13th January, 2000. 1:01 p.m.
“Here we go,” Severus said softly as he pushed open the door to Hermione’s bedroom and stepped carefully inside with a tray holding two cups of tea.
Hermione looked up from the bed, where she was curled up in a tangled mess of bedclothes, pillows, and books, which was where she usually sought refuge. “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Drink it slowly. There’s some Draught of Peace in it, but I want to talk to you first,” he said as he sat himself down on the side of the bed and handed her a cup.
Hermione gave him a wry look. “You know, if it were just the Draught of Peace, I wouldn’t have to worry about drinking it slowly, it would just make me calm and lucid.”
Severus returned her look with a smile and a shrug. “You know, you already sound pretty calm and lucid to me. Drink this afterwards.” He took the cup from her hand and placed it onto the bedside table.
“What <i>is</i> in it?”
“I’m not telling you. Trust me?” Severus’ tone was still light and casual, but Hermione mulled the question over seriously for a second, her eyes rolling between one corner of the ceiling and the next as she tilted her head one way and then the other, as if in deep thought, before shooting him a piercing look.
“Of <i>course</i> I trust you!”
“Good. So. We need to discuss something,” he began in a very serious, solemn tone of voice.
“Severus? Can I go first? There was something I wanted to tell you before Harry turned up with the firing squad—”
“The <i>what</i>?” Severus interjected, knitting his eyebrows in apparent curiosity. Although he was familiar with the Muggle term, he felt as though he ought to do anything to distract her from whatever it was she was going to say. His heart was beating too rapidly now, and a strange fear constricted it, even though he had no way of knowing what it was she was possibly intending to say.
“The firing squad. Muggle term… Uh… A group of soldiers detailed to shoot a condemned person. Or fire at a military funeral… Uh. Yes. Well, I was using it in the former sense, but I suppose the latter could fit too…” It was Hermione’s turn to frown with consternation now as she tried to figure out the knots and tangles of her own metaphor.
“Yes, yes, okay, I get the gist. You wanted to say something?” Although Hermione was getting distracted, which was good, she was getting distracted by something that she almost certainly shouldn’t be spending too much time thinking about. <i>Condemnation, my arse!</i> Hermione Granger was <i>definitely</i> not going to be sent to the firing squad any time soon, and he didn’t want her thinking about it!
“Yes. Severus,” she began very seriously, leaning over and taking one of his hands in hers. “I was talking to Draco, and suddenly I realised that I need you to know how much I appreciate all that you’re doing for me. I really do care about you, Severus, and I know we said that we’d wait until all of this has blown over before we talk about it again, but—”
“Hermione, you don’t need to say anything,” Severus interrupted her. “We both know where we stand for now, that’s all that matters.” He raised one of her hands now to his lips and pressed a hot, fervent kiss upon the slender, white knuckles before lowering it back down onto the bedclothes. “Now, I wanted to ask you a serious question. One that doesn’t really involve <i>us</i>, per se…”
“Yes, go on,” Hermione urged calmly, glad that she had gotten that off her chest and even more glad that he hadn’t caused a scene about it. It hadn’t become a big, over-blown, sappy moment. He’d simply listened and accepted, and now they were both sure of each other. She suppressed a smile at this comfortable atmosphere between them because she knew that he was about to get to the point, and he had said it was ‘serious’.
“There is no way to say this except to be blunt. If you do not stop bursting into tears and dissolving into a mess each time you see someone like the Potters, we are going to find it difficult to convince people not to be suspicious,” Severus said coolly and clinically, trying to avoid being cruel, but also unable to sugar the pill. Right now, the person most likely to land her in Azkaban was <i>her</i>, and he needed her to be on board and understand the situation.
“Oh, Severus. Oh,” she repeated, leaning back onto her pillows and staring over his shoulder at a landscape on the wall for a few moments. “You’re right, of course. I just… I can’t help it sometimes, you know? It’s all… so overwhelming.”
“I know. For now, you have to try, though. I know that even if you had met them on the street a month ago, you would have reacted this strongly to them, but… Now, things are different. You—We need to think about self-preservation now. And the first way to do that is to feign indifference toward these people, no matter what you’re feeling inside.”
Hermione watched his facial expression closely now, looking for any slight twitches or uncontrolled seconds where she might glimpse his true emotions behind the calm, logical façade he was presenting her with.
“I know that… rationally. But, emotionally… Sometimes I can’t…”
“Control it? I know. That’s why I’ve decided that we must push forward with the Deep Pression potion. I think that the changes you and Draco have already theorised could make this a truly useful tool and almost completely eliminate the side-effects.”
Suddenly, a thought hit Hermione with piercing clarity. “Is that what’s in the tea?”
“That and a little bit of something to help you sleep for a while,” Severus replied with a shrug, knowing there was no point in dissembling.
“And you really think that I should be taking this?”
“Not just you,” he retorted with a snort of a chuckle, nodding towards the second mug of tea. “I think we might both find it easier to swallow if there is someone else along for the ride.”
After a second more of almost searing eye contact, she nodded and sighed. “Perhaps it is time I started to help myself a little?” Her rising intonation made it a semi-question, but Severus had no intention of answering it and hoped that it was rhetorical. “I have something more to tell you now that you’ve mentioned this… Well, I just want to say that you have no need to worry about earlier. Ginny will simply think my… response was down to… well, down to something else.”
“<i>What</i> something else?” Severus demanded forcefully now, shocked by this suggestion. What had she not been telling him? Didn’t she know that he needed to know everything to try and make this work?
“It was… a long time ago. Nothing serious. I never told you. It’s just. This isn’t the first time that Ginny and I have met since I started working with you…”
*
3rd July, 1999. 12:04 p.m.
Hermione had been watching The Burrow for several hours now. She had watched it yesterday, and the day before, too, and she thought she might finally be ready to knock on the door. Steeling herself, she ended the Disillusionment Charm she was under and attempted to stroll purposefully toward the door, as if she belonged here, just like in the old days.
When her closed hand fell on the door, however, it was not in the comfortable loud knock that she might have once used, but instead in a feather-light touch that was so pitiful and embarrassing, it made her want to run away. Reasoning that unless someone had been standing right next to the door, they wouldn’t have heard her, she began to back away in readiness to just that—run—but then the door suddenly popped open, and before her stood one her former close friends.
“Ginny,” Hermione gasped out in a tone that sounded for all the world as if she were surprised and elated at finding a long-lost loved-one.
Ginny’s eyes flew wide open, and she gave a panicked look around her before stepping out of the door—without any shoes—and almost pulling it closed behind her, although they were still just standing on the door step. Hermione was awestruck by how pregnant she was and by how healthy and happy she seemed. She almost felt like she could pull her into a hug and that would make everything the same as it once was.
“What do <i>you</i> want?” Ginny finally hissed, giving an anxious look behind her, although the door was almost closed behind her.
“Are… Are Harry and Ron there?” Hermione asked hopefully, ignoring the question for now.
“Yes, they are. And you'd better talk fucking quietly because I don’t want them hearing you!”
“Ginny, please. When I… When I said those things in the Ministry, I wasn’t thinking straight. You have no idea what it was like… I was… confused, upset, angry. But, I miss you all so much. Please? Can I come in? I’d love to talk to you all...”
“No! No, you cannot. Now, you listen to me, Her—” Here, Ginny’s breath died in her throat, unable to say her ex-friend’s name. “Listen to me,” she repeated again, getting back into her strident tone. “I don’t really know what you said in the Ministry, although I got a fair rendition from Harry when he got back here. But the truth is, I never wanted either of them to go to that trial in the first place, unless it was to testify against you.”
Ginny paused a moment to let this barb sink in, and Hermione shrank away from her a step or two, her face blanching. How could… Why would… Oh, this was a mistake. She only wished now that she’d mentioned the idea to Draco or Snape so that one of them could have <i>told</i> her it was a mistake.
“I didn’t speak to them for nigh on a week after I found out what they’d come to say to you!” Ginny continued once she was sure she had hit her mark. Her face was now a twisted mask of perverse pleasure interwoven with anger and pain. “No matter what the Wizengamot says, you have done your best to destroy this family, breaking Ron’s heart, breaking Mum’s, Dad’s… everyone’s! You’re not welcome here, and you never will be, no matter what Ron and Harry might like to try and convince themselves of. Now, if you don’t leave immediately, I’m going to call the Aurors for trespassing and harassment! You may be innocent in a court of law, but you’re not to me!”
*
13th January, 2000. 1:17 p.m.
“What happened then?” Severus demanded, unconsciously stroking her hand tenderly.
“Well, I Apparated back, and… That was when I almost destroyed the lab... And then…”
“And then you made a pass at me, and I relented. Yes, I remember,” Severus said, his voice suddenly cool. Hermione looked at him anxiously, worried that she’d hurt him.
“Does that change things? Severus, please, just because we didn’t get off to the best start…”
Severus looked at her critically for a second, trying to quell his urge to scoop her into his arms and tell her that things would <i>never</I> change, no matter what she said.
“No. It doesn’t. But I do, indeed, wish you’d have spoken to me that morning. We could have saved you a lot of heartache.”
“But we would also have…”
“Don’t!” Severus exclaimed, suddenly wearing a pained expression on his face. He was all too aware of how much chance had gone into establishing their relationship. There were a hundred thousand different moments in the past that, if they had gone differently, could have prevented it from ever taking place. He couldn’t bear the thought that the first woman he’d loved since Lily, the first woman he’d ever had a chance of having an actual <i>relationship</i> with, was only there by sheer luck, and bad luck, at that.
“Here,” he said in a calmer voice, reaching for the two cups of tea and handing her one. “Let’s drink up now, and you can tell me what you’ve found about the use of lavender in the potion, yes?”
Hermione gave him a long, anxious look, as if seeking reassurance that things <i>were</i> still okay, and then she took a deep breath and began.
Chapter End Notes:
This chapter deals a little more explicitly with the problem of depression and mental illness than do previous chapters where the Deep Pression potion is mentioned. I would like to note a few things: Firstly, I tried to deal with this issue as sensitively as possible. As someone who has several relatives’ experiences, as well as my own, to go on, I feel I can safely say that depression can lead to erratic behaviour, illogical and sometimes dangerous choices, and a feeling of lack of control, all of which Hermione seems to have experienced throughout this story. However, of course, this is not to say that these are the only symptoms or that all depression sufferers experience them. There are many different types and levels of the illness, and I intend no offense or disrespect in the way that I choose to portray it. Secondly, although it appears that the Deep Pression potion is something of a miracle cure, I have no intention of ignoring the potential dangers and side-effects of it in the story, and I’m again aware of the potential problems that anti-depressants come with. I am not in any way making light of the illness or the methods of treatment. Thank you all for reading!
AM