Constantly Watching people

This little plot bunny has been hopping around my computer for a while now, thought i'd put it out there and see what people thought...

Constantly Watching People

The moon looks like a crystal ball as it hangs, full and bright over the trees, casting shadows in the deepest parts of the dark forest while lending it's magnificent light to the clearings. I can't resist reaching out and trying to touch it, a fruitless endeavor, yes, but irresistible all the same. I have always wondered what it would be like to touch the moon. Oh I know what muggle science says, it's just dirt, dust and rocks, no different than earth but still, how could anything that appears so peaceful and serene not be different from this place of war and upheaval? There has to be a difference more than life between the two. Do the stars look the same from the moon? How about the earth? Does it look just as peaceful? The snap of a twig behind me diverts my focus.

I turn my attention back to the here and now, my love for the moon forgotten for a moment as I study the pair lying on the leaf strewn ground. They still have a couple hours before they can cross over completely so I might as well wait. What is a couple of hours compared to the thousand years I've been waiting anyway? One would think that over time it would stop meaning so much, hours would seem like seconds and all that, but it's not true. Time drags and flies for me just as it does for a mortal.

So why have I been hanging around the mortal plane for a bit over a thousand years?

Well, this is my punishment for a lifetime of selfishness and turning my back on my duties as a powerful witch. My name is Morgana, I have been condemned to play watcher to a bunch of whinny weak mortals for all eternity. Damn gods, who knew they could be so spiteful.

But I am distracted again, the pair on the ground, I hear whispers that they are two new watchers. Why they are being punished I do not know, but they will keep me company and for that I am happy. It gets lonely just watching everyone around me but never being able to interact with anyone. Not that I usually want to, but these two are particularly interesting to me. The male, Severus, he is so dark and morally ambiguous. I've heard his students call him vampire and bat, I can understand why. His dark form and pale face reflects and absorbs the moonlight all at once making him glow with an ethereal light. I have seen him do some truly evil things all in the name of the crazy man, what was his name? Ah yes Dumbledore, Ha 'good' my arse, there is such a thing as too good. He has a punishment that rivals mine in it's cruelty and when the other one, Tom Riddle, when he dies they will be punished together. Manipulation of the highest order. Like I said the gods are spiteful. They do not like it when mortals play at being gods.

I wonder idly if Severus is being punished for his days as a true deatheater.

The girl, Hermione, she is something else. So good and sweet it's nauseating but she has a core of dark hidden under all of that frothy good that rivals that of even the most devout Deatheater. She looks like a wood nymph with her mass of mahogany curls and her lush curves hidden under a set of once emerald robes. She has been at the lead of many attacks on the dark side. Her knowledge of torture and pain would be startling to many. All learned at the knee of that despot Dumbledore.

Oh don't like me calling him names? You think he gave up so much for the cause? Look at it this way, Dumbledore brought Tom into Hogwarts. Dumbledore could have vanquished him in the beginning. Oh you could say that he didn't know what was going to happen, but that would certainly do damage to his reputation as all knowing. Besides, who the hell lets a bunch of kids fight battles without proper training? He didn't even truly try and prepare Harry for what is to come. But that is besides the point, I'm waiting on the pair right here.

They lie close together, more because thats where they fell rather than any true desire to be close or so it would seem. There is an odd buzz from the perimeter of the clearing every once in a while followed by an answering giggle from the wood nymph. Blood drips from her mouth every time she giggles, but she seems unaware of it now. Lost in whatever joke makes her laugh at a time like this.

“Stop it Hermione, drop the wards.” Severus' voice is weak barely a whisper but the plea is there anyway. He would beg no other, let no other see the weakness in him.

“Not on your life...” There was another giggle, another gush of blood, “Oh wait, it is.”

I suppose you would like to know what lead up to the pair dying seemingly alone in the woods, it's simple really, he was a spy and she was his contact. And they both betrayed the other.

It all started a year ago, with the death of that manipulative bastard Dumbledore. I was there the night he made Severus swear to kill him if it came to that, and heartless bitch that I can be, even I was offended. You don't demand that someone kill you when you have denied them the choice of death themselves. It just seemed wrong to make Severus vow to kill him when he couldn't kill himself.

After the manipulating bastards death, everyone in the Order of the Phoenix was convinced Severus had changed sides. But at the same time, they knew, even the lies he would feed them would be useful, if they were picked apart in just the right way. Who better to study, dismantle and put back together the tales that Severus offered as truth than the smartest witch in decades? So he was kept in the fold, his place as a spy left unchanged.
In all truth Hermione had volunteered to be Severus's contact, being the most level headed it hadn't been much of an argument for the others to agree. Ron couldn't even say Severus's name without going cross eyed with anger and Harry would have hexed on site. So she readied herself carefully for their first meeting.

“I will be your contact within Hogwarts and The Order.” She spoke quietly as they passed in the Hogwarts Library, her looking for some ancient book and him merely looking for a place to hide. “You will meet me every Thursday at midnight, here.” She passed him by and shoved a slip of paper into his palm before he could say anything.

I was standing next to him then, enjoying for once, my role as fly on the wall as I bore witness to Severus Snape speechless. His obsidian eyes had flashed with some emotion I can't place as he watched her stroll out of the silent room, hips swaying, like she hadn't a care in the world.

“Are you going to meet her Severus?” I asked knowing he wouldn't answer, I feel justified in using his given name seeing as I have watched over him from birth. I wasn't there every second mind you, that would have been weird even for me. But for all the major things I have been there. I was there every time his father knocked the shit out of him, and every time that good for nothing ice princess of a mother ignored her only child's cries in favor of her latest dalliance. I was there when he started school and when The marauders hung him upside down. When that bitch Lily ditched him for a slip of the tongue, abandoning him when he needed her the most. I saw him take the Dark Mark, held him when he was tortured. I was there for every oath he'd ever taken, sneering when the majority had been given to Dumbledore.

Hermione Granger I had been following since her first year, I am drawn to intelligent people and she was like a bonfire on a moonless night standing out and just screaming for my attention. She's grown so in the years between then and now, she's grown too fast. From a know it all child to a self confident woman in just seven years. You can see the hardness of war in her eyes, the steely glint that living day to day has instilled in so many of this generation is reflected in the way she holds herself, back stiff and head high. Where once her eyes shone with the innocence of childhood they now glittered with hate and pain. She was a soldier, not by choice, but a good one.

Their first meeting was comical, both trying to out stare the other. If this war could be won on glares and nerve alone the boy who lived wouldn't be needed, these two could easily turn the tides.
“You will not win a staring contest Miss Granger.” Severus sneered, arms crossed over his chest as he regarded the woman before him.

“My name is Hermione.” She gave a sneer of her own, “Miss Granger was a child that died in the Ministry of Magic.”

“You should have never been there.” his eyes flared briefly, 'gave something away there didn't you old man', I couldn't help but giggle at his flash of emotion. Severus had much the same fascination with Hermione as I did, though he was loath to admit it.

“Probably not, but you should have figured out a way to tell us you got the message.” She snapped back.

“Do you have to take part in everyone of Potter's idiotic plots?”

“I'd be very careful Severus, or I might start to think you like me.” her smirk was cold, calculating.

“Ha, that is laughable. You are just a know it all child playing at an adults game.”

“A child? Playing? I am the only thing that is currently standing between you and death at the hands of every member of the Order with a wand and a half arsed idea of what happened on that tower. Keep pushing Severus, I will hand you over, tied like a Christmas goose and let them decide your fate. I hear Kingsley has a very...” she rolled her hips in a suggestive manner, “unique form of punishment in mind for you.”

Oh she was good, cold to core if need be. Severus was wavering, he might not like answering to his former student but he didn't want to die in such a horrible way. I've seen Kingsley and his... um kinks? Theres something I would rather never see again. Stories of the Auror's exploits were common knowledge to some of the darker rings in the wizarding world.

After that he gave in, hissing and snarking all the way. They had settled into an uncomfortable partnership. Each needed the other, not only to relay information but they also tied each other to reality when it became too easy to slip away.

I watched them the first hesitant traces of trust, and affection hidden in sarcasm and ice.
And then one day there was some new emotion, one I had chosen not to be privy to in a thousand years, there was love.