The Walking Wounded

Chapter Three –

“She’s coming,” I inform the others, unsure as to how tonight’s events will play out. Most everybody chooses a Disillusionment Charm to hide themselves, while the two surviving Weasley children hide beneath Potter’s Invisibility Cloak.

I have spent most of the night ignoring the glares of Miss Granger’s youngest lover – Ronald Weasley. To find that he was not her only lover was quite a shock. To see him realize that I was one of the other men in her life was actually quite entertaining. As I glance across the room at Lupin, I see that he is not amused by my obvious pleasure.

“Remember why we are here, Severus,” my lover reminds me. “Give her the potion and make sure it is working.”

I take offense at that comment. “You doubt a potion I brewed?” I ask mockingly.

A knock on the door harkens Hermione’s arrival.

Remus becomes a shadow among the shelves of my books.

Giving one last look over my shoulder to make sure that everyone is concealed, I open the door.

“Miss Granger,” I greet her, still unable to bring myself to use her given name. It has been a week and a half since I saw her last. She has not returned any of Lupin’s letters. She has not responded to any of mine -- until tonight. I knew she could not resist the bait. Loneliness is its own type of pain, a pain that is definitely not enjoyable in the least.

She smiles, the attempt never really reaching her deep brown eyes. That is the way it is with her – her inability to feel anything except the punishments I met out to her.

“Hello, Professor Snape,” she replies, her cheeks rosy from the cold wind outside.

I notice the subtle sign of self-neglect and I scowl. She has lost weight. She could have cast a Warming Charm, but the bite of the cold wind probably made her feel… something.

Pouring two glasses of Firewhisky, I offer her the one that is spiked with Veritaserum and silently insist that she take it. I clink my glass with hers. “Cheers.”

She downs the glass quickly, as if willing the liquid to burn a path to her stomach. “Thank you,” she coughs, making a sour face as the bitter liquid goes to work.

Taking the glass from her, I set it on a nearby table and wait for the Truth Serum to take effect. It is time for Miss Granger to face her demons – the living and the dead. Hopefully, this intervention will move her forward and not backwards.

“How do you feel?” I ask softly, moving behind her and moving her hair to one side. I knead her shoulders and help her remove her outer robe. In doing so, I hope to separate her from her wand. Once the ruse is revealed, I have no doubts that she will try to flee.

“Warm,” she replies automatically and stifles a yawn.

I contain my self-satisfied smirk. Of course the potion works. At least she admitted to “feeling” something.

She moves toward the bedroom, but I block her path and gaze into her eyes. “Not yet,” I murmur, taking hold of her arm and guiding her toward an old wingback chair. “We need to talk.”

Rolling her eyes, she plops into the chair like a belligerent child. “I don’t want to talk. I want to shag.”

--

Snape circles me. I can feel his gaze upon me, assessing my state of mind. If one more person asks me how I am doing, I’ll hex them into tomorrow. That’s why I like Snape. He doesn’t care about me. I am convenient for him, just as he is convenient for me.

“You have no choice,” he says, aiming his wand at the chair. Before I can react, hands burst from the chair, close over my wrists, and hold me down. I am no stranger to Snape’s sexual proclivities, but I have to wonder as to what he wants to do to me fully clothed and in such an awkward position.

Shadows move around me, and people I have known and loved all my life appear. I shouldn’t be surprised but I am. Embarrassment floods my cheeks as I realize how many secrets have been revealed. Molly, Ron, Ginny, and the ghosts of Fred and George surround me. I hear Remus clear his throat behind me.

“What is this? What’s going on?” I question Snape with a venomous hiss.

I feel warm and odd. Warm is good. Odd is not good. I have been so removed from my own feelings for so long I barely recognize the need to eat. It’s a way of life now – disconnected and estranged. I vowed to live my life like there is no tomorrow. It is probably a selfish way to go about it, but I just don’t care anymore. Apathy is not just an obscure concept any longer.

It is my life.

Molly is the first to speak. There is a strange wrenching sensation in my stomach. I can see the concern in her warm eyes as they brim with tears. She lost her husband and five sons in the war. She looks older, as though the burden of living has become too much for her.

“This is an intervention,” she says softly, touching my hand and stroking my hair.

I try to jerk away, but I am held in place by the chair. “A what?”

Ginny kneels in front of me, the dark circles beneath her eyes showing how little she sleeps. “An intervention, Hermione. Professor Snape and Professor Lupin came up with the idea. We’re worried about you. We all are.”

Livid does not begin to describe the sensation that crawls through my veins as I glare at Snape. “You bastard!”

“You’re angry,” he states, one of his eyebrows arching in challenge as he takes a sip from his glass. “That’s a start.”

I want to deny my anger, but the truth bursts forth in a venomous rush. “You’re damn right I’m angry!”

I don’t want to be angry. I’m afraid of my anger. I don’t want to let it consume me.

“Angry?” Ron asks, his fists clenched at his sides. “You’re shagging two blokes behind my back and you’re angry? You have some nerve!”

“Ron,” Remus warns. “Now is not the time or the place for that particular issue.”

“If you aren’t here to help, then please leave,” Molly chastises her only living son in a soft tone.

“Nobody blames you, Hermione,” Ginny adds softly as Fred and George float behind her.

“Why are we here again?” one of the twins asks the other.

“To lend moral support,” the other replies.

“Moral support? To Hermione? She has three lovers! Well done, Hermione!” George glances at Ron and clears his throat. “Possibly down to two now that Ron knows. She’s fine.”

I close my eyes, missing the witty banter of the twins who saw fit to stay behind and haunt their mother as a final joke.

“She is not fine, you twit,” Fred murmurs loudly. “She’s not right in the head.”

“I am too right in the head!” I snap and renew my struggles against my bindings.

Shaking her head in disgust, Molly shoos the twins away and tells them to go haunt the gnomes in the garden. With a flick of her wrist, they vanish.

Ron kneels before me and takes my hand in his. “I’m sorry ‘Mione. I know you’re hurting. I know it wasn’t easy.”

Tears burn my eyes as the dark shroud of anger hovers over me. It wasn’t easy. Ron’s words reverberate in my mind. I want to scratch his eyes out. I want to smack him for saying those words. Closing my eyes, I refuse to listen as the words that were said as comfort echo in my mind. It’s okay. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy killing Harry. You shouldn’t blame yourself.

“I hate you,” I hiss, malicious venom coating the spiteful words. “Get away from me!”

Ron shrinks away and Molly comforts him. “She doesn’t mean it, Ron.”

“Hermione,” Ginny sniffles, her voice filled with tears. “We all miss Harry.”

A scream erupts from me – one that will hopefully chase away the people and the anger. To me, Harry’s not gone. He didn’t die by my hand. He’s simply away – at home with his awful aunt and uncle, consigned there by my bitter imagination. Sweat trickles down the small of my back. My heart races as tears streak down my face.

I struggle against my bindings in vain, cursing and spiting at those around me.

“You need to accept –”

I scream again, embracing the pain where my bindings cut into my skin. The pain chases the anger away and I smile.

The room falls silent, the only sound is my ragged breathing and errant mumblings. The rage will consume me. It will eat me alive if I let it loose.

Severus steps forth and casts a fast charm to heal my wrists. “Let it come, Miss Granger. Let the truth of your emotions roll over you. Let the potion work.”

I whimper as bitter bile rises in my throat. I thrash my head back and forth, willing my stomach to stop roiling and keep its contents. His words reach the deepest part of me – the part that has suppressed the anger in me for so long. It’s not the Firewhisky that’s making me feel this way… it’s the Veritaserum.

“You bastard!” I cry out. “You poisoned me!”

Remus moves behind him, kneeling in front of me. I can see the lines of age and physical trauma in his face. They are lines I dream about nightly. “Are you angry, Hermione?”

The simple question opens the floodgate of anger and self-loathing I have cultivated so carefully. “Yes!” I spit, tempering my thoughts and trying to contain my response.

“I won’t let you hurt yourself, Miss Granger.” Snape’s voice is hardly a whisper. “You can’t use pain to chase away your anger. That aspect of our relationship is over.”

I bite my tongue and taste blood – by accident or design, I do not care. The pain stems the flow of anger and I laugh out loud.

Grabbing my face, Snape forces me to open my mouth, so that he can heal me.

Robbed of the pain, I lash out at him. “I hate you!”

I can feel the eyes of everybody around me.

“Help me,” I plead, my voice raspy and needful as I look at Remus.

“We are helping you, Hermione,” Remus whispers, his face ashen and pale.

“Let the anger wash over you, Miss Granger.” Snape rubs my thigh as a measure of comfort and I try to kick him. But the chair holds my ankles.

The rage is superheated from simmering for so long. It creeps through me, bringing with it the memory I have suppressed for so long. The look in Harry’s eyes as he realized the reason we had not been able to locate the last Horcrux would always haunt me. He had won the duel with Voldemort, disposing of the villain’s mortal form with a swift vengeance. The smoke was clearing, revealing the sacrifices made on both sides of the war.

Harry laughed, looking over at me as I moved Wormtail off of me. He looked happy, yet sad. He fell to his knees, covering the scar on his forehead as if in great pain. I rushed to his side, but froze as the Imperius Curse took hold of me. I watched in horror as my wand hand rose. I fought against the curse as I heard the command whisper over and over in my head.

“Cast the Killing Curse,” it whispered. “Cast it now.”

I felt the putrid hatred of mortal enemies course through me. Voldemort’s evil taint festers within me to this day. At least, it does in my dreams. Harry’s hatred of Voldemort controlled the unforgivable magic as it coursed through my veins. The green light erupted from the end of my wand and Harry, possessed by Voldemort, fell to the ground.

I had never cast an Unforgivable before. I had never felt such a mixture of violent malevolence. The intensity brought me to my knees. The emotions weren’t mine. They were forced upon me.

I held onto it – the seething anger and hatred. I wrapped those emotions around myself like a thick blanket.

“Stop it! You’re hurting her,” Ron’s voice calls out, shattering the fog of the unpleasant memory.

Tears slide down my cheeks. The waves of truth wash over me and linger on my tongue. “I didn’t want to do it. He made me do it.”

“Nobody blames you, Hermione,” Ron chokes on his tears. “Nobody has ever blamed you.”

I don’t want absolution. I want revenge. Jerking in the chair, I pull against the magical bindings and scream. My thoughts are scattered as I try to summon a semblance of pain. That is the only thing that will keep the anger at bay. A truth bubbles to the surface of my tormented thoughts. “I hate him!”

“Who?” Snape barks the question, knowing I have no choice but to answer.

Thrashing back and forth, I fight the effects of the Truth Serum until my head lulls forward and I whisper a name.

“Harry.”

Snape circles me like a grand inquisitor, pausing as he ponders what to ask next.

Remus kneels before me, concern etched in the lines of his face. “Why, Hermione? Why do you hate Harry?”

Sweat trickles down my back as my struggle against the bindings lessens. My fight is internal now as the Veritaserum forces me to answer the question.

“Because he died!” I cry. “He wasn’t supposed to die. He wasn’t supposed to leave us. He was supposed to live.”

Ginny and Molly are hugging one another, their sobs echoing softly about the room. Ron’s head is bowed, his hands clenched at his sides.

I look up and into Snape’s opaque eyes. They are shining with pain and regret. He touches my hair and tries to tuck the errant curls behind my ear. “You and I are very similar.”

His words make no sense to me. I feel betrayed. I feel abandoned. I feel ashamed.

Moving behind me, Remus murmurs a soft incantation and the bindings loosen.

Standing, Snape walks to the door and pauses. “The Veritaserum should wear off in a few hours.”

I watch as he walks out of the room. Remus is rubbing one of my wrists. His gentle ministration feels good and I feel the lure of letting him continue. I want to take the comfort he offers me, but I must face an ugly truth.

He betrayed me. Just like the others, he betrayed me. I can feel the omnipresent shadow of anger encroaching upon my apathetic existence. They have called it forth. I was content to ignore it. Now, I must deal with the consequences.

Flexing my sore muscles, I stand and look around the room. Molly is consoling Ginny. Remus studies the floor. Only Ron has the nerve to look me in the eye.

“Hermione, I –” Ron says.

I put my hand up to silence him. “I don’t care, Ronald. Whatever it is you have to say, I don’t care.” Unfortunately, I do care. The Veritaserum makes me face the truth – no matter how ugly it may be.

Yanking my outer robe off the peg, I storm out of Snape’s home and don’t look back.

--

She slams the door behind her, causing everyone to wince. Lupin looks at me, and I grab my cloak.

“Be careful,” the werewolf says, before I walk out the door to follow Miss Granger.

--

TBC