Lost

Lost

Chapter Sixteen

Hermione was beginning to think that the butterflies in her stomach had rabies.

It was nearly four o´clock and she was walking as slowly as she could without attracting attention, trying her hardest not to lose her nerve and run back to Gryffindor Tower. She had spent the entire night trying to come up with a game plan for her meeting with Severus because while simply bursting into his office and demanding that he lower his damned defenses was a tempting option, it didn´t really meet her standards of a good idea. What she needed was a way to get him to lower his walls without him realizing he was doing it, and that was tricky, but not impossible. The solution had come to her well after dawn, when she was nearly delirious with lack of sleep, and had seemed like the perfect answer to her problems: Veritaserum. If she could slip him some of that, he would have to be honest about his feelings, to her and to himself.

Now, several hours of sleep and two cups of coffee later, she was seeing the problems inherent in her plan. Not only was it illegal and highly unethical to drug someone, but she couldn´t be entirely sure that Severus wouldn´t hex her when he discovered what she had done. Not to mention the fact that for her plan to really work, she would have to take it as well.

Still, it had taken her an awful lot of trouble to steal the potion from Remus´ office, and she didn´t have anything else up her sleeve that might possibly work any better than the bursting-and-demanding approach. So, Veritaserum it was, and the butterflies were distinctly unpleased.

Finally, at five after four, she stood in front of his office. She bit her lip, and curled her hand around the flask in her pocket, Come on now... you´re a Gryffindor! Be brave! Drug your boyfriend! The thought made her smile, and without further ado she pushed open the door and entered the room.

Severus was sitting at his desk, staring at the door, and now her, with unabashed annoyance. "You are late," he said in his familiar scathing drawl.

"I know," she said, closing the door behind her and taking a seat, though he hadn´t offered. "I´m sorry."

"That doesn´t change the fact that you have wasted five minutes of my time." He frowned at her and joined his fingers in a way reminded her too vividly of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. "Well, get on with it then, what do you want?"

Hermione took a deep breath and tried not to flex her hand towards her pocket. "You know what I want, Severus. I want to talk about what is going to happen between us." Perhaps I won´t have to resort to poisoning, she thought hopefully.

"Nothing is going to happen between us Miss Granger. While we shared a... romance... twenty years ago, there is nothing between us today. Now, if that is all, I should like to get back to my work," he said, gesturing to several piles of parchment on his desk.

"No, that is not all Severus," she snapped, cursing him for being so... Snape-ish. "We are going to talk about this, really talk about this, whether you like it or not."

He narrowed his eyes at her, but made no further attempts to throw her out. Taking this as her sign to act, she conjured up a steaming pot of tea, and two cups. "I know I could use the caffeine, and I think you could too."

She held her breath as he looked at her tea. Then, just as she had hoped, he nodded and rose from his chair, moving over to the cupboard behind him. "Caffeine would be a good idea, as you are already giving me a headache." He started looking through the shelves, no doubt in search of sugar; he had always complained that Hermione´s conjured tea wasn´t sweet enough.

This was exactly what Hermione was hoping he would do, and as soon as his back was turned she emptied the vial of Veritaserum into the pot. She had briefly considered putting it in his cup only, but she knew that he liked to add his sugar before his tea, and would most certainly notice if there was liquid in the bottom. Closing the vial again she slipped back into her seat just as he turned around, sugar bowl in hand.

The butterflies in her stomach returned with a vengeance when he added the sugar to his cup, and then poured tea for them both. She fidgeted nervously as he settled back down into his chair and sipped from his cup, oblivious to what she had added in. For a moment she debated just pretending to drink from her own cup, but she decided to be fair. Don´t dish out what you can´t take, she thought, raising the hot liquid to her lips and taking several long sips.

Time to test, she thought, inhaling deeply. What is something simple that Severus would lie about? A light bulb flashed over her head, and she grinned impishly. "What is your middle name?" She asked, watching his reaction. As close as they had gotten, his middle name was something that he would never divulge to her, for reasons unknown.

He glared at her and opened his mouth to reply, no doubt nastily, and nearly fell off his chair in shock as he answered her honestly, "My middle name is Sirius."

Hermione sat there for a minute, staring at him in disbelief. No wonder he had never chosen to reveal that to her, sharing a name with his arch enemy wasn´t something he´d find to be amusing, although she did. Severus, for his part, was in a disbelief of another kind. He had one hand clapped over his mouth, and the other raking though his hair, as he tried to figure out what was going on.

"Your middle name is Sirius?" She asked rhetorically, more to herself than to him.

Severus heard her, though, and was compelled to reply. "Yes, it is." His eyes grew even wider, and he glared at her, with the beginnings of realization crossing his face. "What. Did. You.Do?" He asked, spitting out each word as if they left a foul taste on his tongue.

Hermione was also compelled to respond, and she did so with a guilty look on her face. "I added Veritaserum to the tea."

"You did what?" He hissed, dropping his traitorous tea onto the saucer with a loud clash.

"I added Veritaserum to the tea," she repeated, her voice rising. "It was a stupid, immature, and unethical thing to do, but I would do it again in a heartbeat." She put a hand on her chest and leaned in closer to him. "My heart hurts Severus. Harry and Ron don´t know me anymore, Remus and Sirius are twenty years older, and I don´t know them anymore, James and Lily are dead, and you, the most important of all of them, are slipping right through my fingers."

She wiped angrily at her eyes, determined not to break down and sob. "I´m not going to lose you, Severus; I´ve lost too much already. I love you, and I know that somewhere inside you love me too. I know it won´t be easy, we can´t just run off into the sunset, but for Merlin´s sake Severus, we´ve got to try. Starting now, where we can´t lie to each other, we´re going to find a way to make this work."

Feeling as if she were about to jump off of an impossibly high cliff, she asked him in a whisper. "Do you love me?"

~*~

"Yes," he answered, collapsing back against his seat, feeling something he hadn´t felt in a long time, vulnerable. It had been years since he had answered such a personal question honestly, and he found that he didn´t care for the feeling.

A relieved sob quietly escaped her throat as he said this, and she lowered her head for a moment to collect herself. Part of him wanted to step in and control the conversation, but none of the diversionary comments he came up with were not what he honestly wanted to say, and so he was forced into silence while she thought.

Finally she looked back up at him with a calm rationality she hadn´t possessed moments before. Only the hand she had clasped to her necklace betrayed the emotion she felt. "That is the best thing I have heard since I returned here," she said, her voice still somewhat shaky. "It isn´t, however, the answer to all of our problems. It´s a start, a good start, but there is a lot more we need to discuss. The most important being this; do you want to have a relationship with me?"

"I don´t know." The look on her face conveyed her surprise at this answer, and he elaborated as much to explain it to himself as to her. "It isn´t a simple answer, Hermione. For us to pursue a relationship would be horribly complicated, and I am not sure if it would even be possible for us to do so."

"This is exactly why we need to talk," she said. For a moment there was silence as she formulated her next question. "You have been avoiding me like the plague since my return. I want to know why."

Since she had not asked directly, he was able to sit and contemplate his response. There were many reasons that he had evaded her, but they mostly boiled down to one thing; fear. Fear that she wouldn´t love him anymore; fear that she would, fear that she never truly had in the first place. Being afraid was not something he was used to, so he had done the only thing his mind would allow: he ran away.

"It´s complicated," he said, finally.

"Explain it to me."

He shut his eyes, and began to speak, surprised at the ease in which his words came to him. "All couples fancy themselves in love at seventeen, Hermione, but seldom is it real, or does it last. I fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your view, was one of the rare people for which it was both true and enduring. When you were taken from me, and when I came to terms with the fact that you were not coming back, I forced myself to move on, but my feelings never died. They shifted and buried themselves deep, but they remained a part of me, to this very minute."

Hermione broke in at this point, furrowing her brow. "Why, then, did..."

"The reason," he continued, as if she hadn´t started speaking, "that I avoided you, and why I intend on continuing to do so, is that while I am sure of my feelings, I am not sure of yours." He raised his eyes to look at her, with the most serious look he could manage. "Cliché as it is, I´ve had my heart broken once, and I will not let it happen again. I will not try to form a relationship based on what might turn out to be teenage fancy on your part. I will not wade through the many other obstacles, and there are many, just to have you turn around in six months and declare this all a mistake."

A rueful smile passed over her face. "I suppose you will not simply take my word on my feelings for you." He shook his head, and she took in a deep breath. "What will it take for me to convince you that this is not just `teenage fancy,´ as you put it?"

"I don´t know," he said, his eyes still on his face, "But pulling another stunt like this is not going to help matters any."

Noticing that her muscles began to tense in an aggravated way, he held up a hand. "It wasn´t a good idea, Hermione, and I am not going to back down on that point. However, what´s done is done and though I am thoroughly unimpressed with your judgment, I will let it rest, for the moment."

Eyes narrowed, she appeared to be weighing the importance of arguing her point, before consenting to let the matter sit. "We´ve come to something of a stalemate then," she said, carefully, "because all I can offer you is my word, and you are unwilling to take it." Her grip tightened slightly on the ruby, he noted. "Let´s move on then. You seem to think that there are many `obstacles´ in our way, I´d like to hear what you think they are."

"Not what I think they are, Hermione." She glared at the admonition. "What they are."

"A difference of opinion then," she said, evenly. "Go on, list them."

He snorted quietly. List them, only Hermione would want to organize an emotional confrontation.

"Can you agree not to interrupt, or argue?" he asked, knowing that she would more likely than not try to disagree with him after every sentence.

"Yes, no interruptions," she said, although her _expression betrayed her reluctance to agree.

"First and foremost, then, is the difference in our ages. While you might bring up that horrible sentiment of `love knows no age,´ in truth, it does. We have different levels of maturity, experience, and even knowledge. I am, if only by virtue of living longer, more emotionally evolved than you are."

The corners of her mouth were twitching slightly, as if she were fighting not to speak. Not allowing her the chance to break in, he continued on. "Besides the emotional aspect of the age difference, there are practical aspects as well. Somehow I find it very hard to believe that your parents would be encouraging of a relationship between their only daughter and her thirty seven year old professor, of whom she always spoke ill. This extends to the entire community, magical and muggle. There are very few people in the world that would approve of a teacher/student relationship, even if I were to no longer be your teacher."

A conscious effort was made on his part not to point out that she would have even more trouble with the magical world when word got out that he was the teacher. He felt sure that she would not be able to hold her tongue once he made that statement.

As it turned out, she made the connection herself. "You´re worried that the backlash will be worse because of your past."

"I am not thought of in pleasant terms by most of the magical community, so yes, the backlash will be particularly nasty." Something struck his memory, and he pointed out to her, "You remember the hate mail you received in your fourth year?"

"Yes," she said, screwing up her lips into an unhappy smile.

"They will seem downright pleasant next to the things you will hear, if we were to be together."

"I don´t care about those things!" she protested hotly. "Let people talk, let them write and scream and shout. Their opinions mean nothing to me."

"We are not only talking about opinions here, Hermione. I was once a Death Eater, and twice a spy; I have accumulated many enemies over the years. Some on the ministry side will take your love of me as a betrayal of them, and since I am already dammed in their eyes, you will be as well." His eyes darkened, and he continued, "As for the Death Eaters, the reaction from them could prove to be malicious at best, and deadly at worst. While they know of my previous duplicity, seeing me with a muggle born will be like an added slap in the face, one they will not take lightly."

Hermione rose from her chair, red with fury. "Sod the Ministry, sod the Death Eaters, and sod bloody Voldemort! This is between you and me, and no one else..."

She seemed ready to continue, but was not able to, as a deeply amused voice cut through her diatribe. "Dear me, I do hope that I haven´t interrupted anything, is this a bad time?"

Severus and Hermione turned around, wearing identical expressions of shock, to see Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorway, a very mischievous twinkle in his eye.

~*~

"Yes, this is a bad time." Hermione cringed as she and Severus spoke at the same time. Being completely honest with Severus was easy for her, but she did not want Dumbledore to but in on this conversation. Judging by the look on his face, she reckoned that her chances of escaping his presence unscathed were about equal with Trelawney making another correct prediction. Feeling that defeat was imminent she slowly sank back into her seat, watching him warily.

"How unfortunate," he said in an almost gleeful tone, taking the seat next to Hermione, and looking between her and Severus with the air of a child who had gotten a new toy. He spied the pot of tea that was still sitting on the table and made a grand gesture of reaching for it. "I think I´ll just help my self to..."

"No!" Hermione cried, laying a hand over the pot before the old man could reach it.

Dumbledore assumed a look of innocence and asked, "No? Is there something wrong with the tea?"

"I added Veritaserum to it," she answered, absolutely horrified with the turn of events.

"I see," he settled back in his chair and smiled at her. "Now, why would you do a thing like that?"

She covered her eyes with one hand and answered meekly, "I was trying to get Severus to have an honest conversation about the state of our relationship."

The old man nodded as if this was a perfectly acceptable answer, and turned to Severus with amusement. "Is it safe to assume you had no had no role in this?"

"Quite safe, I assure you," Severus replied, casting Hermione a withering look.

"My, my, what a predicament," Dumbledore said, scratching his beard thoughtfully. He looked between the two of them, and shook his head, chuckling gently.

Hermione stared at him for a moment, nervously trying to decide what to say. Feeling that there was nothing she could say to make the situation any better, she fiddled with her hands, praying to the gods that the headmaster would simply send them to their respective rooms to wait out to the potion. She could tell that Severus was hoping for the same thing by the way he was leaning slightly towards the door, as if ready to break into a run and escape.

"Well," Dumbledore continued after his chortles died down some, "I do admire your creativity, Miss Granger, but, and I think Professor Snape will agree with me, some things should not be manipulated." He turned then to Severus, nearly laughing again at the manner in which the younger man was sitting. "I think you´ve suffered enough for now, Severus. I suggest that you retire for the evening, unless, of course, you´d like to stay?"

Severus shot Dumbledore a glare that would have reduced a basilisk to tears and snapped, "You know perfectly well that I would not like to stay."

"Are you quite sure? Is there any particular reason you don´t wish to stay?" the Headmaster asked, with a serene smile that seemed to annoy Severus further.

"Quite, sure. I do not wish to be here because you have an abominable personality when it comes to having fun at other people´s expense, and if the way you are behaving at the moment is any indication you intend to have a bloody feu-de-joie at ours," he replied, standing and making his way towards the door.

Not fluent in French and unable to help herself, Hermione called after him, "What does that mean?"

Severus´ face turned slightly pink, which was rare for him, and he muttered, "I think it means carnival, but I am not sure."

Dumbledore could not contain himself at that point, and broke out in loud guffaws. Feeling badly, Hermione looked apologetically at Severus, who scowled and fled the room. When the door closed behind him she turned back to the older man, who was wiping a few stray tears from his eyes. Again there was nothing that she could find to say, so she let him ride out his laughter, fidgeting with apprehension.

Finally the Headmaster sighed and took one last chuckle before turning to Hermione with a more compassionate smile on his face. "Aside from the obvious entertainments," a mutinous look from Hermione, "I did come down here with a purpose." He looked around the dank dungeon office and gestured to the fireplace. "Perhaps it would be more comfortable to talk in my office?"

"Yes, it would," Hermione answered lifelessly, standing up and following him through the fireplace. It was true,she did feel more at ease in the warmth of the room, and with only a moment of anxiousness she sat down in one of his comfortable chairs.

As she settled herself Dumbledore conjured up two steaming cups of cocoa and handed one to her with only a slight grin. "Only cocoa, I promise you."

She accepted gratefully, happy to have something to do with her hands besides wringing them in her lap. "What did you want to talk about?" she asked, feeling better as she sipped the hot chocolate.

He moved around to sit behind his desk, and cradled his mug in his hands. "As you know, there has been some question as to what to do with you, given your set of unusual circumstances. Several members of the staff," he gave her a pointed look, "and I have given much thought to the matter and have come up with a few options. Of course, the ultimate decision is up to you, as it is your life."

"Sir, I don´t want to leave Hogwarts," she said, obviously meaning it completely.

His eyes twinkled and he nodded. "I must admit that I was hoping that you would say that. Between you and me, you are one of the best students Hogwarts has seen in many years, and it would be a shame to see you leave prematurely." He put his mug down on the desk and looked at some of the papers in front of him, tossing some of them behind him into the fire. Finally he was left with only three, and he turned back to her seriously. "I have in front of me three courses of action that would allow you to remain at Hogwarts. Any you choose will be acceptable, but I don´t want you to rush into any one of them, and," he locked his eyes with hers, "I want you to consider the future of your schooling, and not any other factor."

She understood that he was implying that she not think of Severus when weighing her options. "Sir, my education is incredibly important to me, and I would never let anything... extraneous... cloud my decision on it."

"I expected as much," he said, and smiled at her again. "While I do not condone your actions in the dungeons this afternoon, perhaps there is a silver lining after all, this is a matter that requires truth, and here we have the guarantee of it."

Blushing lightly she nodded and asked, "What are my choices, Sir?"

"The first option would be for you to stay on as a regular seventh year student, and graduate as normal with the rest of your class. If this suits you, I am sure your teachers will give you ample time to catch up on the work you have missed." He paused, giving her time to think about what he had said.

Hermione chewed on her lip before answering. "While that does hold some appeal, just going back to normal, I don´t think it would work. I´ve already covered most of the material, and I think I would be unhappy repeating classes I have already passed."

Nodding as she spoke, Dumbledore tossed the paper into the fire with the others. "No one thought that you would like that option," he said as he looked down at the next paper. "The second proposal I have here would also put you in student status, although not in the same sense as the first. Here you would be a student participating in an Independent Study. This means that you would choose courses of your liking, and research them on your own, reporting directly to me with reports and demonstrations of what you have learned."

This option appealed to her much more than the first. "It would be difficult," she said aloud, staring off at a point behind the Headmaster´s head. "I´m used to doing extra work on my own, but not whole courses, and the responsibility to go and do the work would be greater. On the other hand, I would be able to focus on only what I wanted too, and not what someone else has outlined for me." She swirled the cocoa in her cup and frowned, working through it in her mind. "I´d still like to hear the other choice."

"Certainly," Dumbledore replied, shifting the papers again. "The third option we are prepared to offer you isthis: a diploma from Hogwarts, since you have completed seven years of schooling, and the chance to apprentice with one of the staff members, as you would with an outside source. All of the professors have agreed that you are more than ready to take on this challenge, and they have all expressed their desire to have you train under them." He looked back down at the paper and then back to her with a sly grin. "With the notable exception of Professor Trewlany. Unfortunately she does not seem to think that your inner eye is strong enough to train. I do hope you are not upset."

For the first time that day Hermione let out a real laugh. "It won´t be a problem Headmaster."

"Wonderful," he said, struggling not to laugh as well. "I must point out, however, that as an apprentice you will no longer be on student status, and therefore will lose your title of Head Girl. This also means that you will not be able to be housed in the Gryffindor dormitories, although you shall still be welcome in the common room."

"I want to apprentice," she said confidently, practically salivating at the thought of jumping right into training.

"I suppose it would be moot to ask if you are sure," the old man replied, nodding at her decision. "Very well, I think that is a fine choice, and you have my full faith in your ability to succeed." The previous paper found its way into the fire as well, and he addressed her again. "All that remains to be seen is your choice of field. I know it will be difficult to decide, but if you could..."

"Charms," she cut him off, looking almost as surprised as he did.

"Are you certain?" he asked, forgetting that due to the Veritaserum she was.

"Yes, I am," she answered, a slow smile spreading over her face. "I´d never really thought about it, honestly, but ever since the first practical lesson, where we floated feathers, I´ve loved charms. I think, no, I know I would be happiest pursuing that field." She looked at him with bright eyes, her mind already churning with all of the things Flitwick was sure to teach her.

"I´m sure Professor Flitwick will be delighted to hear it," he said, standing up and shaking her hand. "It is settled then. It will take a few days to get the paperwork underway, but as soon as that is out of the way I´m sure you´ll want to jump right in."

"Thank you, Sir," she said, beaming at him. "I am truly grateful for this opportunity."

With lightness in her step she turned towards the door, intent on going straight to Flitwick to tell him the news and to start planning what her apprenticeship would entail. As she reached the handle, however, it vanished in a puff of smoke and she turned around to Dumbledore in confusion, "Sir, what..."

The mischevious look was back on his face, and he motioned her over to the desk. Her earlier feelings of dread rushed back up and she walked very slowly back over to him, wondering what he was dreaming up now. Grabbing a small silver tin from off his desk he said, "Don´t forget, Miss Granger, that you are still under the effects of a very powerful, and potentially dangerous, potion. We wouldn´t want you to accidentally reveal some vital information." With that he opened the tin and sprinkled some powder onto the fire.

Hermione moved forward, feeling much relieved that he simply wanted her to go straight back to her room. With a sigh she started to come around his desk, "I´ll just floo back to my room and..."

She never got to finish her sentence, because in her relief she had failed to notice Dumbledore speak into the flames, and now there were four very curious heads gazing at her from the fireplace.

"How fortunate that you were all together," he said to the floating heads of Sirius, Remus, Harry, and Ron. "Miss. Granger has had the misfortune of mistakenly ingesting Veritaserum, and I think it would be best if she had some supervision for the rest of the afternoon."

She groaned loudly as four identical smirks formed on her friends´ faces.

~*~