Zeitgeist

A/N: Response to the April Fools Alphabet Challenge. Zeitgeist means 'spirit of the times.'

In the flickering light, the candles remind Snape of bones, of graveyards long ago. He shudders, sometimes, and blows them out, retreating into sleep as a wild animal might retreat into their den. Other times he simply ignores them, pushing them to the very edges of his consciousness and vision, forcing them to become merely figments of his imagination. Snape is a man of habit: he never changes from candles to torches, or conjures light with his wand. He has reasons for this, but they are not convincing ones. The truth remains there: the bones remind him, for good or ill, of what was, what is and what will be. They keep the weight on his shoulders.

Hermione did not see the candles for bones, when she entered Snape's chambers. The door was open; it let a shaft of gold into the dark room, illuminating another corner. She saw her teacher bent over a writing table, grading papers. She saw her teacher curled into a dark ball, his spine curving in on itself, his pale face drawn and worried.

"Professor Snape?"

His head snapped up, eyes searching the room. "Miss Granger," he finally said, recognizing her after a long time. "Why have you invaded my rooms?"

"The door was open." It was no explanation at all, really. She could have excused herself, could have professed worry for her grade, but she did not. Instead she stood in the doorway, silhouetted in all her dumpy glory. "I wanted to see."

Awkward pauses were not something Snape was comfortable with. He filled them in his classroom with insults, calculated and uncalculated, witty and not. Theatrics rounded out the days, billowing robes combined with menacing words. Hermione had refused to take him literally, even when she was very young. In some ways, she was completely guileless; he knew this intellectually, but still he tried to force her down, force her to be intimidated and fight back. "Sit down," he ordered her. "Make yourself useful. Read the first years' essays. I have precious little time, now, for grading."

"I thought we might talk." She sat on his one plush item, the velveteen footstool, near the desk.

"It isn't April Fools' Day, and I won't gather hens' teeth with you," fired back the reply.

"No - really. It's close to the end of things, one way or another. Even you must admit it. And with that much weight, on you, on Harry..." She tipped back her head, closing her eyes. "I always learned more in your class than in anyone else's, except perhaps Professor McGonagall's. Precision, that's what you taught me."

But Snape was not thinking of precision. He was thinking of the Muggle girl who had moved her head just so, moved it on a swan-like neck, before shuddering and dying. "If you would like to talk, we may," (what could they do - this close, as she says? It's so cold) "but perhaps before we begin you should ask yourself if you would really like such a stain on your honor," (on your blouse. The Muggle girl had a bloodstain from her lip on her blouse) "staying after hours in the youngest master's quarters."

Hermione's eyes opened. She leaned forward, elbows on knees, hair hovering around the pale circle of her face. "You wouldn't. You can't scare me away like that, you know. I never was frightened by your antics."

"Were you not?" He kissed her quickly, teeth sliding across lips, faces mashing together unromantically. "You meant to offer comfort, I suppose. Is this the sort you meant?"

"I'm still not afraid."

There was defiance in that voice, a little anger maybe. Her cheeks were flushed with - what? Embarrassment? In any case, she was willing enough. Her eyes told the story: they darted across his face, never closing again, always on the alert. There would be no backing down. It was the spirit of the times. It was a zero sum game against the devil, against the darkness.

For himself it was already lost, he supposed, kissing warm red lips and feeling only the chill of Dementors. If there was light, it was fleeting, a sunbeam with dust dancing in it. If there was dark, it was the foundation of the world, strength incarnate. His student shook, torn between the urge to flee and her own pride. Pride won. Pride always won.

The candles are still bones and the winter still is heavy around Snape's chambers. There is another bone in his collection, a larger one, curly-haired and long-limbed. She comes to visit occasionally, a living relic of the world he will fight to save. He likes to think of her as Persephone. He offers her pomegranates and she refuses, but she returns again, with her open eyes and her fear. When the spring comes, the final spring after Harry is done with his heroism and Lord Voldemort is vanquished forever, she will disappear, of this he is certain. Bones and candles disintegrate eventually, as people do, if they are not tended well.