Under the Northern Star

Snape stared at her for a few seconds, and then turned his head away almost impassively. Hermione stared back, unable to move, unable to pick up the knife from the floor.

Severus Snape couldn't be alive. Harry had seen him die in the Shrieking Shack over six years ago, seen the snake sink its teeth in his neck. Seen life depart his eyes.

Was she hallucinating? Would Ron walk in next?

'Sulla kaikki hyvin?' A waitress leaned over her, holding a pile of dirty plates.

'What?' She jumped.

'Everything all right?' the woman repeated in bad English, and Hermione nodded.

'Yes, I'm fine.'

The woman looked slightly doubtful, but left to empty the next table. Hermione sat still, her eyes glued to the man drinking tea, quite leisurely, behind the blooming plant.
She had to go.

She stood up, and the knife clinked loudly against the floor as her foot pushed it aside. The man didn't look at her; he appeared to be reading a newspaper. She veered carefully around the table, breathing in deep. If it was him, she would have to find a shrink first thing in the morning –her mind was the one thing she didn't want to lose.

The man didn't move, even though he had to see her approaching. A veil of black hair cascaded over his shoulders to the table, hiding his face.

'Excuse me?' she said, her voice shaking. 'Sir?'

The man put down his tea cup, and slowly, almost painfully so, raised his head. Black eyes glimmered above a hooked nose and a throat specked with pale pink scars. Thin lips curled slightly in recognition.

'Yes?'

She didn't know what to say. This was final proof: she had lost her mind. She would be doomed to live a half-life forever, surrounded by sneering ghosts from a past when everything was well. War and Voldemort aside, still well.

'You're not...I'm hallucinating...I'm so sorry...'

'Hallucinate away.' Snape returned his attention to the newspaper, which seemed to be The Times.

'You're dead!' Her lips moved before her mind.

'Dead men do not read The Times in a hotel in Lapland. Now move, you're blocking the light.'

She ran away from the cafeteria, up the stairs, into her room. The windows rattled as she banged the door shut and slid onto the floor. A sudden fear gripped her, and she craned her neck. Wasn't there a tall figure standing by the window? Didn't a freckled face peek from the mirror on the wall? She rushed up and opened all closets, turned on every lamp, and whipped away the bedspread.
Just a couple of dust balls.

Trembling, she sank on the bed and pulled a woollen blanket around her. There was a game show on in the telly, and a white-teethed host was asking a plump, blonde woman something in the native tongue. She must have answered correctly as the crowd cheered. They were all so pale somehow in this country. Pale like the man downstairs.
No, the hallucination downstairs, she corrected herself. Severus Snape was dead, and she was merely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Though, she didn't remember where he had been buried... Things had been a blur from the moment in the Shrieking Shack until Voldemort's downfall, and afterwards she had been too crushed by the deaths and too concentrated on consoling the grieving ones. She hadn't even had time to read the newspapers –not that she would have wanted to either. The only time in her life, she hadn't cared about seeing the happenings repeated on paper. They had been too close, too painful.

But hadn't there been a rumour of an old man finding Snape's body and burying it on the grounds of the Shrieking Shack?

The clock ticked on, and she watched the TV without changing the channel. After the game show came the news: something about ships and harbours, and a report of a conflict in the Middle East. Then an episode of Happy Days, a cartoon, an episode of a German detective series, and an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. She watched it all without a smile, just pressing her roaring stomach. She was hungry. Hungry for the first time in eternity.

She glanced at the door. Didn't malnourishment cause hallucinations? Yes, she was quite sure she had read about it. If she ate a good meal, her brain would stabilise. The clock on the table by the bed showed 14:36, half past two, which meant that dinner would commence in two and a half hours. The gift shop was open all day, though, and it had a nice snack section.

She threw the blanket aside and put on her slippers. As she rummaged through the small desk under the mirror for her purse, her reflection flashed in the mirror: hair tied on a messy bun, blank, brown eyes, lips glowing like strawberries in a white face. Suddenly, she was angry with herself. How could she allow her life to drain away like this? She had always –always- been the dependant one, the one who held others up when they swayed. And yet she knew deep down that she couldn't have stood unmoved through this storm –this had been one of the bases of her life. Despite Ron's occasional cluelessness, she had always known they would be together, ever since that spot of dirt on his nose. She had always supposed that her future would hold plenty of fascinating work and research, and outside that, lots of red hair. She only had to close her eyes and she could feel it. Not silky, but not rough either. Had that peculiar Ron smell.
She would never smell it again.

She pushed the purse angrily in her pocket and strode to the corridor. A young man looked at her curiously as she stormed down the stairs, but she didn't care. Let them live their pink dreams; she would go and buy one of those mozzarella sandwiches she remembered seeing in the shop. And a large bar of chocolate.

There were quite a few people in the shop, but they hadn't bought out the sandwiches, and she spotted the triangle-shaped plastic containers as soon as she walked in. She took two sandwiches, four chocolate bars, a bag of crisps, and three cans of Diet Coke. Oh, and a couple of apples for vitamins.

It was rather quiet in the Reception and in the stairs, and it suited her well, as she was not used to carrying loads of comfort food in public. Usually, she had just searched through Ron's pockets or Molly's cupboard.

A pair of legs in black trousers blocked her way in the curve of the stairs.

She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. Hallucination. Remember. Your mind has the capability to banish it. You know it is not there.

She opened her eyes. Black eyes glided along the stash in her lap, and a touch of sneer played on the lips. He made a slight movement to get past her, but she stepped quickly to fully block his way. Fine, her mind was obviously still weak, but she could always reason with this thing. She had always excelled in that.

'Mr Snape,' she said and balanced the food in her hands. 'I just wanted to –'

And suddenly, she didn't know what to say. Ask him why he was here? But if he was a hallucination, he could say anything. Was she really readying herself for reasoning with a hallucination, a fragment of her own imagination?

'Miss Granger.' She heard the quiet, slightly husky voice that Harry and Ron had hated so much. 'I am on my way out, and I would appreciate it if you moved aside.'

'How can you be here?' she blurted. 'You're dead!'

Snape took out his wand, and she stepped aside. She had no illusions of what the man could do. He passed her, but when he was two steps lower than she, he looked up.

'I'm sad to see that one of the rare students of mine with a smidgen of brains has become a sorry, overeating weakling.'

He turned around and strode down, his long, black coat swishing behind him.

'I'm not a weakling!' she cried, tears brimming in her eyes. 'And this is the first time I'm eating real food in months!'

But he had already gone. She leaned against the wall, panting and trying to collect herself. Ron's voice rose from somewhere far away..."That greasy git."

'Yes.' She brushed her cheek savagely. 'Greasy git!'