Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Madrigal	By : Rotisserie_Cassowary Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 7982 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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She arrived in my office well after 1 am on Sunday night. “Sorry, Professor,” she gasped, slightly out of breath, clearly having run most of the way from Gryffindor tower. She had special permission to be in the halls after hours due to her apprenticeship, but I was supposed to be accompanying her any time after midnight. “He wouldn’t go to bed! He and Ron were in this stupid Wizard Chess tournament with a bunch of other kids, and he refused to go to bed until Ron was disqualified. And of course the little bugger won!”
“Weasley is good at chess?” I asked, raising an eyebrow incredulously.
“Yeah. WAY better than me…” she admitted.
Shaking off this shocking piece of information, I held out my hand for the textbook. She dug around in her bag briefly then produced the old, battered copy of Advanced Potion Making. I took it from her, handling it delicately as if it were a dangerous ancient relic. I flipped open the cover, scoffing at the inscription. “What does Half-Blood Prince mean?” Hermione inquired curiously.
“My mother’s surname was Prince. My father was a muggle. So I came up with the title of Half-Blood Prince in an attempt to lend an air of mystery to myself. Ridiculous,” I scoffed.
“I never knew your father was a muggle,” she commented.
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” I spat rudely. Realizing my mistake, I backtracked. “Sorry. I’m just used to being mocked when someone discovers my parentage. Yes, Tobias Snape was a muggle. And he resented my mother and I immensely for our powers. He felt a constant need to, ahem, assert his authority as a result. He stopped hitting me after my second year at Hogwarts, once I started threatening to jinx his bollocks off if he touched me. My mother mostly refused to use her powers against him, though. She forsook magic altogether after he broke her wand in a drunken fit of rage when I was fifteen. She never bought a new one in the hopes that their marital problems would abate. Of course they didn’t, but she had been left defenseless. He killed her in a drunken rage the spring of my seventh year.”
Hermione’s eyes were filled with unshed tears, and her face was suffused with compassion. “Oh, Severus…” she whispered, reaching for my hand. I shook her off, staring straight over her head with steely resolve. “It matters not. What’s done is done. My mother neglected me. She sat idly by, allowing that man to terrorize us for seventeen years. In the end, she wouldn’t even summon wandless magic to defend herself. She was weak, and the weak perish.”
“I know you don’t mean that,” she whispered sympathetically, “That’s just what you tell yourself to try to not feel anything. And that’s ok. I understand. I won’t judge you for it.” She forced me into an embrace then, her arms around my waist tight as a steel trap. “No man as kind-hearted and valiant as you could hate his mom. It’s just not in you.”
I allowed her to hold me for a few minutes, resolutely ignoring the things she’d said. Eventually, I pried her off of me and sent her to my quarters. “Go get some sleep. This is going to take a few hours.”
I sat down at my desk with the text and my wand. I went through it fastidiously, page by page, magically transforming a word here or there. I’d change the name of a potion ingredient, the size the ingredient should be cut, or the order they should be added. I removed all of my invented curses, replacing them with nonsense words. I completely erased some of my notes where I’d been brainstorming ways to exact revenge on the Marauders.
After nearly three hours of labor, I was confident the book was completely useless. I had left enough real information that he wouldn’t suspect anything had been tampered with. But his potions would start to get worse, occasionally exploding, but mostly just being slightly sub-par. I hoped desperately that he’d start to assume that he’d just gotten lucky for a few months, and would eventually go back to using the book’s official instructions.
After a careful second read-through to make sure I didn’t miss anything dangerous, I closed it with an exhausted sigh. Reliving my youth through the pages of that book had been bizarre. The handwriting was familiar, but the words seemed as if they’d been written by a stranger. Had I ever been that naïve? Did I really believe dark magic would be the answer to all my problems? Like if I just cursed Potter and Black enough times Lily would magically realize she loved me? Utterly ridiculous. How can it be that Hermione is the same age now as I was when I wrote all of that? She’s so mature, so giving, so incredibly kind and brave. And I was a villain.
Feeling exceedingly lucky that she hadn’t known me back then, I slumped tiredly into my bedroom. She was curled up in my bed, fast asleep. I stared at her for an embarrassingly long time, marveling at my extraordinary luck. She was so incredibly beautiful in repose. The near-ubiquitous line of concentration between her brows had smoothed, lending a more serene visage than usual. A tiny smile played at the corner of her lips, making me hope she was dreaming about me.
I woke her with a kiss on the forehead, and she opened her eyes with a huge smile. “Hi,” she whispered, sitting up and stretching. I gave her a little half-smile and said, “Hi back.”
“Is it done then?” she inquired.
“Yes, I believe the book is nearly useless now,” I confirmed.
“Excellent. Harry making better marks than me in potions was eating me alive!” she joked. “I guess I need to sneak it back upstairs into his room then?”
“Indeed. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I can’t imagine what sort of awful things could have transpired if we hadn’t fixed it. Gods, he could have killed someone. That boy’s skillset certainly does not include anger management. I know you probably feel guilty about breaking Potter’s confidence, but trust me when I say this is for the best.”
“I will always trust you.” She hopped out of bed and gave me a tight hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m also going to miss you tonight,” she said shyly, “I sleep so much better in your bed.”
“I’m completely exhausted, but I’ll lay here for the next hour before I can finally sleep. When you’re here, I’m practically asleep before my head hits the pillow,” I admitted gruffly, avoiding eye contact. Gods, when did I get so fucking open about my feelings?
She gave me a luminous grin, embracing me again, but for much longer this time. When she finally left me, it felt as if a large portion of my stomach had gone with her. Dejected and lonely, I smoked bowl after bowl until I finally passed out from sheer exhaustion.
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Madrigal