The Taking of Tea

CHAPTER FIVE: THE FLASH OF A VOICE



To be so held by brittleness, shapeliness.

By meaning. As where I have to go where you go,

I have to touch what you must touch,

in hunger, in boredom, the spindrift, the ticket…

Distilled in you (can you hear me)

the idiom in you, the why—



The flash of a voice. The river glints.

The mother opens the tablecloth up into the wind.

There as the fabric descends --- the alphabet of ripenesses,

what is, what could have been.

The bread on the tablecloth. Crickets shrill in the grass.



O pluck my magic garment from me. So.

[lays down his robe]

Lie there, my art—



(This is a form of matter of matter she sang)



(Where the hurry is stopped) (and held) (but not extinguished)

(no)



(So listen, listen, this will soothe you) (if that is what you want)



Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to

(even though the wave break and drown me in laughter)

the wave breaking, the wave drowning me in laughter—





A/N: This chapter is a flashback of sorts, and takes place nine years prior to the rest of the story. Since we’ll return to present time afterwards, and there’s quite a bit to explain regarding the past, this chapter will be long. The above poem is called “Soul Says,” by John Graham.





As everyone at Hogwarts had fully expected, Hermione was given the position of Head Girl in her seventh year, which meant that she could continue to boss other students with the added benefit of genuine authority. Her haranguing was always reasonable: “you ought to be studying,” “that hallway is restricted,” “you should be in your dormitory,” but it was rarely called for. Cursed with maturity, Hermione felt the need to play mother hen, and while her attempts were well-intentioned, she failed to realize that they were not licensed because she was still a child.



Her friends tolerated this behavior, as friends do, but otherwise she was not warmly-received. The girls in her dormitory, while polite, excluded her from their conversations and their plans, not wanting to meet with the head girl’s disapproval. The Slytherins made every effort to provoke her when she found them wandering the castle past curfew. She was teased constantly, despite, or perhaps worsened by, Harry and Ron’s defense of their friend. When that finally because tiresome, she was simply snubbed, which was even more painful. So when someone took interest in her, she responded.



Thomas Gray was a seventh year beater for the Ravenclaw quidditch team, tall and broad, with blond hair and a lantern jaw. His interest in Hermione had been genuine—he found her attractive and admired her intelligence. She was flattered by his attention, and pleased to have some companionship, and they quickly became glued at the hip.



It had been during a Hogsmeade weekend that things went sour. Hermione and Thomas had discussed the issue of sex at length, and each time she had insisted that she wasn’t ready. Since she hadn’t claimed to be saving herself for marriage, Thomas couldn’t understand her resistance, but Hermione felt that having sex only two months into their relationship would be moving too quickly.



“What are you saying?” Thomas bleated, pacing in Hermione’s empty dorm room, “I mean, what does that mean? Things are moving too fast, as in, you’re not sure how you feel about me?” Later in life, Hermione would learn that honesty was not always the best policy.



“That’s not what I mean at all. I like you; I like spending time with you. But sex should be… it should be with someone you love, shouldn’t it?”



“And you don’t love me.”



“Well I,” she balked, looking at the comforter beneath her, “I think that I will love you, in time. But we’re still getting to know each other. Can you honestly say that you love me?”



In response, Thomas moved to where Hermione was seated at the foot of her bed, and took her face between his hands, eyeing her with all the wild passion of an eighteen year-old.



“Yes. Yes, I love you.” He declared, before leaning in to kiss her deeply. Hermione responded with intensity; after all, wasn’t this what she wanted? Because of her extreme intelligence, she sometimes underestimated others, and in this case, she assumed that Thomas was sincere. Perhaps, she thought, as they reclined on the bed, he did believe that he loved her. Perhaps he wasn’t yet mature enough to distinguish the real from the puppy love. If such were the case, she couldn’t possibly hurt his feelings with a contradiction.



Very quickly, more quickly that Hermione expected, things came to a point where she would have to reassert her wish to wait or lose her virginity. And she did, at first giving Thomas an outright “no,” followed by excuses: she was feeling very tired, she needed a contraceptive potion, the students would soon be back from Hogwarts. But she didn’t reach for her wand, or even give him her signature right hook. Instead, she only pleaded, “Thomas, don’t,” when he pushed into her, and afterward put her face into the pillow to cry until it was over, and he pulled up his trousers and gave her a quick kiss goodbye.



Afterwards, Hermione would wonder why she hadn’t kicked and screamed. She would wonder why her quick temper had suddenly abandoned her, and worse, she would wonder what the nature of that encounter truly was. Had it been consensual? She steadfastly avoided Thomas for several days, ended by, of all things, a note, which read:













Hermione,



I’ve been doing some thinking, and I decided you were right. We were taking things too fast, and I’m not sure how I feel. I think we should cool off for a while,



Thomas





Hermione was more than amenable to that. She decided that the best course of action was to continue on as if nothing had happened, which was a total failure. At meals, she sat wondering whether or not she’d really said “no” firmly enough, pushing the food around on her plate and ignoring Harry and Ron. In classes, she wondered if not hitting him meant that she wanted it to happen, and considered this ad infinitum rather than raising her hand. Her friends, and those professors who helped to turn the wheel of the gossip mill, assumed that her behavior was the result of her breakup and all the other troubles she’d been facing as head girl. Several times there were motherly looks and gently voiced concerns, but nothing more.



And nothing even close to such concern from the person of Severus Snape, who was unpleasant as ever. The impact of a cruel teacher could be considerable, and Snape had been doing his best to chip away at Hermione’s self confidence for nearly seven years. When she raised her hand his kindest response was a roll of the eyes, or more often, some cutting remark about her unwarranted eagerness. Her inability to keep her wild hair out of the cauldrons. Her abominable handwriting, her taxing verbosity, her idiotic desire to question everything.



He did nothing to deter her ambition, and if anything spurred it on, but his vitriol was painful. He had made her cry privately on more than one occasion, and when he managed those particularly deft twists of the knife that got her glassy-eyed in glass, he gleefully pointed out her pathetic inability to contain her unstable emotions. The logical assumption would therefore be that he would be relieved by her sudden silence in his class, and ignore her. And at first, he did.



Although she remained in her front row seat, for a month she sat dull and unresponsive, going slowly and stumblingly through the work of making assigned potions, turning in mediocre essays and never once raising her hand. Eventually, though, his cruel streak won out. It was late afternoon, and the students were straining to copy the scribble of notes on the board in the particularly dim light of the potions classroom. The lecture addressed the use of ylang-ylang versus jojoba as the base ingredient for concoctions that were applied rather than ingested. It was a necessary topic, though not particularly interesting, and Hermione Granger looked positively bored.



“…would hope, by now, that those of you who have somehow managed to get this far are aware of why galangal is not an acceptable substitution. Could someone please save me the trouble of explaining the obvious and tell me why this is so?” Severus demanded, and no one answered. To his considerable irritation, he’d discovered that the Socratic method was far less effective without the know-it-all’s input to keep things moving. He stalked over to her seat, bracing his arms on the table and leaning into get her attention.



“Not even you, Miss Granger? Surely, someone with nothing better to do than complete the assigned reading ahead of time would be able to answer such a simple question. Or have the muscles in your arm finally atrophied after the years of obsequious hand-raising?” Admittedly, he was baiting her, but it wasn’t as if he’d never done so before. She looked into his face, and he noted that her own was thin and pallid. When she didn’t answer, he prodded her further, “admittedly, your recent quiet has been a blessing to all of us, but if you’ve suddenly gone dumb, I’d prefer to be made aware.” Her face twisted into a particularly nasty expression and she opened her chapped lips.



“Fuck you.”



Much to his chagrin, Snape recoiled in shock. A titter passed through the class before the room went deadly silent.



“Class dismissed!” He boomed, and after a moment of dumbstruck stillness, the Advanced Potions students gathered their things and bolted from the classroom, pausing only long enough to cast curious glances at Hermione. As she moved to put her books into her satchel he slammed a fist on the table, making her jump.



“Not you, Miss Granger.” When the room had emptied, he slammed the door shut with a flick of his wand. It took him a moment to compose himself. He had never been fond of the girl, but her public insult brought him perilously close to hexing her. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” He demanded, his normally pale face flushed with anger. “I should have you removed from my class for such disrespect.”



“Then do it,” she spat. “I’m sure nothing would please you more.”



“One more outburst like that and I certainly will. As it is, I demand that you explain yourself and apologize. And serve detention with Filch for the next two weeks.”



Hermione pulled her satchel from the floor and put her books inside, rising from her chair. He pushed her back down with a punishing hand on her shoulder.



“You are at the limits of my patience, Miss Granger,” he warned, his voice going dangerously quiet. She looked up, and he realized that she was very close to tears. Normally he would have sneered and insulted her, but the bizarre situation gave him pause.



“Just leave me alone,” she pleaded. Snape scowled; this was not an auspicious development.



“Accio chair,” he decided, a point of his wand bringing one of chairs around to the other side of Hermione’s desk. He sat down and braced himself for the challenge that was surely ahead.



“What is wrong with you, Miss Granger? For the past month you’ve been dull as a doorstop, not to mention the fact that your work has been decidedly sub-par. And then this outburst…you are decidedly out of character.”



Hermione drew a deep breath and released it as a belabored sigh. Ever since things had gone wrong with Thomas she’d felt as though she were underwater; every movement seemed to require effort, and she felt sluggish and perpetually exhausted. She looked at her hands, paying close attention to a hangnail on her index finger.



“I really don’t think you want to play the role of confidant, Professor. Especially to the likes of me.”



Severus felt a very unwelcome surge of guilt. He was unkind to Hermione, but he was unkind to everyone. Still, he considered the students to be his responsibility, and the idea that she believed him to be so callous regarding her welfare was unsettling. Hadn’t he protected Potter from danger countless times? Hadn’t he put himself between Potter, Weasley, herself and a werewolf in their fourth year? Honestly, if he were truly heartless he would’ve let Longbottom blow himself up years ago.



“Despite the often volatile nature of our encounters, Miss Granger, the welfare of my students will always be a chief concern. If someone has hurt of threatened you in some way, I expect you to tell me.” Hermione’s mouth tightened in response, and he knew that he was close to home. When she remained stubbornly silent, he whispered, “legilimens.”



She looked at him then, her eyes widening in surprise and indignation. It didn’t matter, as she had no skill at occlumency, and he quickly discovered the source of her troublesome behavior. He retreated from her mind with a grim expression.



“How dare you,” she hissed, the high slant of her cheeks going pink.



“Do what is necessary to overcome your mulish obstinacy? This is hardly the time for an ethical debate, Miss Granger. Wait here while I floo the headmaster.”



“No!” She pleaded, grabbing onto his shirtsleeve when he attempted to stand. “Please,” her voice softened, “Please, not that.” Knowing nothing about the psychology of rape, Snape was appalled and completely shocked that Hermione Granger, of all people, would attempt to refuse to right a wrong.



“Why on earth not? A crime has been committed; you were raped. Mr. Gray needs to be punished immediately.”



“Because it wasn’t rape. I mean I…” She paused, her cheeks turning a blistering red, and let out a small hiccup. “I didn’t want him to, but it’s not as if I threw him off of me, or anything.”



“Did you not protest?” Snape asked, knowing from what he’d seen that she had. It was difficult territory—he’d certainly seen his share of sexual violence as a death eater, but such situations were drastically different. Women, and men, were forcibly restrained and cruelly violated, and typically disposed of afterwards. Gray had not cursed her or beat her, but he had manipulated her trust in him as her beau to force her into sex. It had to be a difficult thing for Hermione to wrap her mind around, particularly since she tended to think in black and white.



“I tried to talk him out of it. I told him not to, and that I wasn’t ready. Maybe he was just so caught up that he didn’t hear me.” To Snape’s dismay, she began to cry. She made no sound, instead pointing her face to the ceiling, clearly not wanting him to see.



“That is ridiculous and you know it.” Snape pinched the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh. “For the moment, I will keep this to myself, but it is a problem that you must address; it’s affecting your academics.”



“I know,” she bleated, wiping furiously at the sides of her face. “I just keep going over it in my head. I can’t understand how this happened.”



“It happened without your consent, and that’s what you must remember. Are you,” he looked at her keenly, “are you injured in any way?” In response, she let out a hiccupping sob.



“I have a rash.”



“A rash?”



“A rash.” She righted her face and made a downward sweep with her eyes, and he understood.



“Could it be,” he paused, truly in alien territory, “from another encounter?”



“No. I’d never— there wasn’t anyone else.”



Grimmer and grimmer, Snape thought, before doing a mental survey of his potions stock. There was no point in apologizing for delicacies, now.



“What kind of rash?”



Hermione looked absolutely miserable, and Snape was struck with the powerful urge to comfort her, which was disquieting in the extreme. It was most likely painful, then.



“It looks a bit like blisters, and it’s very… it’s very uncomfortable.”



An odd side-effect of being a death eater was a familiarity with sexually transmitted diseases. Admittedly, Snape was worldly enough to know a bit about them in the first place, but as a potions master he had been a stop-gap physician for the numerous death eaters who were libidinous, stupid, and in the habit of exercising poor taste. Without actually seeing the “rash,” Snape couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that Hermione had either Chlamydia or Gonorrhea. The curative was the same in both cases, but he couldn’t rule out that it wasn’t something more sinister. He hoped fervently that it wasn’t; the poor child was in enough trouble already.



“Miss Granger,” he sighed again, “I’m going to do something extraordinarily unwise. I’m going to give you a potion, which you must take daily for three days hence. If this rash does not disappear by the end of that time, then you must see Madam Pomfrey, as you’ll need more serious treatment. Do you understand?”



“Yes.”



“Wait here until I return,” he commanded, rising from his seat and leaving the room. He quickly made his way up to his potions storeroom, fetching four vials and then returning to his troubled student.



“Drink the first now.” He told her, standing before her with a vial outstretched. “I suggest holding your nose.”



She did, which didn’t prevent her from a coughing gag as the stuff went down. Some of her trademark curiosity suddenly restored, she asked, “what gives it such an awful taste,” with a deep grimace.



“Mold.” He said flatly, handing her the remaining vials. “Take the rest as I instructed, and see me after class on Friday.”



Having nothing she could bear to say, Hermione simply nodded, stuffed the vials in her satchel and fled the classroom at breakneck speed. Hearing the door close behind her, he slumped in his seat, again pinching the bridge of his prominent nose. He had, hopefully, resolved things for the time-being, but he could not shake the feeling of dread.







Friday came agonizingly slowly for Hermione, who was a nervous wreck, and far too quickly for Snape, who was also a nervous wreck. After class, she waited patiently in her seat until he again summoned a chair and settled into it opposite her.



“Well?”



“It worked.” She said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. Snape was again tempted to use legilimens, but decided that he didn’t care to know what she was thinking.



“Good. If you have the empty vials, I would like them back.”



She nodded, reaching into her pack to retrieve the empties, then stretching over to hand them to him. As he took the last, he grabbed hold of her hand, stroking the flesh between thumb and forefinger. She let him, keeping her body at an awkward angle to maintain the contact.



“You will be fine, Miss Granger; the worst is over now.”



She said nothing for several minutes, clearly trying to bring her emotions under control. Strange as it was, Snape had been the only person to provide her with comfort. She had spoken with her parents, but perhaps because of her guilt-laden interpretation of events, they had expressed only anger and disappointment. She had kept it from Harry and Ron, as their knowing could only be disastrous. The long stares Hermione had been receiving from some of the Ravenclaw girls suggested that they knew she and Thomas had slept together, and that Thomas had either found her lacking or had wanted nothing more from her. She knew what Snape was thinking: that she was strong-willed, that she would overcome, that her mourning period needed to come to an end. She pulled her hand from his, and rose from her chair.



Snape rose as well, moving to stand before her, so close that she could count the lines on his face.



“Miss Granger, in my time as a spy, I have seen and done terrible things. Losing your innocence to the brutality of experience changes you, and you cannot reverse that change. A part of you will always mourn, and a part of you will always feel bitterness. Accept what has happened, grieve for it, and move on. Do not let it ruin you.” And with that, he turned away, making it clear that their conversation was finished.



And then a terrible thing happened. After a large and absolutely contraband bottle of firewhiskey, Thomas Gray told a few of his mates that he’d slept with Hermione Granger, editing the detail of her fearful crying into some kind of love-struck plea for his continued attentions, despite the fact that she was, he proclaimed, a terrible lay. These mates told their girlfriends, many of whom were intensely jealous of Hermione’s intelligence, and gleefully happy that her relationship with the handsome Gray had failed.



The following week, Hermione entered potions class and was greeted with a ferocious roar of gossip. Ron and Harry, thank Merlin, were not in NEWTS level potions, although that turned out to be a small consolation.



“Hey Mudblood!” Draco called from the back of the classroom. “I hear you gave it up to Thomas Gray. Hope he beats better in bed than he does on the quidditch pitch.” A chorus of nasty laughs rose in response, and Hermione fought back tears, as well as the powerful urge to run from the room.



“Not that it matters,” Draco continued, “since you were so bad that he dumped you right after. I heard you cried like a first year, too, begging him to give you another chance.”



At that moment Professor Snape strode into the room, and the cruel taunting and laughter quickly stopped.



“Silence!” He commanded, raising his wand to the board, where a piece of chalk began to write out instructions. “Copy the instructions and begin at once on your potions.”



Snape saw the jeering looks his students threw Hermione as they left class, and in the days after he noticed that she was a subject of great interest at meals, with none of it positive. By the following week she’d stopped coming to meals altogether, and her two lap dogs looked positively stricken. Because he made it a point to keep himself as distanced from the student population as possible, it took until the following Friday for the potions master to discover what the problem was.



That same evening, he stood before the portrait guarding the entrance to the Ravenclaw dormitories. The portrait was a rather pompous old wizard who stood posed before a fireplace, his Elizabethan stockings falling down his skinny legs.



“Password?” The dour portrait asked.



“I don’t know the bloody password,” Snape swore, “but I’m faculty and I demand that you open the door this instant!”



Looking deeply affronted, the portrait obeyed, and Snape swept into the common room and down to the boys’ dormitories in all of his darkling fury, face set in a deep scowl as his black robes billowed behind him. He pushed open the seventh years’ door without a knock.



“Where is Thomas Gray?” He demanded, and the boys, who were playing a round of poker before bed, cowered. Gray stood up quickly, looking nervous and confused.



“Ah, right here, Professor. Is…is there something the matter?”



“Come with me.” He said sharply, spinning around and knowing that the boy would follow. When they finally stepped into the hall, Snape’s face was even darker, and when he spoke, his voice was low and deadly quiet.



“You are going to do everything in your power to dispel the prickishly stupid rumor you’ve been spreading about your encounter with Hermione Granger, even if it means rescinding your falsehood personally to each and every student at Hogwarts. If you don’t, I’ll go the headmaster myself.”



“And tell him what?” Thomas asked, displaying a sudden—and stupid—surge of bravado. “She wanted it,” he continued, “I only gave the bi—” Thomas stopped when Snape jammed the end of his wand into the boy’s throat.



“Perhaps you’re not familiar with all the uses of a pensieve, Mr. Gray; I suspect that extracting Hermione’s memory regarding the event in question would not place you in a very favorable light.”



“She’d never do it.” Thomas countered, leaving Snape very much appalled. Admittedly, he did not harbor many illusions concerning human nature, but Gray was a well-respected student from a good family. He pressed his wand deeper into the boy’s jugular, where it was sure to leave a mark.



“Don’t be stupid, boy,” he snarled. “Take a moment to remember who it is you’re talking to. Unless you want to run the risk that something very nasty slips into your drinking water, I suggest that you do as I’ve instructed. Immediately.” The slow, ugly process of realization swept across Gray’s face, and when it finished he was shaking.



“Of, of course, Sir. I-I-I…I’ll rectify the…the problem right away.”



“See that you do.” Snape hissed, and stalked away.



Valuing his own hide, Thomas kept to his word, and although those in Slytherin continued to taunt Hermione for a little while more, her harassment subsided in favor of torturing Thomas, who was apparently not to be trusted. The rumors that began filling Hogwarts about Thomas told Hermione that someone had done something to set it straight, or at least try, anyway. It couldn’t have been Harry or Ron, as she’d never told them anything about it and they had a tendency to steadfastly ignore anything to do with her as a sexual entity. It might have been Flitwick—he was certainly the type to right a wrong if it was within his ability to do so. She had a suspicion that it had in fact been Snape, but the idea struck her as so silly, so frivolously chivalrous and entirely unlike the man that at first she refused to consider it.



And then she recalled all that Snape had done for her, giving her his counsel and his help and keeping her confidence. As much as she wanted to pretend that the whole ugly affair had never happened, her decency demanded that she thank the potions master for his help. Damn.







A/N:I needed to break this up into two chapters, so there will be one more flashback chapter describing the goings-on with Snape before we return to the present.