Hidden Within

Hidden Within

Chapter Three - Understanding

"Severus, listen to yourself. Lucius Malfoy killed Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore to get back at you? Wouldn't he have done it to please Voldemort, if it had been in his power? And would he have killed his own son in the process? Because, you have to remember, we saw Draco's body. You had a nightmare, nothing more. Voldemort had many reasons to want Harry and the Headmaster dead, but you weren't one of them. Not your fault."

Severus felt his mind begin to clear. A nightmare, only a nightmare. Not his fault. He felt partly ashamed of his weakness, especially because it had been allied with delusions of grandeur. To get back at him indeed! Still, the greater part of him felt glad that he had shown it, because now she was holding him. What did it matter that it was improper? She wasn't doing it against her will, and there was no one else around to complain. He remained in the same position. Let her tell him when she wanted him to get up; until then he would enjoy it. Even if he did have failed in saving her.

As his breathing returned to normal, Hermione became fully aware of how inappropriate she was being. She got up so suddenly he nearly fell.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done this."

"No, I should be apologizing," he said, getting up quickly. Too quickly, in fact, since he was immediately taken by a strong dizzy spell and fell back on the sofa, closing his eyes to prevent the room from swirling around him. Hermione took his pulse, frightened.

"When was the last time you ate?"

He tried to think, but it was clouded. "I... don't remember."

As he opened his eyes, her concerned face came into view. "Stay right there. Don't move."

He let out a short laugh. "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

---

Hermione gathered her courage and left his quarters. She had never done so alone, but he was weak and she wanted to help. Since she had no way of knowing for how long they had found themselves in their current predicament, she couldn't tell when their last hot meal had been. She had been getting along fine on fruit, milk, ham, cheese and other cold food, but he hadn't been eating even that. He needed a proper meal.

The minute she left his quarters, however, the familiar terror began to assault her. She was going to die. She was going to suffer and then she was going to die. It had probably been her fault Harry and Ron had died. Voldemort had probably forgotten all about Harry until Harry came to Hogwarts and began hanging out with a mudblood. And Ron! Ron, who had been of a proper wizarding family, whose only fault had been choosing a mudblood girlfriend. And one who didn't love him properly at that, she had never truly loved him as more then a friend, but still she had dated him. She had been his girlfriend to the day he had died. He had died because of her.

She broke into a full run, eyes closed shut until she reached the kitchen. She didn't know how to cook anything fancy, but she could still fry a steak and an egg. And perhaps roast some potatoes.

The potatoes and the steak she managed just fine, but the egg got burnt beyond recognition. In fact, it nearly exploded. Hermione was overwhelmed by a sense of failure. She couldn't do anything right, she only ruined things. She would most likely manage to get Severus killed as well, sooner or later. She was nothing, and was good for nothing. She dropped the frying pan on the floor, grateful that at least the steak was already inside the Tupperware box she had summoned. Almost blinded by tears, she put the potatoes in the box as well and lidded it, casting a simple temperature-maintaining charm on it and trying very hard to ignore the voices that mocked her. The voices that were all her own.

As she ran back to his quarters she dropped the box twice, thanking the Gods above for plastic and hermetic lids. Instead of walking into the living room she burst into it at breakneck speed, waking Severus who had meanwhile dozed off. He could tell immediately that something was wrong.

"Hermione!" He got up and went to her. "Hermione what is it? What's wrong?"

She shoved the box into his hand.

"I... I burnt it. I burnt the egg. I'm sorry, I can't do anything right. I tried, but I just can't."

Severus stared at the box in his hand, unable to comprehend.

"The egg? What egg? What is this?"

In the safety of his quarters she began to calm herself down, into a slightly more coherent speech.

"I tried to cook you dinner. You're weak, you have to eat something decent. But I burnt the egg."

It was Severus' turn to pull her into a comforting embrace. He could barely believe that she had ventured out alone to cook food for him.

"You cooked dinner? For me? Oh, Hermione, thank you!"

"But I burnt the egg... there was an egg and I burnt it..."

"Shhh. I'm sure the food's wonderful, I don't care about the egg. Hermione, look at me." He tipped her chin up ever so slightly, smiling softly. "I don't even like eggs."

They couldn't tell who moved first, only that, without notice, they were locked in a kiss. Severus' hand found itself tangled within her hair, holding her as close as was humanly possible. She tasted of apples and cinnamon, sweet as spring. Hermione, for her part, was melting into his kiss, thinking dumbly how it had never been like that with Ron. How this man now kissing her felt as right as anyone possibly could. Then she wondered if he was only kissing her out of pity, to make her feel better, and she broke away, ashamed. Severus was the first to react.

"Forgive me, I had no right." Stupid, how could he have been so stupid? It did not matter that he was, in fact, the only man in the world, it should have been obvious she still wouldn't want him. He felt embarrassed beyond words.

"You don't have to pity me."

"You're seventeen, I should have never... what??"

"I said, you don't have to do that because you're sorry for the little egg-burning mudblood."

She spat the word mudblood with so much venom it shocked him. He remembered the loathing he had felt at his failure earlier, how he had hated himself far more than with anything else he had ever done - and that was saying quite a lot -, and wondered if there wasn't any lingering dark spell in the castle causing such an effect. He decided to analyze that information later. Now he had to focus on her.

"Hermione, don't say that. That is a word that should never have even been invented. Do not use it in reference to yourself ever again. You may be muggleborn but you are most definitely not a mudblood. Do I make myself clear?"

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you think of me as muggleborn or as a mudblood, I still don't want you kissing me out of pity!"

Very gently he took her hand and led her to the bathroom, to stand in front of the mirror.

"Hermione, look. Look at yourself and look at me." He studied his reflection for a brief second before looking away in shame. He looked far worse than he ever remembered looking, and he had had the audacity to kiss her. "You're young, you're beautiful, and I'm nothing more than an ugly old fool, I am perfectly aware of that. Who do you honestly think would be doing who a favour by kissing? Do you really believe it would be me kissing you out of pity? You're beautiful, Hermione, any man would be honoured to kiss you."

She turned to look at him, surprise clearly evident in her eyes. "You... wanted to kiss me?"

"Very much. And I would be grateful if you could forgive me for it." He closed his eyes, as if awaiting judgement, still half-afraid she would hate him. He wouldn't stand to be alone there. Her next words surprised him.

"And... was I ok?"

"What?!?" He opened his eyes in amazement.

"The kiss. Was it alright?"

It hurt him physically to see her so insecure. "Hermione, it was far more than 'alright'. I'll remember it always."

"Would you like to... kiss me again?"

He lowered his voice to a whisper, afraid it would crack. "Very much."

In that precise instant, Hermione made the conscious decision to stop thinking and plunged into his open arms, kissing him deeply. He wanted to kiss her, it hadn't been pity. And it felt so very right. The only part of her mind that was still working was marvelling at how a man she had once thought so cold could show such passion; how one she had thought so rude and inconsiderate be so tender. His tongue was playing with hers, not overly eager and insistent as Ron's had been, but almost tentative at times. As if he didn't know how far he could go and didn't want to push her. Mindful of her. And, if her life hadn't taken on this devastating turn, she would never have known this. She would have gone on admiring his intellect, respecting his strength of will and his commitment to the cause but never know he was so much more than a decent man with a rough exterior. Never have realised he was a man at all. A man who, she now noticed, was trembling in her arms.

When she had thrown herself into his arms, Severus felt as he never had before. He felt complete. After everything he had done in his life, every revolting thing, she was kissing him. Nothing else really mattered, his previous sensation of failure ignored and discarded like a used parchment. She was everything and anything he could think of, filling his senses with sweetness and innocence. And completion. It had been so long since a woman had willingly kissed him that he couldn't even remember it. And he was sure he had never felt this way in return. He had spent so much time of his life shying away from any kind of romantic involvement, ashamed at what he had to do in his Death Eater role... He shivered even as he kissed her, as he realised for the first time that, being muggleborn, she might have come to be one of the unfortunate women at the revels. One he might have had to rape and torture himself. Not anymore. Never again. He would make sure she would be safe from the likes of Lucius Malfoy if it meant his life. 'Harry followed you to a gathering last year. Said you were the only one there with a soul.' She knew, then, she knew he was a rapist and a murderer and she was still kissing him. He held her as if she might break. As it turned out, it was he who nearly broke when another dizzy spell came over him, reminding him vividly of the uneaten dinner she had cooked. He clutched the edge of the sink not to fall.

"Severus! Oh, Severus, I'm sorry, you should have eaten long ago!"

He caressed her cheek with a smile. "I, for one, am most certainly not sorry. I wouldn't mind going on without food for several days, actually. Just you."

She felt something warm taking hold of her. He wanted her. Now it was she who took him by the hand. Putting the table on its rightful place with a flick of her wand, she made him sit on a chair and placed the box before him.

"Open. Eat. I mean, if it's edible."

He conjured a plate and tasted a bite of the steak that, thanks to the temperature-maintaining charm, was still at the exact same temperature than when it had left the frying pan. In any other occasion it would have been a regular steak. Given his current condition it felt like the best thing he had eaten in years.

"It's delicious! Truly, Hermione, it's wonderful."

"There was an egg, but I bur-"

"Shhh! Enough about eggs! Now sit, eat with me."

She refused. Seeing him eat was, in fact, making her very aware of how hungry she was but, despite being big, the steak was meant only for one. In her hurry to be in and out of the kitchen as quickly as possible she had neglected to cook one for herself.

"I'm not hungry."

"I'm not taking no for an answer."

She opened her eyes as wide as she could as a means to emphasize her point, resisting the urge to stomp her foot. "I cooked it for you."

He pulled her closer. "And you have no idea how that makes me feel. But I want to share it with you, or I won't feel good. Here." he said, conjuring a second plate and silverware, and then two bananas and a few slices of cheese, which he proceeded to cut to both plates. He then divided the potatoes and the steak equally and, by the time he was done, the food seemed just right for two. "Now you can eat with me."

Hermione sat down next to him, smiling gratefully. How could she ever have thought him cruel? The thoughtfulness he had shown her, the tenderness... It was only then that she realised she was still in her nightgown and she blushed self-consciously, but he seemed to take no notice.

Severus, for his part, was at a bind. What should he do now, how should he react to her? Should he try to revert to the companionship they had shared, or was she comfortable seeing him as a man? And could he even trust his own judgement? The Hermione Granger he had known and taught for nearly seven years was bossy, self-assured, suffering, if anything, from excess confidence, not lack thereof. The Hermione Granger who had been sleeping in his bedroom ever since the massacre, however, was insecure, afraid. She was clearly not herself. Hell, he was clearly not himself, for that matter. When his spell hadn't worked he had felt like nothing, less than nothing. The feelings of frustration following a failed research he was familiar with, but that absolute despair... and the fact that he hadn't been able to recognise a simple nightmare... no, something very dark was definitely at work here and, whatever it was, it was affecting them both. Trying to ignore it, taking advantage of it to feel cared for was cheap. Not to mention it was a Very Bad Idea. Against his will his mind wandered back to their kiss. She had asked him before if it had been alright... had his own contribution been acceptable, he wondered. Her laughter shook him out of his reverie.

"Severus, are you going to eat that piece of steak or propose to it? You've been staring at it for ages!"

He laughed with her, shaking some of the tension off, but then grew serious again.

"Hermione, have you noticed something odd?"

"You're joking, right? What isn't?"

"No, that's not what I mean. Think about what you felt because of a stupid egg. Try to give it a rational analysis. Is that how you would have normally reacted?"

She frowned, considering his words. "No, not at all. I would have been bummed, but I wouldn't have felt such a waste. It's as if every bad feeling is being enhanced a thousand times. And even before that, before the egg. Now that I think about it, I know it seems perfectly ridiculous, but I actually thought Harry and Ron had been killed because of me. Because they associated with a mudblood."

"Just as I believed it had been to get back at me that all these people had been killed. There is something trying very hard to draw what's worse in us. And today it succeeded, if only briefly, with the both of us."

"I can see what you mean. We'll have to test the castle for dark magic, but it would be best if we did it in the morning. Besides, now that we know what it's trying to do, we'll be better equipped to fight it."

"Yes, you're right. And there is something else that doesn't add up."

"What?"

"Remember me telling you what I've been?" She nodded, understanding his meaning and not wanting to force him to say the words, and he proceeded. "Well, there is one thing I can tell you about Death Eaters: they can enjoy whatever sick, twisted pleasure they get out of torture but, on a massacre of this scale, it doesn't make sense that everyone was either beaten or stabbed to death. They would have used a series of Avada Kedavras and get it done. And Potter wouldn't have been killed, he would have been brought to Voldemort alive. And, in the highly unlikely event that they had killed him accidentally, at the very least they would have taken his body. It doesn't make sense, any of it."

"I see your point. Add to that the house-elves, the animals, the portraits, the ghosts..."

"... and you have a very confused picture, of which both of us seem to be part of. Oh, and let's not forget that we can't remember a thing. That time did not seem to pass between the end of your class and the retreat of the killing forces."

"And another thing as well. They killed Harry, and they killed the Headmaster. If they were able to do that, then why were we spared? Someone with the power to do that would have no problem killing us. Well, at least me, that is."

"Well, thank you for your consideration, but you were right the first time. They would have had no trouble killing me as well. Which can only mean one of two things. Either we hid very cleverly, which is highly unlikely, especially in your case - you would have ran like a true and foolish Gryffindor straight into the heat of battle, welcoming Death with open arms if only to attempt to help your friends -, or we were meant to live. Which leads me to my final conclusion: we are either being watched and analysed, or simply punished."

Hermione shivered violently. The thought of someone - or something - watching her, intruding on the ever so fragile peace they had managed to build, was too much to bear. Severus noticed and cursed mentally. He had been too blunt, now she would panic and that wouldn't do. They needed to both be lucid if they were going to find their way away from that never-ending nightmare. He adopted a casual tone.

"Well we'll delve further into this in the morning. For now I think it's high time we both got some sleep."

She was just at the door when his voice arrested her.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For the dinner, that is. It was... very thoughtful of you."

She smiled slightly. "Don't mention it."