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The Reluctant Highlander	By : Tigerrr Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 15152 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 14
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- 16
*******DISCLAIMER*********JKR owns anything you might
recognize

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Hermione opened her eyes to see Professors Dumbledore and
McGonagall hovering over her anxiously.�
It had been so long since she had seen them; the last time had been when
she and Severus�Severus.� The memory of
him falling to his death filled her mind and she began to sob helplessly � she
would never again be held in his arms, never hear his silky voice telling her
that he loved her despite her being so insufferable, never even hear him snark
at her � or anyone else.� Albus whipped
off his spectacles and cleaned them vigorously on his robes, his blue eyes
devoid of anything remotely resembling a twinkle.� �I�m�.so sorry, Hermione.� We waited all night, but he�he didn�t come
through the book.�� He took her hand
sympathetically, and on her other side, Minerva pressed her shoulder.

How could this have happened to them? She hadn�t meant to go
into Rendezvous with Romance in the
first place, and Severus had only gone through to �save� her.� Falling in love with each other had been a
violent surprise to both of them, and they had thought they were safe after the
incident with the cliff � then she remembered.�
�Draco,� she choked, wiping her eyes and trying to convert the
soul-killing agony at losing her beloved wizard into anger at the cause of her
troubles.� She snarled, �Draco Malfoy;
somehow he interfered and caused all of this.��
Accepting a tissue, she wiped her eyes again.� �We were supposed to be happy,� she
whispered.� Minerva pressed her shoulder
again and sniffled.

�My dear, Mr. Malfoy has already been expelled � along with
his friends Crabbe and Goyle � and sent back home to his parents for causing
harm to a fellow student as well as to his Head of House.��

�How long have I been asleep?� Hermione questioned dully,
shutting her eyes so she didn�t have to look at them, but she understood that
they were sympathizing with her, and they certainly didn�t want Severus to be
dead, either.�

�Most of last night, and all of today, dearie,� Pomfery
said, coming up to her bedside to run her wand over the Head Girl�s prone
form.� �You were certainly needing your
rest, after being skewered like a kebab.��
She shooed out Albus and Minerva and returned to sit beside
Hermione.� �I�ll just need to keep you
overnight, and then you�re free to return to your House.� Potter and Weasley have been demanding that I
let them in to see you, but in light of what the Headmaster has told me, I thought
it best to let you decide.�� She picked
up the younger witch�s hand.� �I�m glad
that you gave Severus some happiness � he hadn�t had much love in his life, if
any at all.� Ah, there, sweetheart.�� She gathered Hermione into her arms as the
Head Girl�s eyes filled with tears again, and let her cry until she was exhausted.

When Hermione lay asleep, a flick of the Mediwitch�s wand flipped
a blanket over the wan young woman and Madam Pomfrey went to her office where
Albus and Minerva waited.� �She�s cried
herself out and is sleeping, the poor thing,� she said to their unspoken
queries.� �Though I am curious as to how
all this has happened when they have only been gone for one week? You said
you�d explain fully, Albus.�

The Headmaster looked at her.� �Have you never read a book where time speed
swiftly by in just a turn of the page?�
It�s something like that, Poppy.�
The rest of the school thinks Hermione had a family emergency, and that
Severus was called to a Potions lecture in Cambodia.� Here, you might as well get acquainted with
what has actually been going on.� He handed The Book over to the
Mediwitch.� �Please, read as much of it
as you can before she wakes; that way, you have some understanding of the
depths of her pain for a professor she reviled not even a week ago.�

Albus and Minerva left the Hospital Wing quietly, full of
sadness for the loss of Severus Snape.�
�I always thought that I�d be the one to kill that man,� Minerva said,
shaking her head.� �The times we�ve had
it out as Heads of rival Houses�� They
reached the library and Albus retrieved Rendezvous
with Romance from a locked drawer � it was his intent to give it to
Hermione, so she could do with it as she saw fit.� A swish of his wand, and it zoomed out the
door and up to Gryffindor tower, where it slid underneath her pillow.�

***********************************************************************

The next day Hermione was released as promised, and though
Harry and Ron were waiting anxiously to see here, she brushed past them without
a word; she wanted nothing more than to go up to her dormitory and curl up in
bed so that she could think about Severus.�
Her friends trudged off to class after casting sad looks at her � they�d
never seen her look so unhappy and wanted nothing more than to make her feel
better.� However, their Head of House had
informed them of what had happened with the strictest of warnings not to speak
of it to anyone else, but they had suspected something had gone terribly wrong
when Veritaserum had been used on them.�
They hadn�t liked Professor Snape at all, but if Hermione had actually
fallen in love with the greasy git, he must have had some redeeming qualities about him, and they came down hard on any
of their classmates found disparaging the Head of Slytherin.�

Hermione spent most of the day in her dorm room, sitting on
her bed and looking out of the window.�
Her parents had tried to see her, but she had turned even them away; she
really didn�t want to talk about it yet, if ever.� Finally when dusk fell, she crawled
underneath the covers and slid her arms around her pillow to pretend it was her
Slytherin lover�and encountered Rendezvous
with Romance.� She pulled it out,
face paling in rage that someone had put it there � how dare they??? Furious,
she leaped out of bed, hauled open the huge windows, and threw it as hard as
she could up into the snowstorm; perhaps it she gave it a little extra height,
the extended fall would be sure to destroy it.�
Then she slammed the windows shut, jumped back into the bed and pulled
the curtains around her four-poster so hard, they almost ripped.� She never noticed the fact that the book had
begun pulsing softly with green light the moment she had touched it.

***************************

Would this nonsense EVER be over with?� Overseeing a roomful of adolescent idiots was
dangerous enough but ever since he had touched that damned book, his life had
been turned upside down and inside out!�
After being ignominiously shoved
over the brink of a cliff (well, technically it had been a cave, but it
qualified as a cliff in his mind) and not knowing if his witch was alive or
dead, his fall had been halted and he had been stuck in a sort of limbo where
someone named Adam told him that Hermione was fine; she had been returned to
reality the moment she had collapsed from the knife wound, and on behalf of all
within Rendezvous with Romance, he
wanted to formally apologize for any inconvenience he might have
experienced.� �Inconvenience?� He had all but screamed.� Adam reassured him that, once Hermione
touched the book with her bare hands, he would be released to where she
was.� In the interim, his superficial
wounds had been healed but the Aphrimoria
had to work its way out of his system naturally and he would regain full use of
his magic in due time, according to how much he had been given.

Now he felt the familiar sensation of being pulled through
that ridiculous book�s pages and straightened instinctively to step free, only
to find that, once again, he was in mid-air.�
In a snowstorm.� And directly
above the spire of�Good Lord! Was that Gryffindor Tower
he was about to be impaled upon? Once again, there was nothing to be said
except for�.

��FUCK!�

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In the Gryffindor seventh year girl�s dormitory, Lavender
Brown was chatting to her best friend Parvati Patil when they heard a howled
expletive. �What was that?� Parvati asked just as the roof shook as if the
Whomping Willow had hit it.�

�I think it�s just the wind.�

�Oh, right.� Anyway,
like I was saying:� I think Ron fancies
me again�.�

***

In the Gryffindor Common Room, Neville Longbottom was
playing Exploding Snap with Seamus Finnigan when he happened to look out of the
window just in time to see something fall past it.� �Do bats fly around in wintertime?�

The card deck detonated just as Seamus replied that he
didn�t think so, no.

***

And out on the Grounds, Albus Dumbledore was walking
arm-in-arm with Minerva McGonagall and discussing the best way to let the Slytherin
students know that their Head of House was dead.� �We should certainly inform them first � they
were, and still are curious about the reasons why three Slytherins were
summarily expelled two days ago�what in Merlin�s name is that?� Minerva pointed at a burst of green light coming from above Gryffindor Tower that seemed to resolve itself into
a bundle of black hurtling towards the ground.

Albus� eyes widened as he recognized the source of all that
light.� �Minnie � hurry!� I think it may be Severus!� �They hitched their robes to their knees and
legged it through the snow as fast as they could.

**********************************************************************

Severus smashed against the roof, relieved that he had
twisted enough in mid-air to avoid becoming a kebab on the spire of the
tower.� He scrabbled frantically to hold
on to the tiles, but his grip was slipping�and then he was falling again,
plummeting right past the large window where he caught a fleeting glimpse of
that idiotic Longbottom peering out at him.�
He connected with another one of the lower roofs, banging his shoulder
painfully � hanging on here was a no go as well, unfortunately; the snow was
building up just perfectly to allow him to slide right off again.� He supposed that, somewhere, Fate was having
a ruddy good laugh at him. Half of him wanted someone to catch him from dashing
his brains out on the courtyard with some spell or another, but the other half
was insisting quite stridently that if someone actually saw him flailing about
and being bounced from rooftop to rooftop like a rubber ball, he�d Avada himself as soon as the Aphrimoria wore off.� After slamming against what seemed like 27
more towers (he supposed he should feel thankful for the Founders for building
all these spires � if he had just continued straight down with no magic to
break his fall, he�d already be splattered against the paving stones) he landed
on what he assumed must be the Great Hall roof.�
By this point, he was no longer even trying to bloody his fingers any
more by trying to futilely hang on to something, and just slid bonelessly down
the incline while praying to whichever deity would listen that it would all be
over soon.

He slammed into the ground with a force that should have
knocked the wind from his lungs.� Thing
was, there was none left � it had already been forcefully extracted on his many
other collisions on the way down.�
Severus lay in an undignified sprawl, trying feebly to spit out the snow
that had forced its way down his throat, when he heard the ominous
cracking.� �Oh, bloody what NOW?��
He managed to turn his head enough so he could see that one humongous
and extremely sharp looking icicle was on its way down to him.� Using the last of his strength, he rolled to
the side as it stabbed into the place where he had been resting.�

Yes, he might love her more than life itself, but the fact
remained that Gryffindor was going to lose so many points, her little head
would spin!� �2,000 points from
Gryffindor!� he yelled just as he registered the startled faces of Minerva and
Albus bending over him.

**********************************************************************

Hermione had been bullied into going down to the Great Hall
to have some supper and was on her way back up to bed to lament over her lost
love when a loud outcry arose from a crowd of Gryffindors gathered around the
House hourglasses.� �2,000 points?� We don�t HAVE that many!!!!�

�It�s supposed to list the name of the teacher who took them
off, who was it?�

�Ahhh, DAMN!� Snape�s
back from Cambodia!
Why�d that git have to take so many�?�

She swayed on her feet as both Ron and Harry hit her with an
�Ennervate!�� and yet another as she ran to see for herself
the name listed.� And there he was:
Severus Snape, with a tiny Slytherin symbol in front of his name denoting that
he was a Head of House.� �Where is he?�
she yelled, knocking down Dean Thomas in her charge through the crowd.

�That�s what we�d
like to know, I�ll hex that greasy bat into next Tuesday��

Hermione tore through the halls looking for him excitedly
until she remembered Harry�.and the Marauder�s Map.� Running back to him, she threatened him with
never letting him copy her homework again if he didn�t give it to her, and saw
that her lover was currently in the Hospital Wing.� The banners of Poppy Pomfrey, Albus
Dumbledore, Irma Pince, and Minerva McGonagall were determinedly fluttering
around his, which was looking quite agitated at present: the edges were
uncurling and curling tightly, and looked tattered.� The tiny footsteps seemed to be trying to get
out of the circle surrounding them.� She
skidded to halt in front of the door and pulled it open to hear Severus�
extremely angry yells.

��Yes, well, how would YOU feel if you�d been dosed with Aphrimoria, flung out of a cave, and
then into the air over Hogwarts to barely escape being buggered by Gryffindor Tower?!?!?!?�

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The Reluctant Highlander