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At the Headmaster’s Discretion Complete	By : Desert_Sea Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 80085 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 10
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other characters/things/places created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money from my fan-fiction.

Chapter List
- 21
- 22
- 23
A/N: So RL continues to pain me somewhat but I’m committed to continue posting chapters as often as I can. This story means a lot to me for a variety of reasons so I thank those of you who have stayed with me on this journey, DSxx
The title for this chapter is dedicated to a lovely reader who happened to be taken enough with this fic to share what she came across in the course of her shopping. You know who you are. And I thank you for it. Xx
TateBlythe – More delivered . . . albeit a little late :) I won’t leave you, I promise xx
OO – ‘I knew as soon as she got there she’d been mistaken about which guy Snape was pretending to be’ – it was a difficult secret to keep in the end ;) ‘although technically she was revealing the secret to a wizard, so it shouldn’t count’ – ooh good point - now, I wonder if Snape will see it that way? We shall see! ‘and I assume continue her plans to unmodify her parents’ memories’ – correct! ‘I think this is the story of my life.’ – I think my life too :/ ‘Is she referring to her punishment wounds from Snape?’ – yes, and the wounds she’s inflicted upon herself. ‘Ginny’s eyes are brown’ – holy fuck! I’ve only written five or so stories with her in them, one of which I had to actually do detailed eye colour research. This was a bad miss – thank you! xx
LissaDream – Thank you LD. That’s awesome of you to say x
FalonIce – Thank you so much. I’m glad you’re enjoying it x
Einhornfee – I’m glad you’re on board. I’m running a little slowly but I’m still going :)

Chapter 22 – Crunchmaster
“What is it, Hermione?”
A hand was on her back. The body of a woman slipped up beside and then slightly in front of hers—protectively—positioned between herself and the man on the couch. This woman was brave. Hermione felt it. She might have been in Gryffindor, like her . . . if she weren’t a Muggle.
But it made no difference. He was up in an instant, wand drawn. A deft flourish and the entire group were rendered statues, faces frozen in expressions of puzzlement and concern. Despite her fear, Hermione was struck by the irony of it. They cared. They were worried about her. Even Samuel had come out of the shadows and appeared to be striding her way. But of course he would never reach her. None of them would. Only him—the one she should never have confided in—the one transforming with each nimble slice and flick into the man she knew.
Then he moved forward, confidently, directing his wand at one after the other, Obliviating each in turn until he returned to the woman whose hand still rested reassuringly on Hermione’s back. Unfortunately Hermione could do nothing for her in return.
He did her from behind, wand against her temple. But his eyes drilled into Hermione’s as he did so, as he sucked Hermione’s existence from the woman’s mind. It was a warning—a demonstration of power. He was in control. He would manufacture her level of erasure . . . and thus the depth to which he would allow her to be known.
Hermione was struck again by her lack of ownership over her own being. He’d been there to stop her from ending it. Now he was determining the nature of her existence even beyond herself, in the minds—and possibly also the hearts—of others. It was a level of control one person should never have over another, and yet she had done the same. But the difference was that she had done it for love.
He did it for the Ministry—it’s heartless, faceless men. And she despised him for it.
Reaching behind her back for her wand, a shrill cry of frustration suddenly burst from her lips. He had beaten her to it. One large hand instantly latched around her wrist like an iron manacle, and the other now slipped behind her, withdrawing her wand from her back pocket—just as he had done that first night. Glaring up into the hard planes of his face, she realised that despite what they had shared, he was still as closed off, as cold and distant as he had been from the outset. He had the perfect mantle. He was the perfect spy. Too good, as it turned out, to give it up. And yet . . .
“Does the Ministry know that you’ve been fucking me?” she demanded boldly, craning her neck to look him fully in the face.
Black eyes falling upon her, she felt the meticulous scrutiny of his glittering gaze edging over her features, analysing every lift, every fold, before he appeared to reach a conclusion that drew him even further into himself. Jerking roughly on her arm, he dragged her towards the door. She didn’t resist. There was no point. But she certainly didn’t intend to go quietly.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” she snapped at his back as he led her through the door.
Pushing her against the wall of the stairwell, he held her in place as he cast a parting incantation through the door to reverse the Stasis charm, finally engaging the lock before practically carrying her up the stairs and forcing her through another door into the dimly lit café.
Guiding her swiftly around tables, he drove her toward the main door, the cool evening air bursting over her face like a bubble as she stumbled through onto an almost-empty street.
People were in the distance, silhouettes, moving away. But there was no point calling for help—not with his strong fingers now clamped around her upper arm, wand trained across his body, jabbing into her hip. They were moving too quickly anyway, hurrying through the shadows before turning abruptly into an alley that would take them to the Apparition point.
The bag in her pocket thudded heavily against her thigh with each harried step. She’d placed it there with hopeful excitement fluttering through her only hours before. Now it mocked her desperate naiveté—her foolish dreams of finding someone to protect her.
She’d picked the wrong man. The man, as it turned out, most capable of ensuring that she would fail. And as he dragged her into the shadowy recess between two buildings, pulling her into his chest for the Apparition, she looked into his eyes and knew that he had no intention of helping her.
A moment later, the static pop still ringing in her ears, she recognised the profile of Hogwarts and immediately attempted to pull herself from his grasp.
“I’m not going back,” she growled, twisting her arm in a vain attempt at freedom.
He stared at her dispassionately, allowing her to struggle a few moments more before turning with a huff and proceeding to drag her along the moonlit road.
“Let me go,” she demanded more forcefully, continuing to fight. But it was no use, he was far too strong.
She stuttered along in short, resistant strides, the gravel scuffing under her shoes as they closed the distance to the castle.
“Please, Severus?”
The softer request was her last resort, her last attempt to appeal to his better side . . . after all he did have one—she’d seen it . . . at least she thought she had.
He didn’t even break stride.
How could he? How could he pretend to feel nothing for her? Despite everything, she still harboured intense feelings for him. She had fallen for him . . . twice. And it hadn’t been some erroneous concoction by her lonely, addled brain . . . on either occasion. Her feelings had arisen in response to him . . . she had been reciprocating his desires. He’d wanted her. It was hardly something he could deny.
“You wanted to fuck me all along, didn’t you?”
He did falter then. Only slightly. Just a truncated stride before he continued on, refusing to acknowledge her.
“You could have chosen to do anything with me,” she continued, her voice straining under the weight of accusation. “And yet you forced me to have sex with you. It wasn’t because I wouldn’t respond to other ‘punishments’. It was because you wanted me. I saw it in your eyes. You were a bastard about it, but it was there—even from the start.”
“You weren’t forced.”
She was relieved that he had finally spoken, even if his claim was galling and patently untrue.
“Well I hardly had a choice in the matter!” she cried incredulously. “You made it impossible for me to refuse. You knew my mind. You knew how I felt. And you were my Headmaster. The power dynamic was hardly fair.”
“And yet you returned. You sought me out. You . . . responded.” He spoke without looking at her, forging ahead in long strides.
It was true. She had done all three. In the end she’d craved him . . . more than anything she’d ever wanted. And she had responded to his instruction. She’d learned. And grown.
But that wasn’t the point. No matter how he would seek to depict himself, he was hardly some benevolent therapist. He was a powerful wizard using a variety of sordid, deceitful tactics to manipulate her while satiating his own desires. It hadn’t been necessary for him to fuck her . . . multiple times. Even if she’d wanted it, there was no way he would have acquiesced if his goal was purely ‘correctional’.
And the truth of the matter was that he was inherently unstable. She’d delved beneath that cool facade and witnessed enough to know that at he was, like her, deeply traumatised. Their exchanges, in the end, had been far from judiciously detached. They had been infused with passion. They’d shared intense, deep-set emotions. And that’s what made his betrayal so devastating.
But Hermione had mercifully managed to progress beyond the hollow sadness that had almost pulled her under. Her primary emotion was now anger. And she was finally ready to defend herself. Maybe she had him to thank for that. Maybe not. But the fact that there was still a glimmer of her old, refractory self simmering somewhere inside gave her hope. She was a survivor. And she happened to operate rather effectively in survival mode, her mind rapidly scanning options, honing in on each piece of evidence, holding it up to the light, looking for cracks.
How much did the Ministry know of Snape’s sexual antics? Was it information that she could use to her advantage?
If his ultimate intention was to inform the Ministry of her transgression that evening, Hermione wondered if there might be power in discrediting him by pitching a few accusations of her own.
The problem was that he may have, in fact, been acting with impunity the entire time. The Ministry may have granted him the freedom to achieve their ends ‘at any cost’ and so anything she told them about his methods could be totally disregarded. But then there was the mysterious, Samuel. Was he another Ministry stooge? Spying on the spy? It was possible. Which would suggest that they didn’t entirely trust him.
It would also explain why Snape had chosen to remove her from the book group for her intensive period of ‘correction’. He’d already had her, after all. He’d known that she had feelings for him and could have used that relationship to carry out the Ministry’s wishes. Instead, he had taken her behind closed doors, away from prying eyes, to enact his ‘punishment’. And had used the Headmaster/student power disparity to force it, rather than manipulating her while having to pretend to be a decent human being.
The more she thought about it, the more she considered it unlikely that the Ministry would have endorsed his approach. Or even been aware of how damaged he really was. She was quite confident that Professor McGonagall and perhaps some of the other staff knew that Snape was spying for the Ministry, or were at least suspicious of the basis for his appointment. If they discovered that the Hogwarts Headmaster was using sanctioned sexual coercion to manipulate students, there would of course be an outcry. The Ministry would not only lose their man, but their influence over the school entirely. She doubted that they could afford that. Or that they would risk being embroiled in yet another scandal.
‘No’, she decided. They weren’t aware.
Which was surprising.
As she was hardly his first.
Hermione’s stomach twisted. The thought had crossed her mind before . . . numerous times . . . but now it squeezed her insides more forcefully. Tightening. Like his hand around her wrist as he dragged her up the hill.
How had he become so knowledgeable about sex? How often had he used it to manipulate people, and under what circumstances?
He had been a Death Eater. He might have suffered terribly at their hands but he had, no doubt, caused suffering of his own. And he was also a Motulomens. How did he hurt people and not feel their suffering?
She stared at him then, the burdened planes of his back, his ragged breaths rising like smoke on the air. It was suddenly so obvious. He did feel it.
“What did you do to them?” she murmured.
He didn’t respond.
Her voice rose despite the burden of her forced march back to Hogwarts. “What did you do? What was so terrible that you needed to do that . . . to yourself?”
He glanced briefly over his shoulder, dark eyes flashing, but continued to forge on towards the castle steps.
“Those marks,” she panted. “Those cuts . . . on your . . . your penis. They’re different from the rest. They’re self-inflicted.”
She should have known, she’d been there herself. But for some reason, even though he’d alluded to it, she hadn’t seen the same need within him . . . until now. Weren’t the scars enough?
“Why, Severus? What did you do?” she persisted. “What did you perpetrate? Were you forced? Or did you do it by choice . . . as you did with me?” She gasped as she felt the bones in her wrist grinding inside his iron grip. “Does the Ministry know about it, Severus? Do they know what you did?”
She could hear his breathing becoming more laboured with each step.
“Do they?!” she demanded.
He turned then, wand drawn, teeth bared in a grimace of pain and anger. He held the shaking tip to her temple. She could feel his fury seething down its length.
And as she stood, looking into his eyes with defiance, but at the same time too afraid to breathe, she suddenly saw him—all of him. Like some sort of mosaic, layers of conflict superimposed on his pale, angular features, she saw the evil that lurked within, but also the good that he went to equal pains to hide—and everything in between. She saw the regret, the loathing, the fear reflected in him. A mirror of her own. But she also saw danger. He was capable of doing anything to her, and she knew that he was ready to do it right now. To remove her as a threat. To neutralise her once and for all.
But he didn’t.
Instead he jerked the wand away, eyes searing into her before he turned with a wordless flourish, and disappeared into the castle.
Hermione stood on the steps. Trembling. But intact.
Or as intact as she could be. Without her parents. Without the book group. And now without him. With none to bear witness to her past. And none to be with her into her future.
She wondered then if his Obliviation might have been a blessing. If she couldn’t have the life she desperately wanted, at least she wouldn’t have to live knowing how close she had come.
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At the Headmaster’s Discretion *Complete*

At the Headmaster’s Discretion Complete