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The girl was sick.
That’s what the teachers had told Severus Snape in countless staff meetings. What the students whispered about in the echoing halls of Hogwarts. That girl, Hermione Granger, remaining member of the golden trio, was sick. Empty. Dark. Listless. Slacking. Depressed. Apathetic.
Severus rather assumed she was grieving and preferred to leave it at that.
He recalled the night. The night he sent Potter to his death. The night he should have died as well, but the swotty girl hadn’t let him die. Potter had died to end Voldemort’s reign, and the Weasley boy had perished trying to kill Nagini in the battle. The remaining girl had tried to save both, but could not, and in her frantic grief had sped to the shack where he lay dying and had saved him. Despite all odds, Granger had kept him on this earth.
He couldn’t thank her, because life was still, as usual, unfair. Severus was still Headmaster of a school he couldn’t shake, still seen as a dark figure unable to escape the Dark Lord’s tainted shadow.
“But Severus,” Minerva had said once, during an awkward tea where she apologized and he wouldn’t accept it. “Now you’re a free man. You can live your life!”
He refused. What life was there? He was a miserable bastard who read peoples minds for sport and wished he were dead. He didn’t want to move on. All his friends and enemies were buried. He didn’t want to make friends. He was tired of pretending and playing a role.
So Severus Snape did all his duties as the chosen Headmaster of Hogwarts and nothing more. He didn’t socialize, he didn’t date, and he certainly didn’t look out for Hermione Granger.
In the halls, where she cowed her head.
In his office, muttering apologies.
In the bleak, whiteout that had blasted over Scotland, her brown curls bobbing down towards the solid lake until her form was swallowed whole.
His heart clenched tightly as he watched her go. She liked to do things like this, he’d noticed. Dangerous little stunts, quickly and quietly to try and go undetected. The last time, at the astronomy tower, he’d believed they’d put a stop to it.
Severus approached the window and placed a pale hand against the glass. His breath fogged the pane as he pondered. He had a duty, and could apparate on the grounds freely, but he dare not spoil the silence. Instead, he fingered the latch before flicking it open, filling the headmaster’s study with a sudden, biting cold.
Being the Headmaster had its privileges, but being Severus Snape had some other, lesser known benefits.
Softly, silently, Severus broomlessly floated down from his office and over the grounds towards where he had seen the girl last. He landed with a soft thud in the snow, and followed her quickly filling tracks towards the lake. He was ready to end this mess, set the girl right once and for all. He couldn’t stand all this… wallowing.
He went farther than he’d anticipated before his feet hit the snow covered ice. He continued, gingerly now, towards where he saw her emerge. She was lying in the ice and snow in the center of the lake, face upwards towards the heavens as the snow pelted her and covered her. She looked bleak and stricken, like she hoped the snow would hide her forever.
It irritated him.
“What do you think you are doing out here, Miss Granger?” he intoned, his voice cutting across the howl of wind. Silence followed. She was mostly still, almost statue like. It was after a long beat that she slowly moved her wand, point towards her face, and pressed it under her chin, that she spoke.
“Was it easy?” she asked briskly. “Casting the killing curse, sir?”
Severus’ eyes blackened as he stomped closer. “How dare you…?”
“Do you think… I could do it?” he heard her say softly, barely audible. She pressed the tip of her wand deeper into her own flesh.
The ice crackled softly below him.
Now he was nervous.
“Don’t do anything hastily, witch,” he pled. “You are seemingly an intelligent witch. Don’t do something so stupid.”
Her face was bright red and frosted over, her lips nearly blue. She was sobbing now, her voice carrying a mournful, aching noise across the grounds. “I can’t…” she cried. “I’m a coward. Harry, Ron… m-my parents.”
Damn, damn, damn it.
Severus stood above her like the grim, lips a tight line as he forced himself not to gape at how low she had come. It was shocking. She was always supposed to be the level headed one. Now… now she reminded him of a young Severus, empty and alone. He supposed she was.
Wordlessly, Severus disarmed her and held her little, light wand in his hand. He reached down and grasped her under the torso and legs and hefted her into his arms properly. She was ice cold, and dripping wet with melted snow. Granger hung in his arms like a broken, limp doll.
Again, the ice below them cracked.
“Steady on,” he murmured before blinking them out of existence. Where they’d stood, the ice cracked in two and black water seeped out to fill the void.
-
In the Headmaster’s rooms, Severus appeared, arms ladened with sodden, frozen witch. The absolutely inane thought occurred then that she was probably the first female to enter the suite of rooms in over 200 years.
Her teeth were clacking now, her body wracked with sudden, violent chills.
Without word, Severus took her to the bathroom and set her in the tub. He opened the warm tap, stood, and blinked as he watched her slowly become aware of her surroundings.
“Here,” he said roughly, placing her wand on the tub rim. “Best spell those off if you are capable, and I will bring you dry things.”
He rapidly pulled the curtain closed and moved away. A faint swish and her clothing, boots, every sundry were folded and placed on the floor some ways away from the tub.
Severus blinked, then froze.
On the lake, her sobs seemed to die away, dissipate across the ice, but here in the small room they practically sucked out the oxygen. He was actually, momentarily, breathless.
Mournful, pained, desperate. She cried out as if she’d been struck.
“Please don’t go!” Granger practically screamed, ripping at the curtain. Severus emptied his mind and spun back, throwing his cloak down in his haste.
She was half over the tub lip, naked and bright red, reaching for him like a needy child. He knelt down in a puddle of warm water she’d displaced and let her grasp his frock coat and shirtsleeves in her small hands. He placed one hand on the side of her head, her curls now plastered to her face and neck, and another flat, just below her throat.
“Breathe with me,” he instructed calmly. “In.” He breathed, his eyes boring into hers. Trapping her gaze. Willing her to comply, left she suffocate herself with her panic. “Out.”
She breathed through her sobs, shakily and greedily. Then she screamed - “I can’t do this, I can’t do this!” Shaking the handfuls of him like she could rip his clothes off.
“Look. At. Me. Girl.” He held her gaze, used the faintest trace of his legillimancy to push her towards it. “You can. You are capable.”
“No, no no no…!” she cried painfully. “No!”
“Am I a liar?” Severus replied dangerously.
Her eyes showed a different form of panic, then. “No! No, of course not!”
Now both his hands held her head, keeping her from looking away. “Then breathe with me.” They breathed for three cycles before he suddenly had an armful of the witch. Her slender arms wrapped around his middle, crushing him. He was soaked now, and on instinct he embraced her. Her skin was flushed and damp, her wild hair was now stuck to the wool on his shoulders.
“Don’t let me go, don’t let me go Se-Severus S-Snape!” she stuttered needily. “You’re the o-only one left!” she said, like an arrow to his heart. He knew, but he didn’t like reminders.
The only one left. Alone. Past his time.
“Please,” she sobbed desperately into his shoulder.
“What…” Severus asked, finding his usually even voice shaky. “What do you need from me?”
“You, you’re proof,” she said wretchedly. “I didn’t mess it all up. You’re here!”
“Oh, witch,” Severus murmured. He lifted her with his legs, pulling her from the tub, and walked her out of the bathroom. He closed his eyes as he made the now familiar trek to his sitting room, grabbed a blanket from over the sofa, and wrapped it around the girl. “I’m here, as you said.”
He sat on the sofa like that, with a bundled, sobbing witch in his arms, until she cried herself to sleep.
Severus hadn’t realized just how low she had gotten. Just how… sick she’d become with grief. It didn’t suit her. She was born to rise, not to sink. He didn’t think even he was coping so poorly.
The bottles, empty and some broken, around his favorite chair said otherwise.
-
Severus woke sometime in the morning, muzzy headed and vague on the details of what had happened. The blanket he’d wrapped Granger in was laid over him as he lay on his sofa. She’d gone? Good.
Good.
…
He refused to show relief when he stepped into his office and saw her sitting there, across the desk, pouring tea into two china cups for them both. The elves had brought up some breakfast as well. She wore a set of his green flannel he kept in his dresser but never wore. Her wild hair was plated and quite nice that way.
“Professor,” she greeted, very primly. She was quite irritating when she was like that.
He sat heavily into his chair, staring at her. “You are well?” he inquired quickly.
Granger reached across the desk and grasped his hand tightly. “I will be. Thank you.”
He considered throwing her off. He was, or he’d hoped, to be disenchanted with her physicality by now. Instead, like a soppy git, laced his fingers with hers. His thumb stroked the soft skin of her inner wrist.
Severus found himself already mildly addicted to that feeling. Bastard.
She squeezed his hand back, and smiled a soft, beautiful smile that he’d never seen directed at him before. It captured him.
Bastard .