Amour

REVELATION

Hermione followed Snape into his drawing room.He didn't look at her but poured himself a neat firewhisky and sank down into the armchair near the fireplace.He took a sip and said,"The truth is most inevitably gonna break you and there is nothing in the world I wouldn't have done to prevent that from happening. But since we have reached an impasse,there's no way to move forward without being fully honest with you. I have to tell this to you,even if it comes at the cost of losing you. If you love me...if you've ever loved me,don't face me while hearing this." "Why?"Hermione asked,furrowing her brow. "Because you won't love me after I've finished,and I don't wanna see that happen."he explained,his voice full of woe. Hermione doubted whether that was plausible but was a little fearful seeing his seriousness. She sat down at the couch in the back,away from his field of vision and he started his story. He gulped down more of the firewhisky and the dancing flames of the fire in the fireplace reflected in his eyes as he remembered his rueful past.                          "I had a terrible childhood.As I had told you earlier,my father was a muggle,my mother was a witch-and I mean it as a double entendre.She was a witch worthy of the name.She was a hateful woman in every way,a brat inheriting a large fortune and she looked with contempt upon everything that crossed her path. It was a wonder how she fell in love with my father...but I guess that's the thing about love-it sees not with the eye but the heart. We are the living archetype of that. Maybe it was my father who courted her,I don't know,because by the time I was old enough to understand,any affection that previously may have existed, had completely dissolved. Shouting,abuse,violence...my days didn't start without these. My father hated me when I showed signs of magic,thinking I was another specimen of my mother's lot-while my mother didn't care enough for me because I looked too much like him. My cries went unnoticed,they didn't fulfill my necessities and gave me a thrashing if I tried to attract attention towards me or tried to stop their fighting. Gradually ,I became stoic." Hermione imagined the little dark-haired boy tugging at his mother's clothes,who was busy arguing with her husband and pushed the kid away;the kid crying himself to sleep every night,and she felt something tug at her tear-ducts. She could picturise the introverted boy,hiding his emotions within himself,how he became quite,brooding and advertant. She understood what made him like this. "I used to lock myself up in a room,cover my ears with pillows but the clamour my parents made echoed throughout the big,destitute house. So I decided to focus my mind on academics. It was a good thing,till I ran out of things to read and needed something more,that could challenge me in an intellectual level. I was getting terrorised at school too. The Marauders didn't miss a single chance to bully me.I thought I must get back at them. And show my parents too...what I could do.I wanted to be taken seriously. I...turned to...the Dark Arts." Hermione was instantly reminded of the vision she had seen when she had invaded his mind during one occlumency lesson.            Sirius and Pettigrew locking him up in a toilet,shoving past him so that his books fell,turning him upside down and taking his trousers off in full view of half the school,everyone knew what happened when he almost glimpsed Lupin changing to his werewolf form, and that incident with her parents.She remembered the look of humiliation on the little boy's face.Then the adolescent Snape turning away from the locked door,the opposite side of which came the sound of a couple fighting.He went over to the stack of books collected at a corner and pulled out one heavy leather-bound dusty volume:'The Night is dark and full of terrors'.His eyes glinted and he turned over the pages,getting immersed in it and shutting out the world.
"I went to the Forbidden section of the Hogwarts library ,stealthily ,every night to study.I was learning pretty quickly and also experimenting with them a little.How I believed myself to be above all of them! Till Black and his friends graduated and I felt I didn't live up to my full potential.Even though I was just a teenager I wanted to be double promoted and be done with school.I was pissed when I came home from Hogwarts that summer;of course my least-bothered parents thought it was just some disturbed teenager problem.They hit off again at some slight cause,as per freaking usual, and were quick enough to jump into the fray.But that day...the fight grew to an extreme point and I was already agitated,and suddenly I felt myself getting ferocious,raging like a bull and twenty years of supressed tumultuous temper gushed out like wildfire and magic burst out of me."His voice quickened as he remembered that eventful day."When I came back to my senses, my blood pressure came back to normal and the fire died down...all that was left of my parents were two piles of ash."Hermione gasped."I didn't know what to do.Not even a single tear escaped me however,I had gone impassive and before I could properly grasp the fact that the dark magic ,which I was so passionately pursuing, was the very reason which made me an orphan in one stroke;I was taken under the wing of the Dark Lord himself."he said,his voice full of disgust.Hermione remembered again.A rainy day,the rain coming down in splits,Snape's tears getting lost in the rainwater,his parents' graves at his feet,a white hand with long nails, grasping his shoulder and guiding him away.She saw the vulnerable and susceptible man in front of her and saw the frightened and despairing little dark-haired boy instead."He helped pass that incident off as an attack of an Obscurus and I was grateful to him.Oh,how I danced and frolicked around him like a puppy!I idealised him,did all his bidding,I even killed for him."Hermione covered her mouth with her hands,her eyes wide in shock."These hands....they have ended so many lives,made so many widows,orphaned so many children...destroyed so many families.And he stood there and laughed.Proud of his little protege.Till the day came to give me the highest honour-including me in his army.Yes Hermione...,I am one of them...one of those you hate.I am....a death-eater."he revealed,his tone resonating with penitence.No!Hermione's head was spinning.She started questioning her whole life.She didn't know if she truly knew anything anymore.She felt like someone had snatched away the tv remote and changed the channel from something she loved watching to something horrific.And she couldn't pull the plug.She sat listening, spellbound,just somebody that she used to know.He continued,"Those were the glorious days-atleast I was naive enough to think that.But I was young,my blood boiling with youthful rashness.I was looking for more opportunities to please my Lord and fate handed me the perfect one.I chanced upon Sybil Trelawney as she made the prediction about the doom of the Dark Lord-he was to meet his end at the hands of a-a --Mudblood.You.I scurried off to give him the news and he declared that he would kill that newborn child before it could pose any threat to him.I was shocked to hear it was your parents he had zeroed in on and somewhere it struck a cord.I had enough blood in my ledger,I had taken lives,but that of strangers...but Patrick and Catelyn,I knew them...it was like what happened to my parents happening all over again.Thankfully I hadn't told him the whole of the prophesy and so, I rushed to warn Dumbledore,to accept my mistake and request him to keep them and you,safe."Hermione stared at him.That is only because somewhere deep inside,you're a good man.You are my good man.And I'm glad you came face to face with your inner self."But your parents trusted the wrong person to keep their secret and as the world knows,the Dark Lord murdered them mercilessly."he downed the rest of his drink.Half of his profile was visible to her and she witnessed the look of self-disgust and loathing on his face.He clutched the empty glass so hard it looked like either it,or the bones of his hand would break.A single tear came out of his eye and rolled down his hooked nose."I left my abominable abode and knelt in surrender to Dumbledore,apologising for all I had done.That is when I met Trelawney again and upon seeing me,she took hold of my shoulder,going all rigid and her voice husky and made another one of her real predictions.She said that I was to take responsibility for the one I cursed in her mother's womb and that her mark will be forever imprinted on my heart.This was the day my life was going to completely turn around and you being the reason.Helping you was my pathway to redemption and if I held back in any way,I would be eternally damned in the lake of fire and brimstone.Protecting you is the purpose of my life,my atonement came in the form of you and I won't hesitate to even give my life, if needs be....Dumbledore suggested that I live on as a spy;the dark lord wouldn't suspect my motive and would be convinced that I was actually his man,staying close to Dumbledore and the girl who lived ,so that I could supply inside information that noone else could lay their hands on.The Headmaster wasn't too willing to let me teach Defence against the dark arts in the very beginning,but was eventually convinced after seeing my hatred towards dark magic.At first,I thought I was acting only out of guilt and enticed by the prospect of gaining salvation but then I gradually came to know you and....you may not believe me now,and I've given you every reason not to...but I genuinely fell in love with you."His face exuded sincerity and his words bled with honesty.Hermione choked up and her heart had already gotten heavy. "I did not understand the double meaning in the prophecy at the time.But now I do.Some people don't belive in coincidences,but dull lives they must lead!'Cause this was all destined to happen...the irony of my life is that I can't survive without the very thing I had sworn to scorn for eternity.Destiny thy name is Hermione Jane Granger."Hermione remembered he had told the exact words ,"this was destined to be", before.Now she knew what he had meant.He gave a long sigh,"So there it is...me,unraveled in front of you,all mystery about me deciphered,all my secrets unveiled.I would understand perfectly well if I repel you now. You are free to leave. I no longer wish to ensnare you with my false charms.You don't deserve to be with such a despicable person as me.I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I'm one of them."
A pin-drop silence followed his words.Snape only kept staring at the fire,dreading the sound of the slamming of the door as Hermione left ,but that never came.No sound ,infact, came from her and he was afraid she was rendered speechless with shock and repulsion.Hermione hadn't spoken a word since he had begun his story but now when she did,Snape was totally stumped by her words,which sounded miraculous to him.She opened her mouth and closed it again a couple of times,unable to pick words from her vocabulary as she was going through a whirlwind of emotions.She gave a long sigh and finally said,
"Make love to me Severus."