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Unintentional Inveiglement	By : onecelestialbeing Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 130141 -:- Recommendations : 8 -:- Currently Reading : 30
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter and it's characters and making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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A/N: I will understand if you all are too through with me lol. Updates are slower now because of wristy. It's just not getting better and a third surgery is a strong possibility. Needless to say I am NOT amused. But I still appreciate every single review! Thank you so much, I love hearing from you and hello to my new readers!
Again, I am soo sorry for this late update. Happy Labor Day for my American friends! May the barbecues be plenty and may the mosquitoes stay the hell away from you. I got bitten on the soles of both feet last weekend. You don't know discomfort until you've had to walk around with mosquito bites on the bottom of your feet.
Song for you lovely folks if interested: Lisa Gerrard 'Space Weaver'. Dead Can Dance was a recent recommendation by a friend but I literally finished this chapter listening to Space Weaver. Amazing song. And a special thank you to CRMediaGal for lending me her eyeballs for the millionth time ;)

As Snape crossed the threshold of Spinner's End and stepped into the darkened narrow hallway, his nostrils were assaulted by the strong scent of damp and dust that had been present for as long as he could remember. He considered opening a window to rid the house of its stale air, but abandoned the notion, knowing the sickening stench of dirty water from the nearby canal would waft in.
There was no need for light as he moved to the rickety steps to walk upstairs; there wasn't much furniture to trip over, and light would only serve to highlight the grimness of his surroundings. The last time the house had been cleaned was the summer before when Wormtail was around. Snape saw no reason for the useless lump of a wizard to wander aimlessly in his spare time, as idle hands made for mischief. Besides, it had been up to him to make sure that Pettigrew was properly fed and housed. In return for his services, Snape made Wormtail clean and take care of whatever else had been required at the time. Even if Snape allowed Wormtail to use magic in his home, he suspected that he still would have done a shoddy job of cleaning. Admittedly, it had been amusing to watch the portly man scrabble to reach and scrub the highest part of the walls, while gripping the sponge in a death grip as if he envisioned it to be Snape's neck and using almost enough force to strip the wall of its fading wallpaper.
Earlier that night at Malfoy Manor, the Dark Lord had offered Snape the opportunity to have Wormtail return to Spinner's End with him. Snape respectfully declined, but stated that he would take on the favour the following week. While he did not relish the idea of being cooped up in his tiny, neglected house, the idea of sharing space with Wormtail, much less breathing the same air as him, was even more unpalatable.
Once Snape had changed out of his robes, he settled in the old armchair in his front room. A cup of tea sat untouched on the small table beside him, as tea had been the only comestible thing found in an otherwise bare kitchen.
For a while, he sat rigidly upright, staring at the wall lined with a plethora of books he collected over the years. A layer of dust thick enough for him to write his name in covered everything, and Snape made a mental note to have Wormtail clean the shelves.
Briefly musing over the cleanliness of his house was only a small distraction, one that Snape was briefly able to focus on.
It was said that one's life flashed before their eyes right before they were about to die. Snape always wondered what he would see when that time came. Strangely enough, during the split second between him raising his wand to Dumbledore and casting the Killing Curse, it was Snape who felt as if he were a dead man as began rehashing the very first time he'd met Albus Dumbledore at the tender age of eleven.
There hadn't been anything out of the ordinary concerning their relationship as student and teacher. One and one time only, had Dumbledore intervened in that unobtrusive yet annoying manner of his, when it was clear the path that Snape was planning on taking when he stuck to Lucius Malfoy's side. At the time, Snape wondered how Dumbledore knew that he had been spending time with Lucius, as the older wizard had been out of Hogwarts for more than five years. Dumbledore had asked Snape if he was meddling in things he ought not to, and Snape had told him no. The headmaster left it at that, and Snape hadn't seen him again until after joining the Death Eaters. Only after Snape found himself in too deep did he realise his mistake.
Snape practically had to grovel for Dumbledore to not kill him, then bow and scrape just to obtain the teaching position at Hogwarts. It seemed a lifetime before he had gained the headmaster's trust, although even to this day, Dumbledore displayed his faith in Snape in the most peculiar manner. Nevertheless, in some ways, Dumbledore was the only person to believe in him, the only one that allowed him a second chance for redemption, even if it had been tainted with quid pro quo.
Deny it all he wanted, but Snape had a fondness for the barmy old wizard, even if he hated him at times. Although Dumbledore claimed that he trusted him, Snape never stopped feeling as if he had to prove himself worthy of the headmaster's trust. He'd wanted his hard won trust, much like the way a child sought out their parent's approval. Just when Snape believed that he would always remain beneath Dumbledore's scrutiny, he'd overhead the headmaster telling another professor that he trusted the Potions professor. Snape never asked about the conversation, especially since he'd been eavesdropping, and Dumbledore never made mention of it, although he might have known that Snape was nearby at the time.
Snape's very first day in the Potions classroom teaching the seventh years had proved more difficult than he'd anticipated. That hadn't been surprising when taking into consideration that not so long ago he'd shared a dormitory and a table in the Great Hall at mealtimes and study periods with some of those very students. Snape stammered and bungled through that first lesson, while furtively wiping his clammy palms on newly purchased too-stiff teaching robes. During that same lesson, one bold Gryffindor that remembered Snape's days as the Marauder's tormentee uttered the word 'Snivellus' under his breath, sending the back half of the class into a gale of laughing. Snape's face had turned an ugly shade of red, and just as he had been on the verge of losing his temper, he remembered that he had the ability to assign detention.
The cheeky Gryffindor's smug countenance had melted instantly when he was assigned a weeks' detention, and the rest of the lesson continued without any further interruption. By the end of the day, Snape felt out of his depth and had begun seriously considering telling Dumbledore that he was not cut out to be a teacher. With only three or four years difference between him and his students, not to mention that he looked younger than some of the oldest pupils, it had been all Snape could do to not box their ears when they refused to listen.
Towards the middle of the day, the headmaster had showed up in his classroom and politely walked inside, using some pretense that Snape had seen right through. Dumbledore's presence had been enough to bring the chatty students to heel, as well as calm the newly appointed professor's heightening frustration. Snape had remained on the verge of flying off the handle, purely because it had been vexing to be pushed out of his element and unable to control the situation. To make matters worse, it felt as if his authority had been undermined when his students behaved for the headmaster and not him.
However, when it quickly became apparent that a stern voice and sterner attitude yielded desirable results, Snape maintained a rigid authoritative stance that some of the other professors found to be a bit much. Dumbledore never spoke a word against his teaching methods. Binns had been the only one audacious enough to come to his office and offer his unwelcome opinion. Instead of replying that if he wanted to know the best way to talk students into a coma at two in the afternoon, he would come to Binns for help, Snape gritted his teeth and waited until the semi-transparent professor finished droning on before turning back to grade essays.
Snape complained about it over dinner that evening, and Dumbledore thought the entire situation to be funny. Snape suspected that the headmaster merely kept Binns on because he did not have to pay him—apparently, the spectre had no need for gold Galleons and was happy by the mere circumstance of keeping his teaching position in spite of death.
"You fool. You bloody, fucking fool," Snape muttered into his steepled hands, unsure if he was referring to Dumbledore or to himself.
He was still stuck in a state of disbelief that he had actually gone through with killing Dumbledore. When he'd asked Dumbledore to help him protect Lily Potter's son, the last thing he imagined was having to kill the one person in his life that trusted him, and vice versa.
But there was someone else who trusted him.
Visions of bushy curls began creeping into the edges of his mind, and Snape felt his heart clench painfully. Surely by now Hermione had been made aware of his killing Dumbledore. He would have ventured that Potter also made up some story about almost being killed by his wand as well. Snape still looked upon Hermione's judgment as faulty, but out of every student he'd crossed paths with since teaching, she had been the first one to see something in him that went unnoticed by others. Whatever that thing was, it still managed to elude him. Even when he had been nasty to Hermione, an unkind word when it came to speaking of him in the third person never passed her lips. He was curious to see what she would now have to say on the topic.
Nothing good, Snape told himself. She most likely has you pegged as a cold-blooded murdered, and let's face it: it's not far from the truth.
Snape clearly remembered the times he would directly and indirectly suggested to Hermione that she should not trust him. Regardless, the idea of her now being fearful of him, distrusting him and thinking that her own life was in danger, left a bitter taste in his mouth.
While there were several factors for him not wanting to admit how he truly felt about the too-young witch, the indisputable truth was that he felt deeply for her. The last thing he would do was hurt her, and had anyone dared to harm a single strand of that damnably wayward-curled head, he would secretly find a way to kill them and dispose of the body without another thought.
Snape didn't realise how protective he'd grown of Hermione until he found her on all fours and turning blue in the boys' lavatory. Unfortunately, now one thing was very clear: if he wanted Hermione to remain alive, then he would have to stay away from her.
Continuing to unobtrusively help Potter would pose no problem; Snape had been doing so for a length of time and was never seen. Yet he now had to contend with the issue of acting as headmaster when the school term resumed. Both his masters had thought of his new position, although for reasons that contradicted entirely. Dumbledore meant for Snape to look after the student and staff of Hogwarts, while Voldemort had every intention of Snape reigning terror on the Muggle-borns, half-bloods, and anyone else who would dare go against his orders.
Snape did not want to be headmaster; he never envied Dumbledore's job. Once upon a time, he might have preferred the position as it automatically came with a bit of respect, not to mention a higher pay grade. Yet after seeing firsthand that a headmaster did anything besides rest on their laurels, not to mention dealing with the many idiots from the board of governors and Ministry officials, Snape quickly eschewed the idea.
He would never be rich as Croesus, not living on a teacher's salary. Even though he'd grown up poor and had been used to scrimping and cutting corners, somewhere along the way Snape found out that having money wasn't everything. He currently had enough saved to live comfortably, but living in something that remotely resembled comfort was a mere chimera dancing in the breeze.
Moving about day-to-day had been hard enough for the past few years. Now that he had killed Dumbledore, Snape did not think he would ever be able to shut his eyes without seeing the grey-haired wizard's lifeless body spilling over the battlements of the Astronomy Tower.
That mental image was enough to make his throat tighten and his chest burn.
What have I done? Snape asked himself repeatedly. What the fuck have I done?
Without warning, Snape dimly registered that he was now doing the one thing he had told Hermione not to repeatedly, which was also the same thing that Draco had taken to doing in private. Hot, shameful tears stung his eyes and Snape tried forcing them to stop by clutching onto fistfuls of oily hair, while fighting back the urge to scream like the tortured soul that he was.
Even if he were to being ranting and screaming like a demented drunkard, no one would come running or knocking at his front door; Snape kept his house charmed to appear as if it were abandoned and no light or sound carried outside. Even though it was unlikely that he would have been found, Snape figured that he ought to be grateful for Aurors not storming his house, but the fact that Voldemort reassured his personal safety was anything but comforting: it was sickening. It didn't make him feel better to know that Yaxley was keeping Pius Thicknesse, a high up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, under the Imperius Curse. Yaxley was operating purely on the Dark Lord's orders, and even though Snape knew Yaxley was not particularly fond of him, the wizard would never go against Voldemort.
Snape remained hunched over in his old armchair, allowing tears to continue running down his face and drip off the end of his hooked nose. He sniffed indelicately a few times, not bothering to wipe the moisture trickling down to his upper lip. If anyone could see him now, he would die of shame. The thought of being caught blubbering like a homesick first-year was mortifying, yet did not match the pain and agony he was feeling over killing Dumbledore. The last time he had felt like his soul was being ripped apart was when he'd found out that Lily Potter had been killed by Voldemort. Remorseful had not come close to describing how he'd felt, and he would have cheerfully traded his own life for hers if it meant fixing his mistakes.
There was a reason Snape had been so vigiliant in maintaining a cold exterior; not a single day passed that he was absent from the grip of guilt and self-loathing. He blamed no one but himself for his previous misdoings, and while Dumbledore might have personally absolved him, Snape found it hard to let go. In his black eyes, there was nothing that would acquit him from being responsible for the slaughter of the innocent. Moreover, every day he looked into Harry Potter's green eyes and was bitterly reminded of his transgressions.
Carrying around what seemed like a lifetime of anguish and regret made thirty-seven feel more like seventy-four. Snape knew that he looked much older than his true age, and his body reminded him at every turn. Hermione Granger had been his curly-haired abettor, his swotty little sentinel of sorts that somehow managed to distract his mind just enough, allowing him to get through each harrowing day with a bit more ease than usual. Spying was difficult work, but sometimes acting as a double agent had been easier in comparison to dealing with troubling thoughts that plagued him constantly. Even if it hadn't been dangerous to let Hermione know every sordid detail of his life, Snape would have been too ashamed to burden her with his problems. Besides, there was plenty that he would rather forget himself.
Snape's tears eventually dried on their own, but he remained in his armchair. Thoughts of going up to his dismal bedroom to sleep briefly crossed his mind, but he decided to remain in the sitting room. He finally fell into an uneasy sleep, and some time before dawn, he shifted to the threadbare sofa. His legs were too long for its length, and springs exposed between the lumpy cushions poked him in the back and arse. There was a strong possiblity of him waking with a stiff neck, but Snape was thoroughly discinlined to use magic for the smallest task. Flashbacks of green sparks flying from the tip of his wand and the devestation they caused could not be forgotten, and instead of Transfiguring the sofa to something more accomodating, he resigned himself to another few hours of discomfort.

Hermione awoke with a crick in her neck and an aching back that came from sleeping on a sofa instead of a bed. A quick, hazy-eyed glance at her wristwatch told her that it was little after ten and panic kicked in when she realised that she was very late for class. Another second of looking around reminded her of where she'd spent the night, and memories of the previous evening came flooding back, leaving her insides feeling hollow.
Dumbledore is dead; Severus killed him. He killed him and left and you came here to get away from everyone.
How she wished those very thoughts were a lie. She would have given anything for Dumbledore to be alive still, and for Snape to greet them in his customary unpleasant manner as they filed into his classroom. Even if she wouldn't be able to speak with him on a more familiar basis, at least she would know that he was alright. But it was not meant to be, and she wondered if she would ever see the professor again.
After conjuring a mirror to make sure that she was somewhat presentable, Hermione left the Room of Requirement and made her way back to Gryffindor Tower. The corridors were oddly quiet without its usual hubbub of students milling about, and a few notices stuck to classroom doors announced that the day's lessons had been cancelled.
The dormitory was mostly empty, and Hermione lingered long enough to gather her toilet kit and a clean change of clothes. Showering didn't take long, although she spent a majority of her time crying beneath the stream of water. Her tears could not be helped, and she didn't try to stop them. By the time she was done, she looked more composed, even if her insides didn't match the exterior.
"Hermione, where've you been?" Ron asked when she finally returned to Gryffindor Tower. "We looked for you this morning and couldn't find you."
"I needed to clear my head," she answered, edging past Ron and moving to the sofa. "How is Bill?"
"The scars are permanent but Madam Pomfrey says he'll be OK."
"That's good..." Hermione replied, her voice tapering off. Ron plopped down next to her but she was too distracted with noticing that the common room was emptier than usual. Still on edge, the atypical peacefulness did nothing to soothe her nerves and she began nibbling at her nails, a habit she had given up over a year ago. "Where is everyone?"
"Gone home. Parvati and her sister left before breakfast; their parents didn't want them staying at Hogwarts another minute. Colin and Dennis Creevey left, too, and..."
Ron went on with ticking off the number of students from Gryffindor House that were taken home by their parents or other family members. Hermione suspected that he was rambling out of nervousness, but even she had trouble focusing on the words coming out his mouth.
"Where's Harry?" Hermione interrupted when she noticed that the third half of their threesome was missing.
"Last I'd seen he was being interrogated by Scrimgeour for the hundreth time," Ron reported."As if Harry's story is going to change if he keeps repeating it."
The two lapsed back into a tense silence, each preoccupied with their own thoughts. Hermione hoped her parents hadn't heard about Dumbledore's death, else they might make her come home straightaway. Though every class and final examination was cancelled, there were still a few things Hermione wanted to do before going home for the summer. She had heard from Harry about the locket he Dumbledore recovered on their mission, but only in passing. She hadn't been able to actually see it because of everything that happened.
That was her first order of business. The second was to see if she could find out anything at all that might help her to uncover why Snape killed Dumbledore. She refused to believe that Snape murdered the headmaster out of malice, which was what Harry believed and told everyone repeatedly. Hermione didn't care what Harry said: there was no way Dumbledore would have trusted Snape so implicitly, only to turn around and be murdered in cold blood.
An hour later, Harry climbed through the portrait hole and stepped into the common room. He gave Hermione a feeble 'hello'; apparently, he had not noticed her absence overnight, as he made no mention of it.
When Harry explained that the locket he and Dumbledore had retrieved was a fake, while pulling the heirloom piece meant to replace Salazar Slytherin's actual locket out his pocket. Harry could barely bring himself to look at the locket as he handed it to Hermione.
Turning it round in her hand, Hermione opened the locket and found that it was no more than an antique piece meant to hold a portrait, the likes of which she had seen in secondhand shops in Diagon Alley. Now that Harry was calmer than he had been the night before, he told her and Ron about his and Dumbledore's trip to the cave. The note signed by R.A.B.was still tucked inside the locket, and Hermione stared at the three letters, wracking her brain to see if she remembered any wizards with those initials.
"R.A.B. ... R.A.B.," Ron muttered under his breath, taking the locket from Hermione.
"Hermione, anything?" asked Harry with a rather grim determination.
"No," she answered, "but I'll check the library. Maybe I can find something..."
"Any other time I would point out that classes are cancelled and visiting the library is pointless," Ron offered, trying to lighten the mood and failing.
"I'll go now," Hermione told them, rising from the sofa. "It's not like I have anything else to do. See you two later."
Going to the library no longer held the same appeal as it once had for Hermione. Thinking of the phrase 'third time's a charm', she sat at the same desk that she had used when Snape secretly slipped scraps of folded parchment with scrawled messages between the pages of her book. She then painfully reminded herself that he was long gone and there would be no third time.
A full day had not passed since she last saw the professor, and Hermione reflected back upon being half-naked and lying beneath him on the Transfigured sofa. The memory alone was almost palpable, and a small shiver ran up her spine as if Severus was actually there with her, pulling her against him and raining kisses upon her bare skin.
Aware that harping on the past—even if it was less than twenty-four hours ago–was going to get her nowhere, Hermione pushed the lascivious thoughts from her mind and focused on finding out who R.A.B. was. Book after book yielded fruitless results; she learnt about a slew of wizards with the same initials. Some were known for useful inventions in the wizarding world, a few of which Hermione might have looked further into if she hadn't more pressing matters. Although she had to admit that two of the inventions seemed completely inutile; one was for a specialised tonic that grew one's hair to fifteen metres in under a minute—the purpose of which was not outline. The other invention had to do with some sort of special coating on broomstick straws, which apparently was supposed to cut the air better and guarantee a smoother ride, and was favoured by professional Quidditch leagues.
Each bit of pointless trivia made Hermione become further discouraged. Small mountains of books surrounded her workspace, and surprisingly, Madam Pince had no comment on Hermione's many trips between the stacks and her desk. Suddenly remembering about the old untouched stacks of the Prophet tucked away in the corner of the library, Hermione made her way over and picked up as many as her arms would allow. She had to keep her head averted the entire time; for a librarian that personally and lovingly dusted each bookshelf, Pince somehow missed the section that housed old newspapers and the like. Perhaps books were more important to the irritable witch.
Hermione did manage to rouse Madam Pince's attention when she was unable to hold back a sneezing fit, which sent an echo throughout the centre of the library. She wore a disapproving look, pursing her lips and glaring fiercely until Hermione's reaction to the dust had dissipated.
Apologising for sneezing, Hermione quietly settled back at her desk. An hour later and two additional trips to get more newspapers, he was on the verge of giving up for the day when something caught her eye. There was that name again: Eileen Prince.
The first time Hermione came across the witch, the article had been about her being the president of Hogwarts' Gobstones team. Now the tiny announcement, which was no more than three lines, spoke of something else.
"No!" Hermione shouted outright, causing Pince to hiss in her direction.
Apologising again and pressing a hand to her mouth, Hermione reread the print three more times before the words fully settled in.
Eileen Prince was Severus Snape's mother. His father, Tobias Snape, was a Muggle. That meant...
"Half-Blood Prince," she muttered into her fingers." Snape was...is the Half-Blood Prince."
But he saw me with the other article. And talk about missing the obvious, Hermione, because you really can be thick; Severus looks just like her. But why didn't he tell me?!
As Hermione dug deeper in her mind for Snape's reasoning about not telling her that it was his Potions textbook Harry had been using, the more she felt her heart breaking into splinters that seemed to pierce her chest. Most likely he hadn't wanted to be associated with the book, and understandably so, taking into account some of those spells, namely the one that almost killed Draco.
Hermione tried to convince herself that she would have understood if Snape had confessed to owning the book, but now? She wasn't so sure. Maybe she had been making excuses for his behaviour the entire time, and perhaps this newly revealed side of the professor had been his true nature all along.
She didn't really want to believe that but saw no other alternative. It was too easy to imagine what Ron and Harry would say once she told them about the book, although Harry would most likely be disgusted after finding out that it was Snape and his skills he had been praising the entire time.
The book itself was the least of Hermione's worries; she was more concerned with the best way to construe Snape's method of handling the situation. A lie by omission was still a lie, so what did that say about everything else? Was she to believe what Harry and Ron had been telling her from the start, that Snape was evil and really did have it in for them all? All right, so he had helped them on numerous occassions; had that been a ploy to throw them off in the bigger scheme of things?
Hermione didn't know what to believe. One trip to the library led to a discovery of another sort that left her utterly frazzled, and made her feel as if everything she'd ever known or felt strongly about had been nothing but a lie. How was she supposed to help her best friend when she couldn't even trust her own judgement?
You'll probably get them killed, you included.
That idea made an icy ball of fear form in her chest. Hermione knew that she had to keep a level head, no matter how this thing about Snape made her feel. The smack-in-the-face irony; it had been Snape himself who always told her not to wear her heart on a sleeve, to think logically instead of emotionally.
Thoughts of the locket and this R.A.B. person brought Hermione back to her original reason for visiting the library. Casting a dispassionate look at the pile of books that had been nothing but useless, Hermione continued visiting the stacks and trawling for something that might lead her to answers. She did her best not to think of the professor, even if her eyes kept sliding back to the partially folded announcement about Severus Snape and his parents.

Oh yes, some are hoping that Snape and Hermione will see one another again. All I can say is...*evil laughter*
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Unintentional Inveiglement