Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Madrigal	By : Rotisserie_Cassowary Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 7982 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Damn that bastard to hell. Who the bloody hell does he think he is? Why does my soul have to be forfeit for HIS stupid fucking choice to put on that accursed ring?! He presumes too much! Maybe the old Snape wouldn’t have given a damn about putting down a sick old man, but now all I can think about is what SHE’S going to think of me. She would hate me for the rest of her life. And of course Dumbledore forced me to train her, because he’d been planning all along for me to do this final wretched task for him. He’s always ten steps ahead of the rest of us. Preparing me for the sacrifice, and her to take my place. Always ever so practical. Always calculating.
I ranted vehemently to myself as I strode back to my lab after an utterly futile meeting with Dumbledore.
What a goddamn waste of time. He doesn’t give a damn what I have to say. Every last one of us is naught but a disposable fucking pawn in his and the Dark Lord’s bloody chess match. Well, I’m going to show both of them. I’m my own man now, and my own master. I’ll do what I have to in order to protect Hermione, but I’m done serving the whims of another.
I was still fuming many hours later when Hermione arrived at my lab. We’d been working on Occlumency and Legilimency for a few weeks, and she’d been making truly exceptional progress. We were now meeting five nights per week, something that I’d suggested and she’d whole-heartedly agreed to, saying that we had far too much material to cover. By now she was a near-constant presence in my lab. She told me that she always got more homework done there than the common room or library. Often she’d come straight from dinner and spend all evening. She checked with me constantly to make sure she wasn’t invading my space. And of course I was delighted to have her, but I just grunted my begrudging acquiescence.
I had always done most of my grading and lesson planning in my classroom office, but over the months I had gradually and inexorably moved practically everything into my lab. I extended the eastern wall and put in a request for two quite sizable desks, one for me and one for her. When they arrived, I set them up facing one another like mirror images. The voice of the starry-eyed romantic who’d sprung to life in my head was imagining the hours we’d spend there, wrapped up in our individual scholastic pursuits. The image was so picture-perfect and lovely that I nearly wept.
Hermione and I had recently had a huge break-through with Legilimency. She had finally been able to create the fabric visualization upon diving into my mind. I was so proud of her I felt as if my heart would break from it. I wondered what colors she saw as she gazed upon me. Surely she’d see my constant desire, the hesitant and fleeting moments of joy she brought me, my all-consuming jealousy, and most of all, my swift and punishing anger.
We’d been exceedingly cautious in our forays into each other’s minds. I think we both felt we had too much to hide, and didn’t want to provoke one another. But every trip into her mind was a constant battle with the angels of my better nature. I wanted nothing more than to examine every last one of those dark purple threads. Who made her feel that way?! When did it happen? Has someone touched her?! Has someone kissed her?! Does she masturbate? Could she be thinking of me while doing so?
She had just Legilimized into me for the first time that evening when I realized that I hadn’t cleared my mind nearly well enough yet. I could see dozens of memories floating to the surface, borne upon residual waves of anger at Dumbledore. She saw a flash of me yelling at him in his office earlier that evening, but I quickly fogged it out. Ever prideful, I allowed her to watch me valiantly fighting to save him from that goddamn ring for quite a while before I forced it away as well. Now there was a fast and furious sequence of random flashes as she was flipping through this obviously fruitful path of inquiry. And all of a sudden there it was:

I was a quivering heap on the floor of Dumbledore’s office. I quaked with sobs, so full of despair that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’d never feel anything but misery every single day for the rest of my life. I wanted nothing more than to die, right then and there. What purpose was there in going on? Without her, my life had ceased to have any meaning. The Death Eaters could give me all the power and wealth in the world, but what did it matter without her? I choked on my sobs, then vomited rancid whiskey all over his carpet. And still he looked on, thoughtfully yet distantly, like he was pretending I wasn’t the most pathetic and disgusting thing he’d ever experienced in his life.

And with a massive struggle, I shoved a fog over this memory as well. I felt Hermione rooting around, trying to find another way through. But I had created a barrier as close to impenetrable as humanly possible. Eventually, her strokes and prods slowed, and she gently slid out of my mind.
As my vision returned I found that I feared to gaze into her eyes, and my heart was sick with trepidation. When I finally looked upon her, I found that tears were spilling from her eyes and her lower lip was trembling. “Gods, Professor. I’ve never felt such misery and despair in my life. How could you ever survive such a thing?” she choked out. She was crying in earnest now. “You loved her so much… No, no you LOVE her so much! I can still see it in you. There are pink threads EVERYWHERE,” she wailed.
Extremely uncomfortable, I tried to soothe her, “It’s normal to get caught up another person’s emotions when you’ve gone too deeply into their mind. You can lose that separation between observing their emotions and actually feeling their emotions like they were your own. You’ve gotten too caught up in my energy. Just concentrate on your own mind and your own thoughts.”
“Gods, you don’t understand at all!!! I don’t know why I even bother with you!! You just think of me as this annoying kid, hanging on your coattails all the time... Like I’m a little pet for your amusement,” she spat furiously.
“Just try to clear your mind,” I spoke slowly and soothingly, “Think of a white room.”
“Oh go shove that white room right up your ass!” she shrieked, and I was far too taken aback to respond with any kind of reprimand. She yanked her bag off the floor and inelegantly tossed it over her shoulder. She looked at me again, let out an inarticulate sound of infuriation somewhere between a screech and a huff, then stormed out the room. I sat in her wake, feeling shell-shocked and confused.
- 11
- 12
- 13
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Madrigal