Disclaimer: JK Rowling is the ultimate owner of the Harry Potter Universe: I can only dream. Title of story comes from a song of the same name by Florence and the Machines.


Hermione grimaced as the boggart erupted out of the closet behind her. She had been cleaning the cellar of Number 12, where Harry kept all the undesirable artefacts, until she had knocked the broom backwards. Of course, this would have meant nothing to her had the broom handle not met with the handle of the closet behind her.

She didn't dare turn around. She had no idea what she would see anymore; in Defence Class many had joked her boggart would be McGonagall expelling her, or worse, but in truth, she was a more complicated person than that.

In the darkness of the cellar, she could admit her life was infinitely more complicated than most gave her credit for.

Her parents had never understood Hogwarts, and she could never expect them to be a part of this world she had found, but that didn't mean it was easy to get along without their support. As she herself became more immersed in the frightening world of magic, and Voldemort, her parents' love grew dimmer, and more distant. Letters once frequent and lengthy turned into bitter questions about when she was coming home, and her academic scores, finally turning into small answers to her own questions. Admittedly, she had even stopped sending letters after her parents told her the neighbours were questioning the presence of the owls.

Then there were her classmates. Those not in Gryffindor felt no loyalty to her, and although none but the Slytherins dared show it, were highly resentful. Without meaning to, she stole the top spot in all her classes (save for Divination and Potions), and won the respect of all her teachers (again, save for Trelawney and Snape). When she was meaning to, her breadth of knowledge and skills in application stole the show, and made her peers look childish, and immature. Though she only hated Malfoy et al, it seemed like every time she left the Common Room there was an impenetrable wall around her that no one outside of her house would breech. She was most alone when walking with Harry and Ron, most buried by the wall, for they would be greeted by everyone, everywhere. She garnered a passing nod at best when with them, merely out of politeness.

If the boys didn't need her academically, she wasn't sure they would stick by her. Most days, it felt like a relationship of convenience. Hermione would be easily replaceable, if it weren't for her willingness to fill in the gaps in the boys' homework. It certainly wasn't her overbearing, Mother Hen nature that kept them by her side, although secretly many teachers were relieved she was there to keep them in line. She knew she was used mercilessly, but she didn't know if she was worth more. No one had made her feel worthy in a long time. Endless praise and smiles from teachers did nothing to soothe her fears. They felt automatic. They felt heartless.

Anyone reading her thoughts right now would understand the reason why, when she turned around, she saw the smiling faces of Harry's parents. Hermione Granger was in a precarious position; were Harry to have loving, living parents to write him letters advising him, comforting him, and enlightening him on the finer points of potions-making etcetera, Hermione would be obsolete. With a real mother to keep him in line, any meddling on her part would be unbearable for him. He would push her away, and she would lose Ron by association. She only had a tenuous hold on him anyway, since he hardly cared about school.

In short, her biggest fear was that Harry would find a way to receive the love she lacked.

Faced with this fact, literally staring her in the face, she didn't know what to do. All of her experience could not provide answers to this question. How was she to make two beautiful, smiling faces look ridiculous?

"Riddikulus," she cried, hoping that the image of clown makeup marring their smiles would work.
"Riddikulus," she screamed, thinking of wrinkles parading over cartoon versions of their faces.
"Riddikulus," she sobbed, desperately imagining their faces as ghostly, long-dead apparitions.

Seeming to feed off her mounting terror and hysterics, the boggart grew bigger, and clearer. It began to switch between the images of Harry's parents, and an image of Ron marrying a smart, and beautiful Ravenclaw she couldn't recognize.

"Riddikulus," she whispered, without any image in mind. As could be expected, nothing changed.

The boggart now blocked her vision, trapping her against the wall of knick-knacks she had been cleaning. In a final attempt to vanish the boggart, she simply hid her eyes, and hoped it would go away.

It was in this position that Severus Snape found her a moment later, hands trembling, body shaking, and almost completely enveloped in the monster.

Wordlessly, he stepped in front of her. The boggart, sensing a challenge, began to morph. Though Hermione wouldn't know it until much later, Snape was admitting his love for Lily and explaining his motives quite succinctly in this act of protection--the boggart simply changed into an image of a dead Lily, lying palely on the ground.

"Riddikulus," Snape said calmly. Dead Lily turned into an 11-year-old Lily dancing in her new dress robes, twirling round and round, as she had done the day before she and Snape boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time.

With the barest of smiles, Snape left the cellar, and left the girl to cry. He well understood what he had seen, the hurts and insecurities. He too had felt them, left to cry many a time after his father broke his mother. He was shunned by all outside of Slytherin, and offered automatic praise by innumerable teachers. Nothing had meant anything except for Lily, and then, in her death, she had meant nothing again--she had become nothing more than a memory, and an Unbreakable Vow to protect the stupid Potter boy.

Alone in his room, Snape admitted he'd been watching the Potter-Granger friendship grow over the years. Snape understood that Hermione Granger was in a very precarious position, much like his own, and he would do anything in his power to keep her there; she was the only sanity in the trio. She was often his only reasonable assurance that Potter would stay alive when he was taken away from the castle. Were she to grow beyond the trio, were she to stray or live up to her true potential, what would become of Potter? How would he fare without her constantly warning him of dangers, and forcing him to study?

Surely, without Granger, Potter could never survive the war. And so, though it pained him, Severus decided once again to do nothing to assuage the Granger girl's fears. Though he knew he could shock her into realizing just how kind, smart, and thoroughly worthy she was, he would not do it. There was nothing to be done. The world, losing so much in losing all the things she could accomplish were she to believe in herself, would ultimately lose much more were Voldemort to succeed. She had to be sacrificed in order to assure she stayed where she belonged--with Potter.

"Just another bloody life on my conscience," muttered Snape.