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Memories of Deception	By : professorflo Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 20868 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters within. I make no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Memories of Deception
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
- 7-7
- 8-8
- 9-9.
- 10-10
- 11-11
- 12-12
- 13-13
- 14-14
- 15-15
- 16-16
- 17-17
- 18-18
- 19-19
- 20-20
- 21-21
- 22-22
- 23-23
- 24-24
- 25-25
- 26-26
- 27-27
- 28-28
- 29-29
- 30-30
- 31-31
- 32-32
- 33-33
- 34-34
- 35-35
- 36-36
- 37-37
- 38-38
- 39-39
- 40-40
- 41-41
- 42-42
- 43-43
- 44-44
- 45-45
- 46-46
- 47-47
- 48-48
- 49-49
- 50-50
- 51-51
- 52-52
- 53-53
- 54-54
- 55-55
- 56-56
- 57-57
- 58-58
- 59-59
- 60-60
- 61-61
- 62-62
- 63-63
- 64-64
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- 66-66
- 67-67
- 68-68
- 69-69
- 70-70
- 71-71
- 72-72
- 73-73
- 74-74
- 75-75
- 76-76
- 77-77
- 78-78
- 79-79
- 80-80
- 81-81
- 82-82
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- 84-84
- 85-85
- 86-86
- 87-87
- 88-88
- 89-89
- 90-90
- 91-91
- 92-92
- 93-93
- 94-94
- 95-95
- 96-96
- 97-97
- 98-98
- 99-99
- 100-100
- 101-101
- 102-102
- 103-103
- 104-104
- 105-105
- 106-106
- 107-107
- 108-108
- 109-109
- 110-110
- 111-111
- 112-112
- 113-113
- 114-114
- 115-115
- 116-116
- 117-117
- 118-118
- 119-119
- 120-120
- 121-121
- 122-122
- 123-123
- 124-124
- 125-125
- 126-126
- 127-127
- 128-128
- 129-129
- 130-130
- 123
- 124
- 125
Disclaimer: See chapter 1
Rainbowhammer, Thanks for the two lovely reviews. Sorry to keep you hanging al the time. Hope you enjoy the next chapter.
By now Hermione had picked up on the connection between the memories she was being shown. Snape had clearly chosen memories that he felt would show her his side of what had happened, although she was still confused as to the timing. He can't have told Dumbledore to show her at this particular moment, for how was he to have known what would happen? The memories coalesced again, and she forgot her musings to watch.
She was back in the office, and with a bang Snape came billowing in from his chambers.
"How is your guest, Severus? Is she holding up well?"
"…guest?" he spat. "How do you think she's doing, Albus? As if I didn't have to deal with enough hate every day, I now have to put up with it in my own chambers. The girl's probably trying to work out how to either kill me or escape."
From this angle she could see, as she hadn't been able to at the time, the pain in this eyes as he repeatedly cast the Cruciatus curse on her. As soon as the screams stopped and she had passed out Snape rushed across to her, training his wand on her again, not to curse, but to diagnose. Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him somewhat, although the grim look never left his face, for he tucked his wand away and gently untwisted her limbs. He pulled a phial of pain relief out of his pocket and tipped it into her mouth, lifting her head and massaging her throat until she had swallowed it. Then, laying her back on the floor he stood, and walked over to a cupboard, where he pulled out a bottle of firewhiskey. He knocked two glasses back quickly, but took the third over to his seat by the fire as the figure on the floor started to stir. By the time she was awake, Snape was seated calmly by the fire, book in his hand, and a nonchalant expression on his face. The scene shifted.
She lay unconscious in his arms as he sat in his chair, his fingers running almost tenderly down her cheek and across her lips. "I'm so sorry, but I must. Please understand…" he was whispering quietly to her as he cradled her carefully. "If there was any way to spare you this I… I…" He trailed off, pulling her tighter against him.
It was a few hours later. Snape was kneeling before her as she stood with her dress pulled up to expose a large bruise on her side. He brushed his fingers gently over the tender skin, and from this angle Hermione could see his lips move silently as he cast two spells. The first made the bruise turn from an angry red to brown and reduced in size. The second covered the half-healed bruise with a glamour so fast that if Hermione hadn't been watching closely she would have missed it. Snape pulled her dress down.
"There is no lasting damage…"
As soon as the door closed behind her he lifted his head from his hand and flung the plate containing his dinner across the room. Hermione could barely countenance the pain-filled rage that subsided into self-loathing without wishing she could comfort him. He seemed to be barely coping with what he was having to do to her, and she wondered how he had managed to keep up appearances with her so well.
Another memory… She watched Voldemort as he took out his fury over Harry's escape from Malfoy Manor on his followers. Those who had been a part of the failed capture of the boy got it the worse, with only the Malfoys and Bellatrix surviving his rage. Even those who had arrived later, like Snape had not been spared injury.
The scene changed again, and all she saw was the image of her pace, anxious face and the words "I was worried when you didn't come…" before everything shifted once more.
She pointed her wand at Lucius Malfoy as Snape stood behind her, running his fingers teasingly over her body, his eyes dark with a lust she hadn't seen at the time, as well as an erection that he had carefully hidden from her. She saw his worry, carefully hidden from Voldemort and the others as she passed out, and again later when he returned to the room to find her unconscious again. She listened as he subtly tried to persuade the snake-like creature to curb the Carrow's enthusiasm for torturing the students, and saw him struggle to control his emotions when he realised that she was in danger from Lucius.
Another shift. He was in his study, several books open at different places spread out on the desk in front of him, and he was busy scribbling onto a piece of parchment. She walked round the desk to peer over his shoulder at what he was doing. After a few moments of scanning the page she realised that he seemed to be researching a way to remove cursed scars from skin. It was clear from what he had written that he was doing it to remove the marks that Bellatrix had scored onto her arm. He's doing it for me… She looked down at the scars marring her skin. Some days she almost forgot they were there, she'd grown so used to them, other days they would itch like mad as if something was crawling around under her skin. She wondered if Snape had had much luck in his research, she would be more than happy to be rid of them. The memory dissipated and another one took its place.
She saw how Bellatrix and Lucius had ambushed him, slashing at his skin with dark curses as they taunted him about what they would do to his mudblood whore, and how he'd eventually managed to escape them and apperate back to Hogwarts. The memory became dim and hazy as he fought unconsciousness, and eventually went dark as she pushed him into the bath.
When the memory reformed he was leaving her in the bedroom to get dry in front of the fire as he went into his lab. Hermione followed him in. He quickly pulled out several potions from the cupboards at the end and took all but one, looking visibly better once he had finished. The last potion he left on the work surface as he began to pace, clearly trying to decide something by the look on his face and his low mutterings. Hermione recognised the phial. It was the potion he had brewed to force an erection.
Eventually Snape stopped pacing and decanted an amount of the potion into a smaller phial which he stuck in his pocket. So that's what he took that evening. The memory shifted as he opened the door to return to his bedroom and suddenly they were in his room, and he was quietly laying her dress over her chair as she slept. He turned to look at her, his eyes dark and pained. Reaching down he gently pressed a kiss to her forehead, before placing her hairbrush by her pillow, and the memory dissolved.
Time after time she watched him fly into a rage or sink into depression after being forced once more to treat her in a way that he clearly despised. Of course, since the return of her memories she had realised that everything had all been an act, one that she had agreed to and that Snape had never wanted to perform. While she'd felt as bad for him as she had for herself, seeing it all like this from his perspective truly showed her just how much he'd gone through in order to keep her safe. And not just her; every moment he'd spent with Voldemort had been a dangerous balancing act that sometimes he'd only survived by the skin of his teeth. She wondered how he'd dealt with all the pressure. Her presence meant that he could not even relax the mask in his own rooms.
She watched his conversations with Voldemort, his excuses for his behaviour concerning her, and she was amazed at how fine a line he walked in order to keep her safe. He only just treated her badly enough for his master's liking, yet he conducted himself in a way he could only just force himself to bear. Snape's excuses were clever, explaining away even his small kindnesses towards her as part of his plan to break her, and she could barely believe the amount of courage it must take to lie in such a way to the dark wizard's face.
Hermione saw the way he worried every time he was to give her memories back, scared of her reaction, and chided by Dumbledore when he found it hard to open up and talk to her. She was horrified at the outright hostility he received from staff and students whenever he left his rooms, the students even going so far as to try to jinx him when they thought he wasn't looking. She watched him removing the memories time after time, his responses to her thanking him and forgiving him once she had passed out, and his despair and guilt, his lack of belief in his own self-worth tore at her heart every time.
He put her to bed, tucking her in and stroking her hair softly, refusing to give in to his need for her, before groaning her name as he stroked himself to completion in the shower. Later he would pull her sleeping body back against his and bury his nose in her hair when he was sure she wouldn't realise. One night he chased after her as she ran from his room in tears, but stopping outside, his head pressed against the door as he listened to her sob. Hermione could remember her reaction to their kiss all too well, but had never realised he had followed her, or listened as she cried herself to sleep, unable to comfort her.
When he had managed to avoid her, Dumbledore had forced his hand again, reminding him that ignoring the girl was just as dangerous as treating her too well. Snape had refused to listen, protesting that there had to be a better way, that there had to be something they could do that would not require him to continually hurt her. He had soon after come up with the idea to persuade her to seem to cooperate, with her agreeing and convincing him to give her a lust potion to make things easier.
Her tortured her again, and she could now see the pain in his eyes that she'd not noticed when writhing on the floor in agony, his worry when she banged her head, knocking herself out and how he'd held her in his arms to cast a diagnostic spell on her. A few minutes later he'd had her back in his arms as he teased her to the point that she was begging for him to touch her, before all but pushing her out of the room in order to get himself back under control.
Hermione was surprised to see how openly lustful her own face and actions had been, and she admired Snape's restraint in not just taking her there and then. His expression and his body had betrayed how much he'd wanted to, and despite the way her cheeks had heated, she'd not been able to stop watching as he'd pulled his cock out of his trousers and relieved the tension. Hermione had to repress the urge to relieve her own. His expression afterwards, as he stood over the de-glamoured books on his desk, had quickly turned from contented to dejected, and Hermione could only wonder what he had been thinking about.
That evening seemed to be the first time he hadn't needed to take a potion before having sex with her. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn't having to force her, quite the opposite actually. The next morning however, had been a different matter. What she hadn't been able to see that morning was the hurt, almost scared look on his face when she'd hit him. He didn't seem to be able help the anger with which he had responded, and this time he'd had to leave her to take the potion before fucking her. Hermione had almost cried after at the way he had lost control in his lab afterwards, smashing everything within reach and not even caring about the blood dripping from the glass embedded in his hand. The look of utter desolation on his face as he had slumped down on the floor had torn at her heart, and she hated the fact that she could do nothing to comfort him in that moment.
She watched him tell Dumbledore that their plan had worked, that she had given him promises that had satisfied Voldemort, as had his reasons for not torturing her further. He reported how delighted Voldemort had seemed at the idea that she would lead her friend to his death, as well as his plans for muggleborns in his future dystopia. For all that that their situation had improved though, Snape's demeanour was subdued and grave, and Hermione could see that he was hurting in a way that he masked when she was around.
When the memory changed again she saw how horrified he'd been when she'd taken McGonagall's hex that had been meant for him. She'd been fairly woozy when she'd woken, and hadn't realised how openly he'd shown how much he cared, or how at ease he was with touching her in front of McGonagall. The expression on the older witch's face was incredulous, although she had still been wary of Snape at first. When he smiled down at her upon waking Hermione could feel her heart beating faster, just as it had done at the time. He truly was handsome when he wasn't scowling. It really was no wonder McGonagall had guessed there was something going on between the two of them, their body language had made it extremely obvious.
She saw the conversation between Snape and McGonagall a couple of hours later, and couldn't help but feel angry once more at the latter's interference in their relationship. No wonder he treated me the way he did, after what she said to me? How dare she suggest that he isn't good enough for me? That's MY decision, and no one else's. It would be some time before she could forgive the witch, both for saying it in the first place, and for keeping it from her for two years.
Her heart almost broke at Snape's declaration that he didn't believe that she could possibly truly care for him. His next responses, however made her breath hitch. Did he…? I think he basically just admitted he had feelings for me. She felt suddenly giddy, despite the fact that he hadn't said it outright. Her giddiness faded as the conversation ended. She could see it in his face, how closed off he had forced himself to be. Why couldn't Minerva just have left things alone?
She could feel a tugging behind her sternum which signified the memories coming to an end. Hermione was surprised, as there had been about 2 weeks between the last memory and the battle, yet Snape hadn't felt the need to save anything during that time. Although, to be honest, we barely spoke to each other except when he was teaching me. The last few flashes of memory she saw as she fell back out of the pensieve were of her. Her face, red and blotchy with tears, his fingers trailing gently across her skin as she slept or twisting in her hair as she read at his feet. She came apart beneath him, she reached up to kiss him, she told him she trusted him, that she forgave him, that she wanted him.
Hermione found herself sinking to the floor of the study with exhaustion. She felt like she'd been in there for days, and indeed as she looked up at the clock she realised half the day had passed. Her gaze fell on the still empty portrait. It didn't look like she'd get any answers from Dumbledore about why he had shown her the memories.
She leant back against the cupboard behind her as she thought about what she'd seen. Perhaps Snape had saved his memories for her so that she could understand what he had been through, or his reasoning behind what he had done to her. To Hermione, those considerations were not as important as what else she thought she had learned. He did care for her, love her perhaps, but the circumstances as well as Minerva's interference and his own feeling of guilt had convinced him to push her away. He didn't believe he was good enough for her, or that she could feel something for him back.
It was up to her to convince him otherwise.
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Memories of Deception