The Uninvited
Chapter 2: Invitations
Hermione Granger stepped through the door into the unfamiliar landscape with her shoulders squared and her head held high. Her hands, however, were empty, and that was what she found most troubling about her excursion - she was unarmed. Intellectually, she understood that she could not venture into someone else's mind armed - but it did not remove her emotional anxiety. The Battle of Hogwarts was too raw a memory for her to feel comfortable in unexplored territory with no way to magically defend herself.
'Professor?' she whispered experimentally, glancing about at her surroundings. Oddly enough, it looked as if she was standing in a clearing in the Forbidden Forest. There were no birds or other wildlife at hand, but she still felt that the place was quite familiar.
There was not so much as a suggestion of sound in answer to her calling for him. Did he know she was here? Was he even capable of answering her? She bit her lip and turned in a circle, trying to determine a course of action. How did one press on in these circumstances?
From behind her, his smooth voice fell over her like a silken shroud. 'Hermione - how good of you to come.'
She turned and looked at him, a slight frown on her face. Was this going to be it, then? She called for him, he came, and she coaxed him to return with her? She had not dared hope for something so simple. 'Hullo, sir,' she replied, taking a tentative step forward, her hand outstretched in greeting. 'Thank you for coming out to speak to me. We've been quite concerned for you, you know.'
He took a step toward her, his midnight eyes fixed upon her face. 'I hate to be such a bother,' he admitted a bit wryly. 'Did you come to visit for a particular reason?'
Hermione stopped just beyond the reach of his fingertips, her frown deepening. This didn't sound like the Professor Snape she had known and loathed for the last seven years of her life. He was acting oddly - calling her by her first name, thanking her for coming, projecting sheepishness - what was wrong?
'Where are my manners?' he wondered aloud, and with a wave of his hand, a table, two chairs, and a complete tea service appeared between them. 'Please - have a cup of tea.'
He sat. Confused, Hermione sat as well. This was not at all what she had expected when she agreed to perform Legilimency on Professor Snape and enter his mind without consent.
'It's a medical emergency,' she was told. 'It could very well mean the difference between life and death.'
The smiling Snape handed her a cup of tea, and took one for himself, as well.
'Now, why have you come?' he inquired, taking a sip of his tea and indicating that she should follow suit.
Hermione lifted the teacup, and the comforting smell of strong tea wafted up her nose. 'I have come to speak with you about why you have not yet woken up properly,' she replied, bringing the cup to her lips.
Before she could sip, a hand impacted her teacup, forcefully knocking it from her fingers. The cup hit the table and shattered, splattering Hermione with hot tea and glass shards. Hermione leapt to her feet, as did her companion. Anxiously turning, she saw Professor Snape standing just behind her shoulder, an ugly sneer fixed upon his face as he glared challengingly into the eyes of ... Professor Snape!
Looking from one Snape to the other, Hermione realised her mouth was open in conspicuous amazement, but she could not bring herself to care.
'Did no one ever tell you not to take sweets from strangers, Miss Granger?' the Snape at her shoulder demanded angrily.
Hermione immediately defended herself. 'He - you - are not a stranger to me!' she objected hotly.
The Snape across the table from her backed away and disappeared into the trees; the Snape at her shoulder moved around to face her. Here was the disdainful dislike she expected from her former Potions master. 'Oh, really?' he said insultingly. 'Have you ever known me to invite you to tea?' He let the derision sink in for a moment, then added, 'Of course you haven't - for I would never do so.'
Hermione felt the sting of the taunt, yet her chin came up angrily. 'Is it Polyjuice?' she inquired.
He gave her look of incredulous antipathy. 'No,' he answered shortly.
She knew he wanted to point out to her that it would be impossible for someone to Polyjuice themselves into another person's mind; she felt stupid for even suggesting it. 'Then who is he?' she asked patiently.
For her troubles, she received the patented Snape eye-roll. 'Don't be a firstie, Miss Granger.' He stared into her eyes, a deep groove between his brows, far deeper than she recalled from her time as his student. The past year had been hard on him, she saw.
At last, he said, 'Why have you come? I didn't invite you.'
Hermione confounded him by resuming her seat at the table conjured by the other Snape. 'I have come to bring you back, Professor,' she replied.
His lips firmed into a thin white line. 'I have no intention of returning, you stupid little girl.' He stepped towards her in an ominous way, pointing one long, thin finger into the trees, away from the direction taken by the other Snape. 'Get out.'
Hermione deliberately crossed one leg over the other, hoping the motion would not betray the way her knees were shaking. 'No.'
A look of sheer fury crossed his face. 'Very well. I will put you out.'
Hermione gripped the seat of her chair, realising that he meant to use Occlumency to thrust her from his mind. She thought it was unlikely he would succeed; when she had cast the Legilimency spell, after all, he had been unconscious and unresponsive. Nevertheless, she knew he was a formidable Occlumens, so she held on and concentrated on maintaining her connexion with his mind.
His attempts to eject her felt like the flutter of moths' wings against the solid brick wall of her determination to remain. After a period of time, she heard him swear fluently, and she opened her eyes to track his movement. He strode angrily around the table, glaring at her as if his troubles were down to her.
'I don't know why I cannot get rid of you, Miss Granger, but know this: if you stubbornly remain here in face of my advice for you to leave, he won't rest until you are dead.'
Trying again, Hermione rose and took a step towards him, her hand extended in a gesture of peace. 'Sir, I only want to help. Who is he?'
The professor stood before her, his hair oily and disordered, his clothing wrinkled, as if he had slept in the garments he wore, the purple shadows beneath his eyes so deep and dark he might have been wearing stage make-up. At his throat, she could clearly see the healing scars where the great snake, Nagini, had bitten him upon the Dark Lord's command. She had witnessed his injury - it was little short of miraculous that he still survived, after his massive blood loss.
'As you wish,' he hissed at her, clearly unnerved by her conciliating posture. 'You are on your own!'
He turned and strode out of the clearing, disappearing very quickly amongst the close-set trees of the forest.
Hermione watched him go, biting her lip. Clearly, making contact with him - with both of him - was not the answer. She could not compel him to return with her - she could not even demand that he assist her - she was stymied.
Sitting amongst the shards of shattered china, she stared intently at her folded hands. Time passed as she considered the puzzle. When applying her problem-solving skills, she was in her element. At last, she rose from the table, determination written upon her face. Professor Snape's lack of cooperation would not prevent her from completing the assignment she had accepted: it was not in her nature.
The memories began as mere glimpses of faces and places, accompanied by simple, uncomplicated feelings. At random, she reached for one, and instantly, she stood in a dark, dingy kitchen. Directly before her, a tall, hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman.
'Worthless!' the man shouted, his speech heavy with a North-country accent. Even at this distance from him, the sour smell of unwashed flesh, mixed with the scent of stale drink, billowed off the man's body.
Undoubtedly, this was Tobias Snape.
'Shiftless! Stupid!' he continued, and the sullen-looking, heavy-browed woman cringed from him, each word seeming to impact her like a physical blow. Even so, there was a look of sly cunning about her eyes, as if she would choose her moment to get back her own. Why in the world did Eileen Snape not pull her wand and hex the man into silence? Had she forgotten she was a witch?
This was one of the professor's memories - but where was he? He had to have been present. She turned away from the adults, and in the shadows betwixt the dresser and the wall, she saw the small boy in the corner. He had curled in on himself, as if he were a mouse, intent upon making himself as small as possible. He made neither a move nor a sound, but silent tears and snot ran down his pinched little face. Abandoned on the floor at his side was an extremely worn teddy bear, missing one button eye.
Her heart wrung, Hermione went forward and squeezed into the close space, kneeling at the child's side. Would she be able to comfort him? Would he even know if she was there?
'Don't cry, little man,' she said, pulling her handkerchief from her pocket.
Four-year-old Severus Snape turned stricken eyes upon her. Excellent! He could see her! His black eyes darted to the still shouting Tobias Snape, then came back again to rest on her, but he maintained his silence.
Hermione took his stubborn little chin in her hand and applied the handkerchief to his sopping wet face. She did not have siblings, but she had been a Gryffindor Prefect for two years; she had mopped up more than one homesick first-year in her time. 'There, there,' she said as she wiped. 'You're all right.'
The child allowed her to wipe his cheeks, and he even obeyed the command to blow his nose into the handkerchief, but every time Hermione spoke, he glanced again at his parents, his fear of discovery evident.
'It's all right,' she repeated, seating herself beside him. 'They can't see or hear me - only you can.'
He seemed to believe her enough to try an experiment. 'Is it magic?' he whispered in a tiny voice.
Hermione pulled his unresisting form into her lap, where he sat with unnatural rigidity, as if unfamiliar with human touch. 'Yes, it's magic,' she agreed, thinking it was far too complicated to attempt an explanation he could understand. Tentatively she smoothed his dirty hair from his forehead. He turned a frown to her face, clearly confused by her behaviour. 'It's not your fault,' she told him, nodding in the direction of his parents, who were locked in personal combat so intense their child might not have existed.
Long, dark lashes swept down to cover his eyes. 'Yes, it is,' he murmured forlornly. 'If I was a better boy, Da' wouldn't be so cross all the time - Mummy said so.'
Hermione glared at the cowering Eileen with profound disapproval. What kind of woman blamed the troubles of her marriage on her own child? Gently, she began to rub circles between Severus' sharp shoulder blades. 'Sometimes,' she said diplomatically, 'when people are upset, they say things they don't really mean. Your mummy was probably upset when she told you that. It's never, ever a kid's fault when grown-ups fight.'
The long lashes swept up again, and dubious black eyes looked into her face. 'It's not?'
The hope in his voice pierced her. She pulled his stiff little body against her chest, and her torso rocked back and forth. 'Of course not,' she said reassuringly. 'You're a good boy, Severus - you're clever, and you do just as your mummy says. No one could ask for a better little boy than you.'
Tobias Snape slammed out of the squalid little terraced house, and his wife sagged into a rickety kitchen chair, her face in her hands. Hermione half-expected Severus to run to his mother, but instead, he resolutely turned his eyes away from the despairing Eileen, relaxing just a little into Hermione's comforting embrace. It saddened Hermione to see him, just a small child, turning a cold shoulder to his mother's suffering. It spoke volumes of the response his own anguished tears had received in this house. Children were naturally sympathetic beings, but at the hoary age of four years, Severus Snape had already learnt to discount the suffering of others - he had absorbed the lesson that personal distress was a solitary business, to be endured alone.
Eileen stood and left the kitchen, but for a long time, child-Severus remained in Hermione's lap, seeming to absorb through his very pores the kind concern she showed to him. She continued to hold his ever more relaxed body to her heart, reflecting sadly on the man who had grown from this childhood.
At last, Severus struggled out of her arms and stood on his own too-thin legs. He looked down into her face. 'Are you an angel?' he asked softly, one hand curiously fingering a lock of her bushy brown hair.
Hermione smiled at him until an answering smile lit his big black eyes. 'No, I'm just a girl,' she told him. 'A friend.'
'Well, bye, Girl,' he said, and grabbing the extremely disreputable teddy bear, he ran from the kitchen to pursue the serious business of being four.
The kitchen dissolved around her and she was in the clearing again, alone.
A/N: I have taken complete liberty on the subject of Legilimency and the subject of memory. You will find nothing in canon to support my portrayal of how Legilimency works. Please note that although Hermione is interacting with Severus' memory self, she is not changing his memories. There is a rationale which will be revealed at a later time.