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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
- 22
- 23
- 24
A/N: I can’t thank those of you enough who have continued to provide me with supportive and thought-provoking commentary despite my tardiness in responding. It drives me and fuels my muse. I love you for it. DSxx
OO – ‘I feel like this is some turning point and the coming chapters are going to blow all her suppositions to smithereens’ – hmmm, very interesting indeed! I like how you’ve picked up on the fact that we have a pretty unbalanced Hermione here. Just because she thinks something, doesn’t mean it’s true. We’ve seen that in the past. And, post-plan foiling she is pissed enough to blame him for everything. ‘She’s so . . . locked in a victimized mindset. She’s interpreting all of his actions as a personal attack’ – totally. It seems that everything she has learned from him has gone out of the window, or at least out of her conscious acknowledgement. She has touched upon the fact that he might be responsible for her desire to at least defend herself but that’s about it. ‘She’s distorting everything she’s experienced to fit with her anger.’ – perfect! ‘and I think Hermione’s smart enough to see that even if she’s pissed off’ – I think the problem is that this was her last shot and she blew it. It’s easier to blame him at this point than herself. Especially after another layer of deceit around his true identity at the book group. ‘This is like the start of the story: her acting out so he’ll punish her, except now she’s pushing emotional buttons, and it makes me cringe because one of those buttons might destroy more than she realizes.’ She’s attempting to use attack as defence. Her thoughts are really around how much mud she can make stick on him if the Ministry come after her. I agree, not a particularly becoming tactic but I guess it’s about survival for her at this point. ‘But I guess that’s the human condition. We do things for emotional reasons rather than logical ones.’ – fantastic insight x

Chapter 23 – Puppetmaster
It had looked burgundy in the bottle, but on her toenails, wriggling suggestively above her, it was definitely red. Hermione consulted the bottle again—shook it—as though that would make some difference. It didn’t and she smiled. It was so delightfully frivolous, so indulgently girly that she felt a little bit ridiculous—mainly for the fact that she had forgotten the joy of such simple pleasures.
That she could delight in the act of simply coating her toenails in colour, something she hadn’t done since she was a child, swinging on a seat, her mother painting with a steady hand in the afternoon sun, was a revelation.
Indeed, over the past week she had come to the realisation that her cogitations and ruminations, and the maelstrom of angst associated with them, had drawn her into an almost-lethal level of hopelessness. And now she was trying to come back. In Luna’s room, lying on the floor with a rug as soft as clouds beneath her, her bare feet waggling absently skyward, Hermione felt young again—and surprisingly comfortable with the thought.
The steady scratch of quill upon parchment and the lilting murmur of whispered incantations added further to her contentment.
“I think I like the orange best,” Ginny announced, tilting her head in admiration of her own quillwork.
Hermione angled her chin down for a better look at the letter unfurled on the rug beside her. Each paragraph had been written in a different colour—a test of the ink set that Hermione had finally passed on from her shopping trip.
“Me too,” Hermione agreed. The orange—more of a gilt ochre now that it had been turned into words on parchment—was stunning. In fact the whole thing was beautiful.
It had been the perfect gift. Ginny had been genuinely excited and grateful, and was now writing a long letter to Harry. Both thoughts made Hermione happy.
Then the ceiling changed. This time it was a tropical sunset. The colours were vivid—almost psychedelic, but it was Luna’s incantation and Hermione had little doubt that the world according to Luna might look a lot like this.
“Where are you, Luna?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Luna replied from the bed, the top of her blonde head the only part visible to Hermione from her position on the floor. “I think it might be the Caribbean. Although I’ve never been there before so . . . ”
Hermione’s eyes roved over the ceiling, admiring how the intense colours melted surprisingly serenely into one another. “It’s beautiful.”
Luna sighed. “I think so too. But Neville doesn’t like it. He always wants it dark. No stars.” She was silent for a moment. “Sometimes the world can be too much, for some, don’t you think?”
Hermione watched as Luna directed her wand at the ceiling and, with a deft swizzle, transformed it back into bland, wooden slats.
“Perhaps,” Hermione replied thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s just not ready for it yet.”
“Perhaps,” Luna agreed with her usual ethereal lightness. Then she fluttered the wand tip and jabbed it skyward to conjure the opposite—a tumultuous expanse of clouds. Dark. Thunderous.
Hermione’s unease—that which had been simmering just beneath the surface this entire week—suddenly returned. It was the inescapable sense of foreboding. Even though she had managed to avoid any instant repercussions after the book group, she was acutely aware that her actions couldn’t be simply ignored.
It wasn’t in Snape’s nature to forgive and forget. But whilst she had seen very little of him, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was imminent. Who was he speaking to? What were their plans for her?
Of course, without her wand she was no longer capable of following through with her own plans. And a further blow had been dealt when she’d placed a trembling hand into her pocket to discover it empty—her notebooks somehow also confiscated during their combative journey back to the castle.
After losing all of her resources, and being abandoned on the steps, Hermione’s immediate response had been to surround herself with people. She’d returned to her friends and found herself enveloped in their warmth once again. It was a huge relief. She didn’t know why it had been so difficult for her to go there previously. Perhaps she had needed to reach the empty depths of rock bottom to realise that she could either choose to allow herself to trust again or face the destructive loneliness that had all but consumed her.
Either way, she’d spent a considerable amount of the past week in other people’s rooms, particularly Ginny’s. And despite not having her wand, she’d managed to begin studying again.
It was the closest she’d come to feeling ‘normal’ for such a long time. And yet she wasn’t. The ominousness of the swirling clouds above her made that clear. Despite her anger, and the bold defiance that had swelled within her when she’d last faced Severus, she was scared. Something was going to happen.
And her worst fear was that she wouldn’t even know when it did.
***
Hermione walked barefoot back to her room. There was something about the red adorning her nails that she found reassuring . . . that she gazed at solidly at with each step . . . that even the cold stone beneath her feet couldn’t diminish. Ruby red. This was her essence of Dorothy—small fragments of hope that may one day carry her home.
Sense told her to let it go . . . to give it up for her own sanity as much as anything. But hope wasn’t something that could easily be relinquished. Even if it was fanciful . . . and fantastical . . . and nothing more than red drops. Nail varnish. Deep sweat. Buried tears.
She opened her door.
Or blood.
The thought struck her immediately despite the fact that none was present . . . at least not yet.
Her wand may have lay benignly enough on her desk but the fact that it was there at all set her instantly on edge. She glanced uneasily around the room, despite the fact that everything that could be evident should be evident from her vantage point. It wasn’t a large room. Slipping to the bathroom, she opened the door. Empty.
Returning, she approached the desk.
Her books were there too. All of her notebooks. Even the texts she had stolen from the restricted section of Hogwarts, and those from the Muggle library. But it was the one sitting by itself that set her into a fresh tailspin.
The back of a girl’s head, brass snake rearing up from between the pages.
It was her gift, returned.
He was severing all ties with her. The final rejection. Severed . . . from Severus.
And the rest of it?
The rest was simply the rope she would need to hang herself.
***
She was being watched.
She felt it—a tell-tale prickle that crawled into her scalp but turned up nothing each time she jerked around to confront it.
Even on the bus.
She’d tried to shake whomever it was by mixing up Apparition with traditional Muggle transport. But still she felt them.
Forcing her jiggling knee to still, she shifted her satchel onto her lap and stared out the window. She was simply returning the overdue library books. There was nothing remotely suspicious about that. Except that she was, of course, the greatest risk to the wizarding world since Voldemort. And this was a test.
Could she be trusted to visit a Muggle library again? Could she be trusted not to attempt to run and hide? Could she?
The answer really wasn’t hers to give. She felt strongly that her fate had already been determined. And so she’d decided that she’d rather meet it head on than wait for the sinister shadows to close in and eventually consume her.
She heard the tremble, even in the quiet ‘thank you’ that she murmured on her descent down the bus steps to the damp footpath. Normally the sight of the old grey building filled her with joy. Now she was overwhelmed by feelings of such dread that it took all of her willpower not to turn around and hammer on the bus door that had just hissed closed behind her.
Slow, ponderous steps, took her through the sliding glass doors, across muted carpet, past muted conversations, over to a desk with a young man seated behind it.
“I’m sorry . . .” Hermione began, but found that she couldn’t continue.
The man smiled kindly. “Yes?”
“I’m . . .” Hermione shook her head and then delved into her satchel for the books. “I’ve been sick . . . These are late.”
He nodded and took them, opening one and scanning the code. “There is a late fee.”
“I understand.”
“But . . .” He deftly tapped the keyboard in front of him. “It seems that you have been waiting a considerable amount of time for three books that have just come in. I think we can waive the penalty in the interests of good customer service.”
Hermione smiled faintly. “Three books?”
“Yes.” He consulted the monitor. “A book on psychology, one on memory and one about hypno . . .” He frowned.
“Hypnothesia.” Hermione nodded, remembering the request she’d put in about a lifetime ago.
“That’s the one,” he said cheerfully as he stood and made his way over to a cabinet full of books. A moment later he returned and handed them to her.
She looked down at them and then back at him.
She opened her mouth but there was really nothing to stay. She could take them. Or leave them. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a middle aged woman looking pointedly at her watch.
“Thank you.” Hermione smiled. “I appreciate it.”
And then she moved away.
Fuck.
She couldn’t take them back to Hogwarts. Perhaps she could just read them there, at the library. No notes. She’d have to rely upon her memory—not as good as it used to be . . . but better than it was.
She quickly glanced around again. If people weren’t already suspicious of her, they certainly would be after what she imagined was a pretty good impression of a deer in headlights.
Regardless, she jogged up the stairs to the private reading section, making her way between two walls of books before reaching the empty carrels.
Then she stopped.
What the fuck?
A book. The back of a girl’s head. Placed neatly in the centre of the desk. Numbness gradually seeped into her limbs with each step closer until she collapsed on the chair, the books tumbling from her arms.
Fingers trembling, she opened the front cover.
Hermione Granger. Scribed neatly. With an earnest confidence that now seemed laughable.
It was the copy she’d never found, the one he’d taken, and now the bait in the trap that she’d just walked into.
“Hermione?”
She froze.
It was too cruel. But it had happened before. When she was under intense stress, she would hear them . . . their voices. Only to crash back to reality and be forced to grieve all over again.
“Hermione darling, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I thought I’d lost you for good!”
Hermione’s head jerked up. An apparition was moving towards her. Slow. Dreamlike. Green eyes . . . her eyes. A smile. Perfect teeth. Perfect. Unreal. Not real. Reaching out. Reaching through her. Stopping. Stopping there. Upon her. At her shoulder. Warmth. Flesh. Real.
Hermione gazed up. Unbreathing. Unbeating.
“What is it?” Her mother’s smile dropped away, brow furrowing with concern. “Darling, are you all right? Was it something you read?”
Tiny twitches hitched through Hermione’s diaphragm, making her gasp quietly, as though life was attempting to escape her in discreet but indelible increments.
“Hermione?” Her mother placed both hands on her shoulders and knelt before her. “Tell me. Are you sick? Should I call someone?”
Hermione shook her head haphazardly, like a ball on a spring.
“Are you sure?” Her mother’s eyes scanned her face—careful, intelligent, loving eyes.
Hermione placed a shaking hand over her mother’s knuckles, grabbing them fiercely.
Mu . . . mu . . . Her jaw ratcheted up and down like a mute marionette. She was an infant again, trying desperately to be understood.
Her mother nodded. She wanted to understand.
Hermione’s breath finally returned, shuddering in and out until at last it managed to slide past her vocal cords. “I . . . I missed you, Mum,” she whispered.
“Oh, my love.” Mrs Granger lunged forward, wrapping Hermione tightly in her arms. “I wasn’t gone that long, was I?”
Hermione nodded against her shoulder, small but emphatic affirmations, declarations of longing that went far beyond words as tears spilled out.
“I’m so sorry,” her mother crooned, rocking her gently. “I thought I had been there for you but clearly I haven’t. You put so much pressure on yourself. And you have exams coming up. I should have known. I should have done more.”
Hermione wanted to tell her that she wasn’t to blame. She wanted to explain it all to her, but she couldn’t. Instead she let her mother continue her gentle placations. She just wanted to feel the words resonating through her, flowing into her soul, to let the tears carve tracks through her pain, to stay wrapped up in love.
Love.
Love.
“Hermione, we should probably find your father soon. He'll be wondering where we are.” Her mother’s words eventually filtered through the haze of bliss and wonder.
Hermione lifted her head. “Is he here?”
“Yes, he came with us, remember? I ended up leaving him in the dentistry section. You’d think he would’ve had enough of those books by now, wouldn’t you? He’s written three of them himself after all!”
Hermione wiped both hands across her face with a contented sigh, her tears giving way to a watery smile. “I guess there’s always more to learn.”
“That’s what he says,” her mother laughed. “As I've always said—you’re your father’s daughter.”
Hermione stood on shaky legs, feeling like a newborn foal. “We’d better find him then,” she said, reaching for her mother’s arm. Now that she had her back, she had no intention of letting her go.
“Yes,” her mother agreed, setting off through the corridor of books. “Although I doubt I’ll get the same sort of welcome from him. I think he’s glad for the peace.”
Hermione laughed and then stopped.
“Wait.”
She pulled away, returning to the desk.
“Oh yes, your books.”
But there was only one she wanted—the one with her name in it, the one she had been completely wrong about, the one that hadn’t been bait at all, but a gift. His gift. The most precious gift he could have given her.
The cover image blurred before her eyes as she considered the truth of what he had done. The fact that he’d sacrificed himself again, placing himself in extreme danger for the sake of another, for her, was difficult enough to deal with. But the very real possibility that he might already be suffering the consequences was intolerable.
The last thing in the world she wanted was to leave her parents again. But she had to. She would see them home—safe. And then she would find him. Wherever he was. Whatever state he was in. And after she’d apologised for the bitter accusations and assumptions she’d thrown at him, she would offer herself to him . . . for assistance, protection, or at least a chance to seek to repay his kindness.
After all, a man as brave as he deserved better. Or at the very least the chance at a life beyond compromise and servitude.
Her only hope now was that the Ministry didn’t already have their hands on him . . . and that he would be brave enough to allow her back in.
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At the Headmaster’s Discretion *Complete*

At the Headmaster’s Discretion Complete