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I'm Not Afraid by madamelecourayer [Reviews - 8]

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What is for real, what is false?
All of us seem to be caught in a waltz
Turning around, turning again
When will the dancing ever end?





Hermione and Severus sat side by side on the bed. His jaw was set, his lips thin with dismay. Hermione placed a hand over his.


"Please, Severus, just consider..."


"No," he stated firmly. He rose from the bed and looked down at her. "Don't you think I've talked and talked and talked until I'm blue in the face?" His voice was taking on an angry tone, one he'd often used in class whenever Neville Longbottom melted another caldron. "The very idea of sitting before some sanctimonious Ministry Healer..."


"Not sanctimonious, Severus," Hermione protested. "Caring. Healer Merriweather truly cares for the war veterans. I've been going to her for..."


"Years?" Severus sneered cruelly. "Bloody lot of good that's done you!"


Hermione gasped softly. In all the time she and Severus had spent together since their dubious reunion at the bookstore, he had never, until this moment, been cruel. Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let him see them. She rose up from the bed and went to the window. Twitching open the curtain she looked down into the crowded London street. Muggles were all going about their business, oblivious to the wizarding war of a dozen years past or of the smaller, yet no less volatile, war going up in her upstairs flat.


"So you just intend to give up?" she asked softly, turning around to face him. "Hide in your shell for the rest of your life? Be afraid to work in your potions lab? To fetch your paper in the morning? To live?" Hermione sneered back at him, just to prove she could too.


Severus stood up and reached for his cloak. "You don't understand. I wouldn't expect a silly girl to be..."


Hermione snatched his cloak away. "Silly girl!" she shouted. "What's this all been about then? This sneaking about, snogging and shagging for the better part of a year?" She balled his cloak up and threw it away from her. "I'm trying to deal with my problems, not run away from them or...or...fuck them away, Severus!"


The moment the words were out of her mouth, Hermione regretted saying them. Severus stared coldly at her, his face becoming even more pale than usual and his expression disdainful. He brushed rapidly past her, swept his cloak up off the floor and strode out of her bedroom. Following on his heels, Hermione watched, her heart constricting as he made his way to the door. She was speechless. No words were adequate to convey how wretchedly sorry she was for pushing him beyond his comfort zone. She could only watch in sorrow and disbelief as her life for the last year came crashing down.


Severus opened the door, then turned around to look at her and offer a last cutting remark. "We ought first to fix our own broken lives before meddling with those of other's, Miss Granger."


With a dull thud, the door shut behind him and Hermione was left utterly alone with her dark thoughts and even darker feelings. Just as he had found her last year.


____________________________________________________________________________



"But, sir..."


"I'm sorry, Miss Granger," Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister for Magic spread his hands over the great walnut desk that separated them. "I just can't fit it into the budget at this time. You of all people, working with magical creatures, a department you helped create, should know all about budgeting. We're still recovering losses from a Death Eater Ministry and a ghastly war that nobody..."


"But that's precisely my point, sir!" Hermione cried, leaning desperately across the desk and catching Kingsley's eyes with her own in what she hoped was suppliant, not nagging. "We're still recovering from the war! Every last one of us that fought, even though it was a dozen years ago, some of us..." She paused and bit her lip. She sighed. "Some of us just can't...go on. It's too much. Too much." She shook her head. "Can't you understand that; can't you see?"


Kingsley's dark eyes softened as he gazed at the distraught young woman before him. He knew too well of her heroics during the war, her marriage to Ron Weasley and the failure of said marriage. It was a damned shame. A real sorry turn of events...but what could he do? His hands were tied. He offered her a sympathetic look.


"Miss Granger, I understand all you went through. I fought myself, if you'll recall. No," he said, holding up a hand when he saw she was about to speak. "No, I didn't lose anyone close to me. I didn't fight as a child. I was a man who had seen the first war and knew what to expect. I suppose you could say I was hardened." He laced his hands and gazed at Hermione respectfully. "I cannot honestly say whether I would have survived this one without past experience. The fact that you are sitting here before me today, petitioning me for funds to research and support war veterans mental health is in and of itself a miraculous..."


Hermione rose from her chair and went over to the huge window and crossed her arms. She looked out but saw nothing. "The Muggles have their own foundations and programs dedicated to helping their war veterans." She turned and looked at Kingsley. "Why don't we?"


Kingsley looked uncomfortable. He wanted to help. He really did. But right now he was late for a meeting as it was and this conversation was not going to go anywhere new and certainly not where she wanted it to. He couldn't hold her or himself up any longer with empty promises and platitudes. Rising from his chair, he strode to the door with the quiet majesty that he had always seemed to emanate.


Opening it, he gave Hermione another sad look and said, "I'm sorry, Miss Granger. Perhaps next year's budget won't be so dismal. We'll talk again, I promise."


Hermione looked bleakly at the Minster. She slowly walked to the door, avoiding his eyes, afraid he'd see the tears gathering in hers. Before slipping out, she turned and spoke to his shoulder. "An Order of Merlin is all very well, sir, but if it decorates the corpse of a veteran who simply couldn't take anymore, it's nothing but a hunk of worthless metal."


She fled before Kingsley could respond. Her brain was screaming and it was difficult not let her mouth follow suit. She ran for the lifts and blindly pressed the button, her eyes blurring with tears. People passed and stared, frowns creasing their sanctimonious brows. Severus had been right! They were sanctimonious! Hermione even thought she saw a flash of red hair moving amongst the crowd. Oh, no...no. Not him! She began to jab violently at the lift button.


A long-fingered hand was suddenly there, encircling her arm, and guiding her onto the lift, whose doors were already opened. She looked up sharply, gasping in fright, then sagging with relief as the lift doors closed on her and Severus Snape.


Alone in the dimly lit lift, Hermione faced him again for the first time in nearly two months. She swiped a hand under her eyes, trying to get rid of the tears. "What are you doing here?"


Not exactly the words either of them had expected upon their reunion. But then, neither one of them had expected a reunion at all. Severus took measure of her. She had lost weight, dark circles ringed her big, brown eyes, and she looked lost and dejected. And as utterly beautiful as the last time he'd seen her. How could he have ever left her like he did? Something twisted inside Severus and he felt a physical pain on looking at Hermione again after all this time. It went beyond desire or even mere admiration. She pulled at him in a way no one had in over two decades. It was a queer feeling that, surprisingly, made him want to seek out the person who had made her cry and practice some dark torture on them. Severus gave himself a mental shake.


"Why are you crying?" he asked abruptly, ignoring her question.


Hermione looked him boldly in the eyes with her red-rimmed ones. "I'm not," she said stubbornly.


"Fine," he replied, and with a clench in his heart, as the lift arrived at his destination, he exited the moment the doors opened.


"Severus," Hermione called.


He turned and looked at her, the blood rushing back into his heart and his lungs now refusing to work. He raised an inquiring brow.


"Come to dinner tonight," she sputtered.


His lips parted and his dark eyes roved down her slight form, then back up. He gave a single nod just before the lift closed again. "Yes," he said simply as she disappeared from sight.


I'm Not Afraid by madamelecourayer [Reviews - 8]

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