicate sip from the tea cup. His expression froze as the liquid hit his tongue. Years of being in the public eye had taught him to master his expressions, but Hermione caught the look of disgust that crossed his face before he schooled his face into one of extreme politeness. He set the cup back in it’s saucer with a determined clink, and shot a look of disbelief at the man who stood waiting silently behind the tea pot.

Hermione settled herself down on the couch next to him, and smiled at Professor Snape. “Please sit down and drink your tea Professor.”

As Snape moved away with a brimming teacup, Harry risked a quick look at his cup, and then back at his friend. “Is this a medicinal tea then? To help him?”

Hermione, who had found out early on when Snape had “moved in” just how horrible his tea tasted, looked at Harry innocently. “Noooo, that’s just the way he makes it. Do drink up, it’s much be hot hot.”

Harry looked back at his cup, as if foreseeing an unpleasant future in the gently swirling tea leaves. He tried to think of something that summed up his feelings of the great and mighty Potions Master brewing a simple cup of tea, and came up with the rather inane, yet completely accurate, “Wow.”

Hermione’s face split in a wide, and for the first time in several weeks, genuine smile. “I know.”

“How?” Harry asked bewildered. “All you do is boil water and then let the tea steep…”

“I know. Believe me, I’ve watched him brew it, and I still don’t know why it comes out tasting the way it does.”

“Wow,” repeated The Boy Who Lived to Drink Snape’s Tea. Finally he shook himself and refocused on his friend. “So. Besides the tea, how are things coming along?”

Hermione felt the smile fade from her face, and she looked into the fire. She could feel Snape’s dark eyes focused on her, waiting on any command she might give.

“Well, I know a little bit more, but nothing definitive. I’m still not sure what spell the Ministry used. He follows my commands directly, and to the letter. He seems to grasp basic concepts, like ‘make tea’ and ‘bathe’ and ‘move these books to that shelf’ but that’s about it.” She looked at Harry. “He can’t do anything complicated, and potions are right out. He can chop ingredients, and pour mixtures, but only at my prompting. I can’t just tell him to make a calming potion and have him do it.

“They told me that he won’t be able to…” Hermione’s face clouded as she considered her words. “He won’t be able to make any decisions; that even speaking or nodding, or anything is… completely beyond his abilities now. He can only do what he is told, and even then, there are just some things he just can’t do; things that require a will or a desire. I’m not very well versed on medical issues, but it’s almost like he has… well… a very specific kind of autism.

“He won’t move unless I tell him to, he can’t do magic, he doesn’t read, he can’t even speak, and then…” Hermione dropped her head into her hands, rubbing at her tired eyes. She had tried everything she could think of, researched every book she had –had researched more than a few of them several times over as a matter of fact- but she still hadn’t been able to find out anything.

“Sometimes I wonder if he’d be better off dead.” She hadn’t realized she had spoken until she heard her voice crack on the last word.

Harry looked at her, stunned.

“Hermione, don’t ever say that. No one’s better off dead. No one.” He shook his head and drained the wretched tea from the cup, feeling the liquid burn on the way down, loosening the lump that had formed in his throat. “I mean, while he’s alive, there’s always the chance-”

“That he’ll ‘get better?’” Hermione asked softly. “Harry… I don’t know what they did. I can’t find any records of anything like this, ever. I don’t know how to it. it. He was a complete git, but he doesn’t deserve this!”

Harry set his teacup down and settled one hand on her shoulder. “Hermione, look at me. None of them deserve this. Not even Malfoy or Pettigrew.”

He settled back into the couch, sliding his hand along her back and pulling her to him into a rough hug. He could feel the slight hitch of her breathing where she struggled to keep herself from crying in front of him. His hands moved along her back in soothing circles. “We don’t know how to fix this, but we’ll find a way. We have before, right?”

Her eyes were closed tight, and she burrowed into his jumper, feeling -for the first time in a long while- that it may work out after all.

A dark figure sat motionless, eyes hooded and uninterested, the only movements were the slight breaths his body forced him to take. Clutched in his hand, a cup of tea slowly cooled off.

Harry held Hermione for a few minutes, slowly stroking her hair and staring past her head at the fire. Finally he gave a deep sigh, and made to move. She moved with him, sitting up and trying to wipe surreptitiously at her cheeks and eyes.

“Hermione, I’ve got to get back to Scotland. I’m sorry to leave you with all of this, but I just want you to know how important it is, and how thankful I am to know that it’s you who’s working on it. He’ll get better Hermione, I have faith in you.”

With that, he gave her a hard hug, and sto stood up. She pushed her hair away from her face and stood up as he gathered his cloak. “I’ll tell Ron that I saw you, and let him know that you’re doing okay, all alone in the big city. He worries you know.”

Hermione smiled sadly at her friend and sighed. “Sure. And maybe tomorrow, I’ll try to see if I can find any books I may have missed. I’m sure that there’s got to be something written down somewhere about this.”

Harry nodded and slung his damp cloak around his shoulders. “If you need me or Ron, get a hold of McGonagall. She’ll know where to find us.”

“Sure Harry.” She walked with him to the front door and gave him another hug before he disappeared into the raining night.

*

The next day found Hermione pacing in the living room, with a book in her hands and a tension headache that was slowly threatening to blossom into a full-blown crippling pain.

Hermione tossed the book to the table, careless of how it scattered the papers that covered the table top. As her tired eyes settled on the stale husk of her sandwich, her stomach tightened, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since the scanty sandwiches and thin soup of yesterday’s lunch. Hermione finally collapsed onto the couch, resting her head in her hands.

As she had promised Harry, she’d gone back through her library. She had dug through all of her book marks and scraps of notes, searching for anything that she might have missed.

Hermione groaned and turned to her books, eyeing them with an uncharacteristic wariness, wondering which one she should try again.

She had researched through The Seven Curses of Al Azif, but couldn’t find anything that she hadn’t already read. She felt that she was on the right track though, as she read and re-read of the Binding Rituals of the ancient Egyptians. The text described the zombie-like state well enough to cause Hermione to feel that she was getting closer to figuring out what had been used, but then the text would veer off into a strange and fantastical sort of historical account. Hermione had, in exasperation, cross-referenced the historical account only to find that it seemed to be a series of made up events that had never happened, anywhere in the history of Egypt. The book, while interesting in parts, was complete rubbish.

The Book of Subversive Ethics (Subetica Vol. 1) was little better. It spoke of various curses and punishments for various criminal activities, but the curses that it spoke of were all set down in such a way that she had no idea what they were talking about. The author seemed to assume that readers would know the common names of the spells and curses used. Hermione had deciphered most of the archaic mess of the text, but had still found herself at something of a loss. So many centuries had passed since the writing of the book that many of the names and details of the curses had all but been wiped from the collective minds of the magical population, leaving her wonlyonly impressions of the information that she was looking for.

Looking over at Snape, Hermione was sure that if anyone might have been able to understood the book, it would have been her former potions professor. Hermione felt a brief flicker of irony as her headache intensified.

A knock interrupted her musings, and Hermione found herself entertaining her second guest in as many days. She smiled wanly as she opened the door for the youngest Weasley. “Hi Ginny, please, come in. Mind the mess.”

Ginny stepped into the house, her eyes flickering across the surroundings before taking in the sight of her tired friend. Harry hadn’t been kidding; Hermione looked horrible, as if she hadn’t slept in days. Her robes were crumpled and her hair had frizzed into a tangled mess that had gained a personality all of its own. Ginny quickly stepped forward, and caught her friend off guard and into a warm hug.

“Hello Here,” e,” Ginny said, her voice muffled by the older girl’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you this summer.”

Hermione’s smile relaxed as the small redhead hugged her tightly. “Well, I’ve been so busy, and besides, I haven’t seen Ron in a while...”

Ginny nodded and stepped back. She knew her friend would never come to visit without Ron, not wanting to impose herself on the Weasleys.

“You know you can come by anytime right? With or without Ron. You’re my friend too.”

Hermione smiled and led Ginny into the living room that looked even smaller under the mounds of books and crumpled papers. It appeared as if an occult library had exploded into the room, covering everything with a literary ash. Ginny’s eyes locked on Snape where he sat quietly by the fire, Crookshanks curled contentedly in his lap.

“You need to get out more Hermione. It can’t be good to be shut up in this house, all alone with him.”

“Ginny,” her voice was distressed. “I can’t, I’m too busy with the research.”

Hermione shuffled papers and books free from the couch, clearing a small area for Ginny to sit. “I’d really love to Ginny, but this is important.”

Ginny sat down, gingerly handing the older girl a few stray scraps of notes. “Look, Hermione, you’ve been shut in the house for how many days? When’s the last time you went out? And I don’t mean just for groceries.”

At Hermione’s guilty look, Ginny was incredulous. “You have gone out r? Fo? For groceries at least?”

Hermione looked at thecks cks of papers in her hands. Finally a deep sigh welled out of her and she looked up at her friend. “Ginny, I’ve had so much work to do. I really appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m fine, really I am.”

Ginny looked earnestly at her friend. “Hermione, look; I know you’re working hard on this, I mean, I know how important it is to you, but you can’t save someone’s soul if you lose yours in the process.”

Hermione was silent, but Ginny could see the emotions battling behind her friend’s eyes.

“C’mon Dr. Frankenstein, I miss you. Let’s go out tomorrow night. Just for a little while. Just for a break. Who knows, maybe some of that ‘free association’ stuff will hit you, and help with a break-through…

“I…” Hermione’s protest died at Ginny’s look.

“No. You’re going out with me tomorrow. This is my last free week before I have to go back to school, and I’ve not seen you the whole summer. I need to go shopping for school supplies, and as my best friend, it’s your job to go with me. If you truly feel guilty, we can even take him.” A sly grin spread across the redhead’s face as she assessed the silent Snape. “He can carry all of our packages!”

Hermione’s laughter came out with a muffled snort. “Ginny!” She admonished. “That’s not funny!”

“Then why are you laughing?” The younger woman grinned back.

Hermione smiled at Ginny, and realized how much better she felt just from talking with her old friend. Perhaps a day off was what she needed.

*


[Author’s Notes (I really love reading these in other fics):
Back in the prologue, the phrase “In full submission, we shall be reborn.” Is actually from Full Caliber Consecrator by Clutch. Credit where credit is due, and shame on me.

Hit a required scene: “Hermione wondering aloud if the proud man she knew wouldn’t rather she kill him instead of allowing him to continue existing like that.”

The word “geas” is basically a magical obligation. A good definition is found at: http://www.geocities.com/astraeaaradia/Druids.html

The Seven Curses of Al Azif -nicked (and sort of renamed) from the Cthulhu Mythos. I’m going to say that it’s an incomplete copy of the text, which sucks for Hermione’s research.

Deb > ^..^ < , Most, if not all, will be explained… sooner or later. (Seeing what a slow writer I am, it’ll probably be later…)

Talene, it started off kind of dark, and while it does get better, I promise it won’t get fluffy anytime soon.

LittleBird, seriously, thanks for beta-ing this for me, and pestering me to work on it when I get sidetracked.

Rilla, thank you for saying so. I must confess I get nervous when writers who I admire read my story… I hope I don’t disappoint.

JestersTear, this was a great challenge, I’m glad you set it out. It really helps when you (meaning I) want to write, but don’t know what to do, or where to start. I think the challenges are a great idea, and I think that this one was one of the most interesting I’ve seen.

ZeeDrippyVessel, what a funny name! I hope to keep Snape angry and non-wimpy. If he gets weak, it’ll only be for a little while.]