Lost

Lost

Chapter Seventeen

Eighteen years of life, seven of them spent being frozen by basilisks, hunting dangerous criminals, and being tossed about in time, and nothing had prepared Hermione for the torture she´d endured in the past two hours. As if the fiasco with the Veritaserum hadn´t been enough Dumbledore had left her to be subjected to the cruelties of her supposed friends, who´d been entertaining themselves by forcing her to answer the most ridiculous and embarrassing questions they could come up with. She´d tried to take it in good humour at first, tried not to take offense, but she was tired and heart sore, and her patience was running thin. Sulking in the doorway, the point in her room farthest from her antagonists, she tried in vain to ignore the hysterical laughter coming from the four men. She itched to hex each of them with everything she had, and her fingers curled around the wood of her wand longingly as she dreamed up increasingly horrid things to do to them.

"You´re kidding, right?" Ron asked, wiping away tears from his eyes. "You couldn´t possibly have had a crush on Malfoy."

"You know very well that I am not," she answered hotly. "You shouldn´t laugh Ron, I know all about your old crush on a Slytherin."

The color drained momentarily from Ron´s face, while the rest of the men sat forward, interested. "You promised not to say anything," he hissed, looking uneasily at Sirius, Remus, and Harry out of the corner of his eye.

"You obviously have no respect for my secrets, so why should I have any for yours," she said nastily, pushing herself off of the door and stalking away across the room.

"That´s not fair," Ron said, jumping up from the foot of her bed to follow her. "I´m not the one who went and did something stupid like intentionally taking bloody Veritaserum. Blimey, Hermione, we´re just having a little fun. You should feel lucky, you could have been expelled and on the train back to London right about now!"

"For your information, I could not have been expelled," she rounded on him, hands on her hips. "It would be completely impossible, seeing as I am no longer a student here."

This left him speechless for the first time since they had arrived in the Headmaster´s office, and she smirked with satisfaction, walking away from him again and sitting primly at her desk chair.

"Why aren´t you a student here anymore?" Harry asked, looking perplexed and not a little frightened at the prospect of her not being around anymore.

"Well, I´m done with school, aren´t I? I´ve completed all seven years and passed my NEWTs, therefore I´m no longer a student of Hogwarts," she decided to leave out the part about staying on to apprentice. It was a small revenge, leading them on like this, but at this point, she´d take what she could get.

Ron sat down heavily on the bed. "Why didn´t you tell us?"

"Because I only just found out, and you didn´t ask," she replied.

Remus´ lip twitched a little bit into a smile, and he asked her, "What are you going to do then?"

"Apprentice," she answered, realizing that Dumbledore must have already informed him of her choices. "Charms," she added apologetically, knowing he might be disappointed she hadn´t chosen to work with him.

He nodded his head, not looking at all slighted. "An excellent choice, Hermione. You´ll be starting right away?"

"Yes, I´ll begin next week."

"Blimey," Ron said, looking deflated. "Next week... where are you going to go?"

"I´m staying at Hogwarts. I´m working under Flitwick." She slumped in her chair and folded her arms grumpily, now that her game was over.

"Hermione!" Harry and Ron chorused, angry at being tricked.

"You deserved it," she said emphatically. "You´re being utter gits, all four of you. If I didn´t love you all so much I´d be hexing you into next year." She waved her hand towards the door. "I really don´t think I can take much more of this. I´d really appreciate it if you´d all get the hell out of my room." Of course, she didn´t really expect this to work, and instead of moving towards the door they sat still, watching her carefully.

I just don´t get any breaks, do I? she thought wearily, feeling her posture sink into sulking once more. She knew where they were coming from, honestly she did. It was in the nature of her friends, all of them, to try to find the silver linings in bad situations, but unfortunately for her the silver lining they had found was really just a part of her cloud. They weren´t being malicious, not really, and part of her was sympathetic to their attempts, however misguided, to help her out of her slump. The other part, however, meant what she´d said about hexing them, and was rapidly losing patience.

"Hermione, we really weren´t trying to upset you," Sirius said in a conciliatory tone . "I guess we thought it might make you feel a little better, you know, to laugh a bit."

"You mean you thought it might make you feel a little better," she snapped, turning away from them.

Ron narrowed his eyes, saying, "That´s not fair, Hermione."

She shook her head. "We´re back to square one, Ron. Maybe I´m not being completely fair, but neither are any of you. If you really wanted me to feel better, you´d just go away."

"See, now, we´re not just going to do that," Remus said, getting up from her bed and kneeling down beside her chair. "Look," he said softly, more to her than to the rest of the room, "I can´t say I understand what you´re going through right now, but I know that if I were in your position, I wouldn´t want to be alone. We´ve obviously been going about this in the wrong way, so why don´t you tell us what we can do," he paused, "besides leaving."

Hermione sighed deeply. "Fix things," she said to him quietly. "Just put everything back together the way it´s supposed to be."

"Oh, I wish I could," he replied, pulling her into a warm and sympathetic embrace. "I´ve wished that things could just be `fixed´ for the past twenty years. It´s just not that simple though, much as we´d like it to be."

"Why?" she asked, burying her head in his shoulder. "Why can´t things just end happily ever after?"

"You wouldn´t want happily ever after, Hermione," he said, smoothing down her hair gently. "Think about it, when you first went back in time, happily ever after would have been coming straight back here. Looking back now, could you honestly say that you would take back all that time?"

"No," she whispered, fully understanding what he was trying to say. "I wouldn´t give that up, not for anything."

"See? Things may not always seem like they are working out the way we´d like them too, but really they are opening up new and better opportunities down the road," he shook his head. "Listen to me, getting all philosophical." Drawing back from her, he looked her in the eye and smiled.

From across the room came a long and resounding sigh from Harry, Sirius and Ron who were all huddled in the center of the bed, clasping on to each other and wiping away non-existent of tears from their eyes. "That was beautiful," Sirius said, pulling the boys closer, and winking at Hermione. "Go on about opportunities down the road again," he said, clutching a hand to his chest. "I don´t think I got quite enough sap from that the first time around."

Remus and Hermione rolled their eyes simultaneously. "Well excuse me for trying to be a good friend and make the girl feel better," Remus said standing up and putting his hands on his hips. "All you three have been doing is antagonizing her."

Hermione snorted. "Don´t think that one sweet moment is going to get you off the hook. You were being just as bad as they were."

Harry smiled broadly, happy that, while her eyes were still a little red, she was looking more like normal. "Right then, how do we get off the hook?"

For a moment she considered another nasty remark, but it died before it made it past her lips. The looks in their eyes were apologetic, and she knew that taking out her frustrations on them was unfair. Instead, she smiled and said, "Bring me chocolate, and lots of it."

~*~

Ron hesitated before knocking on Hermione´s door. He hadn´t really talked to her since the afternoon in the common room when she´d talked about, well, him, and he wasn´t particularly keen on another performance of it. He winced at the thought of that day, his face flushing in embarrassment. His outburst of anger had been the worst to date, and he knew now that it had hurt Hermione deeply. At first he hadn´t cared, the feelings of betrayal and disgust still too fresh in his mind, and it had taken two days of Harry, Remus, and Sirius each taking him aside to calm him down and diffuse his anger. It had worked, for the most part, though he still felt a wave of nausea when he thought of Snape and Hermione together. It was a strange mix of jealousy, resentment, and disgust, one that he didn´t really wish to explore. Still, he had taken the basket of chocolates from Sirius´ hands and offered to present it himself, with the unspoken understanding between them that it was something he had to do.

For a moment he thought she might have been asleep, and he began to place the basket down when the door swung open. Straightening himself quickly, he offered the candy to her. "Chocolate, and lots of it, just like you asked," he said, following her into the room as she went to place the basket on her desk. "The others had to ah, talk with Dumbledore, so I thought I´d bring it myself."

She eyed him warily, and he realized that she was steeling herself for another outburst. His ears went slightly pink remembering the way he had stormed out two days ago, in such a state of anger that he´d accidentally walked into the closet not noticing that he was already in the dormitory. Offering up an apologetic half smile, he lingered by the door, unsure of what to do.

"If I can´t lie, it´s only fair that you shouldn´t either," she eventually replied, motioning for him to shut the door. Vastly relieved, he did so, careful to keep an eye on her as she slumped down at top of her bed.

"Alright," he said, running a hand though his hair and shifting on his feet. "They didn´t have to go anywhere, I just wanted to come up and talk to you alone."

A silence stretched between them, and raising an eyebrow she asked, "Well, what do you want to talk about?"

"Look, Hermione," he began, walking towards her with outstretched hands, "I´ve really been a complete prat to you, and I want to apologize. I shouldn´t have been angry with you before, and I shouldn´t have been mean to you this afternoon."

"No you shouldn´t have," she replied, although her face softened somewhat. "Although I guess it really would be too much to ask you boys to contain yourselves when faced with such an easy target." She gestured to herself ruefully.

"Why´d you do it?" he asked, sitting down at the foot of the bed and running his hand randomly over the duvet. "Did it have something to do with Sn... him?" There was no way for him to keep the edge out of his voice.

"I took the Veritaserum because I was trying to force Severus to speak with me truthfully," she answered, looking away from him.

Ron couldn´t help the deep frown that crossed his face. It was so wrong to hear her use Snape´s given name, especially with the affection he knew was behind it. A sudden image of the formidable Potions Master with his arms around Hermione came unbidden into his mind, and he shook his head violently, trying to get the picture out.

"What do you want, Ron?" she asked softly, still turned away. "I´m really not in the mood to hear about how horrible and disgusting this all is. I´ve gotten that enough from Sirius, and I really don´t need it from you. So unless you´ve got something constructive to say I´d rather you leave than sit there and grimace."

"Why´d it have to be him, Hermione? Why not Sirius or Remus? Or even..." he cut himself, leaning his head against the bed post in defeat.

"It had to be him because there´s no one else for me," she answered, pulling up her legs to rest her head on her knees. "It could never be Sirius or Remus because they´re just my friends. I love them, just as I love you and Harry, but they could never understand me in the way Severus does... did."

He turned to find her looking at him oddly, and his stomach suddenly felt very heavy. "Or even... or even who Ron?" She cocked her head to the side and asked with a sort of resigned sigh, "Or even you? Is that it?"

His mouth felt like it was completely filled with sand, and his eyes went wide as he struggled to reply. Of course that had been exactly what he´d meant, although he was finding it very difficult to admit it. Instead, he sat there helplessly while she seemed to work out for herself exactly what was going on in his head. To his great surprise instead of laughing at him, or throwing him out of the room, she moved over to where he sat and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Listen Ron," she said, shaking her head a bit. "You don´t like me." He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off before he could begin. "Trust me on this one." Sitting back a bit she gave a little laugh. "I went through the same thing with Sirius, he thought he was in love with me as well."

"But I..." he started, torn between bemusement and mortification.

"No," she cut him off again. "You don´t. It´s some sort of twisted best friend syndrome. You´re not as close with any other girls are you are with me, and somehow that translates into thinking we´re meant to be together, or something. Think about it Ron," she said, leaning forward. "Really think about dating me... not just the romantic fun, but the relationship. It just isn´t something you´d want with me."

Unable to resist a command from Hermione, he did picture what it would be like to be with her. At first, the usual images he´d often conjured up entered his mind; scenes of them kissing underneath the stars, or walking hand in hand down to Hogsmeade. With her intent gaze upon him, however, the pictures gradually shifted to give way less appealing visions of fights over little things, arguments about Quidditch, nights spent alone while she was in the library. "I... I guess not," he said after a fashion, slightly in shock as the little fantasy he´d built up began to melt away slowly.

She sat back, satisfied. "It´ll take some time to adjust," she said easily. Then with a wicked grin added, "You could always ask Pansy to fill the void."

He was still so bewildered that he simply nodded in agreement and muttered, "I´m sorry Hermione..."

"It´s alright," she said, looking down at her hands. "It´s flattering, at least."

He glanced at her a little awkwardly and asked, "So, are we okay then?"

"I don´t know, Ron, are we?" She looked back up and then down again. "I´m not the one who has the problem here."

He rose from his seat and perched on the edge of her desk, wondering how to go about asking the millions of questions that had been buzzing around in his head. She´d managed to get most of the story of her relationship with Snape in before he´d gone mental, and the rest had been carefully filled in by Sirius and Remus. Still, he didn´t understand it, and really that´s where the problem was coming from. "Tell me why you love him," he said, feeling a sense of morbid curiosity.

"I don´t know whether that is the easiest or hardest question I´ve ever been asked," she said, falling onto her back and gazing up at the canopy. "I love him because... because there is nothing else I can do but love him. With Severus I am always myself, nothing more or less. With him everything seems comfortable and exciting at the same time. We can sit and talk for hours, about anything, serious or trivial, or we can sit for hours in silence, with never an awkward moment. We understand each other more than we do ourselves, and yet there is always that desire to learn more, to be closer, and even then it will never be enough." She made a harsh choking sound in the back of her throat and said in a voice that echoed Snape´s sneer, "Or at least there used to be."

Torn could not adequately describe Ron´s emotions at this point. There were many conflicting points of view that were all vying for control, and it was hard to choose among them. He´d never heard Hermione talk of anyone like that before, or indeed with that much passion behind her voice. On the other hand it was Snape, bloody Snape, she was talking about, and his stomach just wouldn´t give up its sickened roiling. But underneath it all lay a deep loyalty to her, his best friend for more than six years, and that part of him couldn´t bear to see her unhappy. This was the part of him that won out over all others and, although with some reluctance, he turned his eyes towards her and said, "Tell me about it."

"What?" Her head lifted up from the bed, eyes staring at him with mixed confusion and apprehension.

"Tell me about it," he said, gesturing broadly. "Tell me what´s going on, what´s making you look like your puppy got run over by a hippogriff." As her eyes softened he held up a hand. "Don´t get me wrong, I don´t like this any more than I did before, but," he gave her a shy smile, "it´s my duty of the best friend to help make everything better, even if our opinions of `better´ are different."

"Oh Ron," she said under her breath, letting her head fall back with the start of a grin. "Do you really mean it?"

"Of course," he said, rising from the desk to sit once more at her feet. "I can´t promise that I can give you any good advice but," he shrugged, "I´ll listen."

He hadn´t really expected her to accept, to open up to him after the way he´d treated her before. The shame of acting so irrationally still hung over him, and he was already prepared for her refusal. While Hermione rarely held a grudge, she often made exceptions for him, and he felt sure that this was one of those times. She hadn´t spoken for a minute, and he was about to make his excuses and leave her be, when he heard her say in a low voice, "Okay."

Despite the depth of what she told him, he couldn´t help but grin, as he listened to her story and basked in the relief of her forgiveness.

~*~

"... and that´s when Dumbledore came in," Hermione finished miserably, after having recounted the entirety of the conversations she´d had with Severus over the past few days. To his credit Ron had been an amazingly good listener, never interrupting her or interjecting his own almost certainly negative opinions of Severus. It hadn´t taken nearly as long as she´d thought it would, and while she hadn´t come up with any solutions it felt as if a small weight had been lifted off her chest.

Ron looked a little lost for words at the moment, and she smiled at him, not at all surprised. "You don´t have to say anything," she said, giving his hand a small squeeze. "I know it´s all very complicated and dramatic. It´s just nice that you listened."

"It´s really not that complicated," he replied, shaking his head as if coming out of a reverie. "You´re just making it out to be because you´re emotionally involved."

"Are you serious? Did you listen to anything I said? It´s incredibly complicated... there are the factors of..." she started to say, sitting back from him with wide eyes.

"You´re wrong," he cut her off. "It´s just that you keep getting caught up in all of this love nonsense. Can´t see the forest for the trees, that´s what I say."

"Love nonsense?" she asked, bewildered. "Well of course I´m talking about love. It´s all about love, every bit of it."

"Okay, I´ll give you that, it is about love, but it´s the problem, not the solution," he said looking at her as if this should be obvious.

She stared at him for a moment as if he´d grown another head, "It´s the problem, not the solution? Have you gone daft? Are we even talking about the same thing?"

"Sure we are," he said, summoning a bar of chocolate from the basket on the bed, seeming to enjoy her incomprehension. "Your problem is that you´re making out love to be the cure-all for your problems. Hand me that pillow?"

Wordlessly she handed him one of the pillows from behind her and watched in amazement as he settled himself back on it, munching happily on his chocolate bar. She frowned when he winked merrily at her, and asked, "Alright then, tell me what I should do then, since I obviously have it all wrong."

"Well, have you talked to him at all?" he asked, shrugging. "If I were you, I´d start there."

"Talk to him? I´ve tried that, remember? When he gave me the pensieve, and today in the office..."

He waved a hand in the air. "No, no, no. Those weren´t talks those were confrontations, going off about emotions and whatnot. Not at all what you want to do." He took another large bite of his candy before going on. "If you keep doing that, going to him and dragging on and on about being true to your feelings and such, you´re never going to get anywhere. You´ll keep saying to listen to your heart, and he´ll keep saying to listen to your head. Around and around in a bloody circle until neither of you can stand it anymore, and you just give up."

She took a moment to consider that, and was surprised at its validity. They were both very stubborn, and it was unlikely that either would simply concede to the other. Still, she didn´t understand how he thought this was helpful rather than depressing. "What else is there to do though? You said yourself that I should talk to him..."

"Yeah, you should talk to him," he said "talk, not confront. You were going on earlier about the conversations you two used to have, being amazing and all that. Go have one of those."

"It´s not that easy," she said, shaking her head. "I can´t just go down there, after everything that´s happened, and be like, `So Severus, read any good books lately?´"

"Yes, you can." He leaned towards her. "That´s what got you together in the first place, isn´t it?"

"Well, yes, but that was different," she replied.

"Not so much as you think," he said. "Look, you want to get back together with him, right?" She nodded. "Well, I´m telling you it isn´t going to work by forcing things. I can´t believe I am going to say it, but I agree with Snape that you don´t really know one another anymore. My point is that you didn´t know each other then, but you spent all that time with one another, and figured it out. Stands to reason that if it worked once it will again."

"I suppose," she mused, the idea worming its way into her head. "I suppose it could work, in theory. The problem is how to get him to talk to me. He´s already angry about this afternoon, and I don´t think he´d just let me in for a little chat."

"You´re making too much of an ordeal out of it," he said. "Don´t think so much about it. Just go down there and talk to the man. Chances are he´ll be so thrown off by it he´ll end up in the conversation before he realized what´s going on."

"Let´s say," she said, furrowing her brows in concentration, "that this scheme of yours works, and I get him to talk to me, what then?"

"Blimey, I don´t know, Hermione," he laughed. "My girlfriends have never stuck around for more than a week; it´s not like I´m some sort of expert here. It just seems logical that if you´re going to start this relationship again, you ought to start at the beginning."

"A very good place to start," she said under her breath. Ron had a point though, and a good one at that. Perhaps she´d been going about this in the wrong way. Much as she hated to admit it, the relationship they´d had once was gone forever, but that didn´t mean a new one couldn´t spring up in its place. "It would take a while," she said carefully, working through it. "He has so many trust issues now, not to mention everything else he brought up. Still, if we went slowly... it might work." She looked up at Ron with hopeful eyes. "It just might work."

She crawled over and gave him a tight hug. "I know you don´t like this," she whispered to him, "but I appreciate your help. You´re a real friend Ron Weasley."

Blushing slightly, he smiled, looking very pleased with himself. "Right then, what areyou waiting for? Go on... I know you´re itching to go down there."

"I´ve got another half hour before the Veritaserum wears off," she said, glancing at the clock. "But as soon as it does, I will."

"Well," he said, standing up from the bed and smoothing out his clothes, rumpled from sitting so long. "I expect you´ll want to do whatever it is girls do when they get ready. Besides, I should get going. I´m pretty sure Harry, Sirius, and Remus are perched by the door trying to listen, and I should take care of that." He paused before he turned the handle to the door. "You´ll be okay?"

"I´ll be fine," she said, smiling. "And thanks Ron, I mean it."

"Anytime," he said, giving a mocking half bow before heading out the door.

Letting out a long breath, she walked over and locked the door behind them. Ron´s idea seemed so completely obvious that she was embarrassed to have not thought of it herself. With a little shake of her head, she walked towards the bathroom to freshen up before descending to the dungeons.

The half hour flew by in a mass of anxiety, and Hermione almost felt herself losing her nerve as she passed through the common room and into the school. It struck her as odd that she was nearly as anxious about going to talk to him now as she was earlier, but then again this time he was sure to be even less receptive to her. Cursing herself again for behaving so childishly, she turned the last corner to his office, determined to start fixing the mess she had created.

Drawing herself up straight and forcing the unease from her mind, she knocked loudly on his door. There was no response at first, and she prepared herself to knock again when she heard Severus call, in a highly annoyed voice, "Enter!"

She walked into the room quickly, shutting the door behind her. He was sitting at his desk again, this time apparently writing out lesson plans, and she cleared her throat to get his attention when he did not look up right away. The surprise was evident in his face as she settled herself into one of his chairs again, a somewhat apprehensive smile on her face. Before he had time to say anything, or to throw her out, she took a deep breath, praying that Ron was right.

"So Severus, read any good books lately?"

~*~

The girl was insane, completely, utterly, and certifiably insane.

He'd hoped that this afternoon's disaster would have curbed her attempts to pursue him, at least for a while, but here she was, not three hours later, sitting innocently in front of him asking after his current reading material, of all things.

"Excuse me?" he asked, his tone slightly more bewildered than he'd liked.

"I was just wondering if you've read anything good lately," she said, gesturing broadly to explain. "You always had excellent tastes in literature and..."

He shook his head and held up a hand to stop her. "What on earth are you on about?"

The eager smile on her face faltered, and her arm fell back to her side. "I just thought we might have a conversation; nothing serious just to..." she hesitated, "talk."

"To talk?" he asked, incredulously. "Am I just to forget that the last time I consented to talking with you I was poisoned?"

"I thought we agreed to let that go," she said hopefully.

"Let it go? It was only three hours ago, I've barely had the time to get the taste out of my mouth, let alone forget about it," he said, unable to do anything but stare at her. She shifted guiltily in her seat, and the dawning of comprehension began to settle over him. "What is this about, Hermione? Please do not expect me to believe that you simply came here because you are starved for conversation. I've been a Slytherin far to long to fall for a ruse as simple as that."

"I am starved for conversation," she responded quickly. "I'm starved for your conversation. We used to have the most amazing discussions, and..."

"The truth," he interrupted, growing impatient with her.

"I'm telling you the truth," she said, snapping her head up angrily for a moment before letting it fall. "...and I thought we might sit and talk for a while, and maybe you'd remember how good it was and forget..."

"I see," he said shortly. "You sought to manipulate me into forgetting the obstacles I presented to you."

"That's not..." she paused as if stunned, and gaped wordlessly for a second before shutting her eyes and turning away from him. "You're right, that's exactly what I was trying to do."

A sudden quiet settled over the room, and Severus felt a wave of tiredness hit him as he watched her. It was the exhaustion of twenty years, of the separation between them. She was doing what any teenager would have done, and he was responding as any adult would. Never since she arrived here had the distance between them seemed so glaringly obvious, so tangible. He glanced in her direction to see if she had come to the same conclusions and from the resigned look on her face, he could tell that she had.

"I don't suppose you'll just overlook it?" she asked after a time, looking at him wearily. "Just chalk it up to a stressful day? I can't give up on us, I just can'tâEUR¦ but I can take some time to reevaluate my attempts."

"No, I won't," he said. "There aren't going to be any more attempts, Hermione. I think you understand why. No scheme, no plan, no matter how brilliant, is going to change anything. Obstacles are to be worked through, not ignored, and every time you attempt to forget them you are simply setting others up in their stead."

The ghosts of a smile lifted the corner of her lips, and she asked, "So what do I do now?"

"Grow up," he said simply, without a trace of malice. "You have to grow up." He leaned forward in earnest, hoping to make his point. "No one has ever considered you to be young for your age, Hermione, and I doubt they ever will. You possess a maturity that is startling for a child, in most situations." He paused, putting on a look of stern indifference to curb the growing enthusiasm on her face. "No matter how startling or precocious that maturity, however, it is not one of a grown woman. I know that you are old enough to be considered adult by law, but there is a heavy line between adolescence and adulthood, one that is not crossed by birth date. You are wavering on the edge of that line, almost ready to cross over, but still clinging to what is behind it. Until you let go, and move forward with your life, you will never cross, at least not in my eyes."

Another silence hung in the room as she pondered what he'd said. He watched her face carefully, noting the reluctant acquiescence he saw there. He felt a trace of pride pass through him at her, her calm acceptance of his facts, although it was clear that she still did not truly understand, showed that she was slowing beginning to travel down the road she needed to. It was enough to give him just a hint of anticipation, perhaps once that road was traveled there would be something beyond this separation.

"He's been rubbing off on you," she said with a remote smile. "Dumbledore, you know. I'd never have pictured you hading out sage advice."

"It isn't advice, as such," he said, though he had to give his version of a small grin; being around the headmaster tended to leave one wiser than they'd been. "It's merely a statement of fact, one we both must accept."

"But what if I can't let go?" she asked, looking beyond him to a distant point. "What if I don't want to?"

"There is a difference between letting go and giving up," he said. "I'm not asking, nor would it be my place to ask, that you give up on anything. Letting go is merely loosening your grip on the past, it will always be there, but you mustn't let it hold you back."

She nodded, though the motion seemed to be less an agreement and more a remembrance. "I remember telling myself something like that, when..." She bit her lip, and gave an almost inaudible sigh. "How?" she asked, quietly. "How do I do it?"

"That is something you have to figure out on your own, as all must," he said. She took a breath to speak, but he held up a hand and addressed her with the gravest finality he knew. "And until you figure it out, there is nothing between us, not even friendship. Go now and do not plan on returning for a long, long while, if at all."

She cast a long look in his direction that was at once both mournful and determined. Slowly she rose to her feet, shaking, but calm, and moved across the room to kiss him on the cheek, then without saying another word to him she turned and moved towards the doorway, slipping out as quietly as she'd come in. He sat staring at the closer door for a long time afterwards, wondering if this was a victory, but not feeling able to label it as such.

Finally he shook him self back to a semblance of normalcy and turned back towards the papers on his desk. It was a goodbye for sure, though one that was not as terrible as he'd imagined. She was coming around to understanding now, he was sure of it, and therefore he would not be seeing her like this any time in the near future, or possibly ever again.

He felt as if her chapter in his life was closed now. There were no longer any loose ends to the life they'd lived so long ago. Still, though it seemed irrational, he couldn't help but hope that there was another chapter in their future. Perhaps once she found herself, she'd find him again as well. He didn't dare think on it too much, gruffly pulling out the quill from the ink and slashing forcefully on the paper, but the spark of hope remained that all between them wasn't lost.