Playing the Game

Disclaimer: All hail JK Rowling who owns these characters. I have just borrowed them for some fun.

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Chapter 6. Distractions


Snape stalked along the corridor. He was in no mood to deal with nonsense today. His whole world had been turned on its ear and all because of the whim of a woman young enough to be his daughter…but obviously not old enough to know better. Her note had said four simple words:

“I await your choice”

The words filled him simultaneously with both hope and despair.

He was too old for her. Too old, too jaded. It didn’t matter that, for the longer lived wizards, he was considered to be in his prime. The life he had lead, the things he had seen – no, she didn’t deserve that darkness in her life. She was beautiful and pure and, Gods help him, she was too good for him.

But he wanted her. He had held a piece of heaven in his hands for one perfect night, and now his solitude was going to be all the more empty for it. Perhaps he would have been better off if he had never touched her at all.

She had left the choice to him and he was in deep conflict within himself. He had the luxury of being selfish, he knew, but she deserved better than that.

It was on this bitter thought that he encountered Potter in the deserted corridor near the staffroom door. Potter was on his way out. Severus was on his way in. Potter had a very odd look on his face as he encountered Severus.

“What do you want, Potter?” Severus snapped at him, making no attempt to lower his voice.

Potter, unsurprisingly, did not flinch at his tone.

“What are your intentions?”

“What?”

“Towards Hermione. I won’t let you hurt her.”

Oh Gods, did the whole castle know?

“That is none of your business, Potter.”

“As her friend, it is very much my business. I know you don’t deserve her, you know you don’t deserve her. What I don’t know is what you have done to make her want you.” He was glaring at Severus now.

“What I have done?” Severus sneered at him, his temper rising. “That woman has been a thorn in my side since the two of you arrived! I have done nothing except to attempt to preserve my privacy and dignity, neither of which she appears to respect. She has been a constant nuisance since the day she set foot in this castle with her romantic whims and idiotic ideas about some imaginary nobility that she wants to find within me.”

They were nose to nose now, and Severus was almost shouting.

“I am not interested in anything she has to offer me. All I want from HER and from YOU is to be LEFT ALONE!”

With that Severus turned to enter the staffroom, missing the pained look that flickered across Potter’s face. He slammed open the door and marched in.

He stopped dead in the centre of the room. Hermione was standing by the fireplace. Her back was towards him, but it was clear that she had heard every word Severus had just so helpfully yelled right outside the door.

“Hermione, I-” he began.

She turned to look at him. The pain in her face was unbearable. It was as though she had crumpled in on herself. The hardest thing for him to witness was the abject disappointment dimming her eyes, those beautiful eyes that had just last night gazed at him with all-encompassing warmth.

She reached for the pot of floo powder on the mantle before her, moving like an old woman. Just before she stepped into the now green flame before her she whispered in an agonised voice, “I see you have made your choice.” And with an additional whisper into the fireplace, she was gone.

Severus sat numbly in the nearest chair, staring at the fireplace. Every word he had spoken to Potter in his insecure rage sliced at him like razors. He would gladly have traded that pain for a round of the cruciatus curse if it meant taking away that awful deadness he had seen in her eyes. Gods, if she had ever felt anything for him, he had just succeeded in killing it. The only genuine bit of human warmth anyone had shown him in more decades than he cared to remember had been slashed away by his own stupidity and lack of control.

Gods, this day couldn’t get any worse.

***

Severus had not seen Hermione in a week. She had been absent from meals, even Potter was walking around with a worried look on his face, and glaring daggers at Severus at every opportunity. He had gone to breakfast that morning, his eyes automatically searching for her face at the table, only to be disappointed. He took a seat next to Minerva.

“All ready for the big event, Severus?” she asked him.

Severus looked at her slightly blankly.

“Quidditch?” she prompted, “Last game of the season? Slytherin versus Gryffindor? How on earth did you forget? You have been wanting the Quidditch Cup in Slytherin Hands for nearly a decade and now that your chance is come, you’ve forgotten?” she was looking at him with a worried expression clouding her face. “Is everything all right, Severus?”

“Fine!” he snapped, “I was just distracted for a moment.” Quickly regaining his equilibrium, he threw her a supercilious look. “Five galleons says Slytherin takes out the Cup this year, Minerva.”

Her eyes gleamed at his suggestion, and she nodded curtly. “Thank you, I’ve been meaning to get myself a new scarf. The money will come in handy.”

“You have to win it first.”

“Oh we will, Severus, we will.”

***

The atmosphere was at fever pitch down at the Quidditch ground. As usual most of the school had taken up the Gryffindor chant, which, Severus knew, would only spur the Slytherin players on to even more dangerous and sneaky plays.

Severus was oddly relieved to see a familiar head of hair moving up the steps of the Gryffindor Stand as he strengthened the safety wards about the Slytherin Stand. Hermione had come to the game. She was clearly distracted and refused to meet his eye, although he tried several times to catch it. He hadn’t managed to speak to her since that awful incident at the staffroom. He had been too afraid to go to her directly and she was doing a remarkable job of being invisible. What she had overheard still bothered him, but he knew no way to rectify it. He doubted she would believe anything he said now.

The game kicked off, and the play whirled into action. Severus watched the events unfolding before him. The teams were evenly matched, fighting and scraping for every point. Severus vaguely noticed one of the Bludgers had careened quite close to the Gryffindor stand, but his attention was snatched immediately away by an addition to the Slytherin scoreboard. The event niggled in the back of his head but, with everything else vying for attention, was simply ignored.

A second Bludger whizzed close over the head of the Gryffindor students. Severus frowned and sought out Hermione in the crowd. She was only half paying attention to the game. The thought occurred to him that she had probably forgotten to reset the wards on the Gryffindor Stand. The Wards built in to the tower itself would probably be sufficient, still perhaps he’d keep an eye on the—

Another Bludger swooped in at top speed. He watched one of the seventh years deflect it over the top of the crowd. The Wards were not sufficient, Hermione was not paying attention, and there were too many students in the confined space to risk an injury. Severus sighed and got to his feet. He couldn’t cast the spell from where he sat. Various enchantments were in place that prevented the wards being tampered with from a distance – a relic from matches long past in which dirty play wasn’t just an occurrence on the field.

He swiftly made his way down the Slytherin stairs and up the Gryffindor ones. Severus finally reached the main seating area at the top and began the bludger repellant charm to ward the tower. Before the first words of the enchantment left his lips however, he spied a Bludger headed straight for them. Well, perhaps he’d deal with that first and then the wards.

The Bludger came in at top speed off a Slytherin bat at the same time Hermione caught sight of Severus out of the corner of her eye. She jumped to her feet, her eyes instantly wary at the sight of Severus Snape lurking in the shadows with his wand drawn. Suddenly it was like the world was in slow motion. The same seventh year who had deflected the previous Bludger went to do so again, only this time his aim was slightly off. The Bludger hit the rafters and ricocheted back into the crowd. Hermione was so busy watching Snape that she didn’t even see the damn thing coming.

“Hermione!” Severus yelled her name at the same time a half dozen of the students screamed and cast spells at the Bludger. All Snape heard was the sickening thud as the Bludger hit Hermione in the back of the head, and then watched helplessly as her body slid into a crumpled heap on the floor. A small pool of blood was rapidly forming on the wooden floor.

The students were still screaming, and one of the First Year girls had fainted. Severus was oblivious to the horrified silence that descended over the pitch as the rest of the school realised that some accident had occurred.

“SILENCE! MOVE!!” Snape roared. It was enough. The Gryffindors, already half-terrified of him, scrambled frantically out of his way as he swooped in on Hermione’s limp form to cradle her protectively in his lap. He cast a frantic healing spell to stop the blood that was pouring out of the cut on the back of her head, and sat with her in his arms, her name on his lips. She didn’t wake up.

Severus was in a cold sweat. He had to get her to Poppy immediately. The healing spell he had cast would only last a short while. He tore off his cloak to wrap around her unconscious body and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. Hermione’s head lolled gently against his chest, smearing him with blood. She was horribly pale, and her vulnerability made his stomach clench.

It never even occurred to him to summon a stretcher. Releasing her from his arms was the farthest thing from his mind. With long strides, he bore her rapidly down the stairs and across to the medi-tent where Poppy was set up for on-field injuries.

As he placed her on one of the beds, Poppy took one look at Hermione’s injury and practically pushed Severus from the room. He only resisted until Poppy’s worried voice penetrated the fog in his brain.

“Severus, please,” she begged, “I need to hurry. You have to let me work.”

***

Hermione had been unconscious for nearly two days. Various visitors dribbled in and out, Potter, Hagrid, Lupin, and Minerva most regularly, but only one was a permanent fixture. The dark-haired man sitting half hidden in the corner of the room, waiting, willing her to open her eyes and look at him just one more time.

But she didn’t wake. Poppy had used several healing draughts but although the flesh wound had healed, Hermione stayed silent. She was so still, he could almost imagine she had died, and the thought of it tore a hole in his guts. She wasn’t allowed to die before he told her how important she was to him. Like his very breath, she was essential to him. If he hadn’t been stupid and proud, she would know it already, rather than thinking that he regretted the wonderful night she had shared with him.

For two days and nights he sat by her bed and waited, glaring at anyone who dared to disturb him. He never touched her, he never spoke. He simply watched and hoped. On the second night, Poppy came in carrying a smoking beaker of pale purple liquid. Severus recognised it immediately. It was one of the strongest healing draughts brewable for maladies of the brain, but it had a major side effect. In attempting to heal traumatized brain tissue you ran the risk of permanently erasing recent memory. It was about a 1 in 100 risk, so it was only ever used when all else had failed.

Severus grasped Poppy’s arm, staring at the potion. If she took it, she’d forget his awful words…then his stomach sank, she’d also forget their night together. If it was really bad, she might even forget that she once cared for him at all. He couldn’t bear the thought of returning to a time when she thought nothing of him. Her hate was better than indifference.

“Can’t you give her one more day?”

Poppy looked down at the flask and then at the unconscious woman in the bed.

“The longer we leave it, the greater the risk, Severus. You know that. The strange thing is that we have healed all the physical wounds. It’s almost as though she doesn’t want to wake up.” She shook her head sadly. “I’ve never seen such a thing.”

His dark eyes held hers. Begging was something he had no experience with and he didn’t even know where to start.

Poppy’s eyes softened in mute understanding but she shook her head.

“I can leave it another hour but that’s the best I can do.”

Patting his hand, she retreated to her office, taking the still smoking brew with her.

Severus moved awkwardly to the side of the bed. He reached out, hesitated and then took Hermione’s pale, limp hand in his.

“Hermione–” Severus’ voice felt rusty from lack of use. He swallowed and tried again.

“Hermione, wake up.”

There was no response from the bed.

Severus gripped the soft hand within his and pressed his lips to her still fingers.

“Hermione, come back to me.”

He didn’t know how long he sat there stroking her hand and whispering to her. He couldn’t even remember what he had said, although at some point he vaguely recalled threatening to hex her if she even considered leaving him. She had said she wanted him, well, he demanded, wake up and prove it.

A rustle of fabric behind him pulled his attention back to his surroundings, and a hand touched his shoulder. It was Poppy. She had returned with the potion.

“Severus, I am going to ask you to step outside for a moment, while I administer this.” Her tone, while gentle, brooked no opposition.

Severus released her hand and, oblivious to Poppy’s interested gaze, pressed an urgent kiss to Hermione’s unresponsive lips. Then he turned on his heel and left the room without looking back.

He stood just outside the room, feeling helpless and frustrated. Suddenly Poppy’s head appeared in the doorway.

“Severus!” she called, “She’s awake!”

“The potion. Is she—?”

“I didn’t have to use it! She just woke up.”

Severus released the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. But he didn’t move. She was awake. She was going to be fine. What if she didn’t want to see him?

“Are you coming in?” Poppy asked him, opening the door wider.

Severus stared at Poppy for a long moment. What if she turned away from him again? He couldn’t bear it. It was better not to know.

“I’ll go and let Minerva know,” he said finally, and he stalked off towards the stairs.