A Shell Dirty and Tarnished
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Severus Snape was once a different man.
Certainly, it’s hard to see it today, though it hasn’t been long since he started to change. Ten years haven't yet passed since he left her, but his behavior changed so drastically after that moment that the few who know him now remember how he used to be. The scowl he used to wear with such pleasure hasn’t made an appearance in more months than can be counted. His voice now lacks the acid others used to associate with him, and, while he was never the picture of perfect health, he took care of himself them. He’s haggard and worn now, ready to collapse with the weight of past choices holding on to him.
In his younger days, between the Wars, he was what he appeared to be: a callous, cold and menacing Potions Master, irritated by the very thought of children attempting to create potions. Love, that which he found before the Second War, didn’t do much to improve his disposition, but it was obvious to all that something was different.
Because he did learn to love, even when everyone thought it was an impossibility. It wasn’t during her school years, despite what many thought. No, it wasn’t until a few years after she left school that he found her in his dungeons, ranting about a potion without so much as a hello.
It was at that moment that he saw Hermione Granger as something other than a silly little girl.
To an outsider who didn’t know them, they were as different as Nature could possibly allow. But even Harry and Ron eventually agreed that they did belong together.
That isn’t to say that every moment between them was bliss. Arguments between them often became so heated that they would sit at opposite ends of the table in the Great Hall, refusing to speak to one another for days at a time. Albus and the other staff members particularly enjoyed those moments, for they turned Severus into a petulant child, a trait the observers found endlessly amusing.
They were happy, though both were reluctant to admit it, for several more years before the War. It was that devastating event that destroyed their relationship. Few people on either side were left standing when Voldemort was finally defeated. The casualty list read like one of the heavy tomes Hermione would read when she had the time. All but three of her classmates were lost, including Harry and Ron. She tried for months afterwards to pretend that she could survive it all, but pretending is nothing more than a lie one tells themselves when they don’t want to face the truth. He knew it then, the truth that she might never be the same. Each day she became just a bit more reticent, a little more subdued. She stopped eating, and he gave up trying to force her. With every passing moment, a new stone was placed into the wall she was building around herself, and nothing he tried could tear it down.
It became too much for him. He wasn’t a man known for his patience, and her inability to fight her way through her depression was wearing on him. Severus left on a cool and clear spring morning, just as the dew left over from the night’s mists dried. He didn’t look back.
He didn’t leave the vibrant, quarrelsome, passionate, attractive woman he once loved. He left the empty and broken shell she had become.
He stays busy these days with research for a well-respected Potions development group, because if he slows for an instant, his thoughts return to her. When he left her, he left everything. The few friends he had at the only place he had ever called home were all forgotten in his departure. He stays in his family home now, and the only visitors are the few souls brave enough to deliver fragile ingredients to his manor. He still doesn’t know what became of her, though he’s afraid that she wasted away into nothing, simply disappearing into thin air.
He’s also afraid that he’s doing the same.
He tries, of course, to pretend. To tell himself the same lies Hermione did, that everything will be alright in the end, and things will get better. He tells himself that it isn’t guilt, but old age, that he’s feeling. But even as he pretends, he knows the truth. His departure may have broken her beyond repair, and left himself just another empty shell, dirty and tarnished with neglect.
Lately, he’s taken to telling himself to owl her. He sees now that his very survival might very well hang on some sort of contact with her. But the fear that his letter will come back unopened keeps him from taking the leap of faith required.
Today, he takes the leap and sends his owl off with a piece of parchment bearing her name. The words inside are simple and to the point, asking not for forgiveness, but for an assurance that she survived.
It isn’t hours before the owl returns with a reply in the handwriting he remembers so well. Yes, she did survive, and thanks him for leaving, because that’s what broke the chains, so to speak. Yes, she’s doing fairly well for herself, though teaching Potions is harder than she thought it would be, and she understands why he was a right bastard back then. She’s sorry for not trying to make contact sooner, but does he think maybe a cup of tea sometime over the break would be all right?
It sounds pleasant enough, but he feels overwhelmed by it, and it takes several long minutes before he can acknowledge the parchment as real. He doesn’t deserve a letter that feels like one she would write to an old friend. He doesn’t deserve her.
No, he doesn’t deserve any of it. He knows that they will most likely never become anything other than careful acquaintances. But a small amount of hope settles into his soul, and he also knows that he will sleep better tonight than he has in almost ten years.
Tea, then. And for tonight, at least, he doesn’t have to pretend.
~ FIN