Senses

Chapter 54

I really wish I would have been kinder to you. You were my first friend and I know you deserved so much better than what life has given you. I was so sorry to hear about your mom's passing, was that why you didn't come to graduation? I really miss you, I wish I could see you again. I'm getting married. I don't know if you'd be happy to hear but I wanted you to know. I still want to be your friend Severus. I hope in time we can be.

Yours Truly,

Lily

Severus' thumb moved slowly over the well-worn paper, his nail tracing the letters of the signature. He had been sitting pensively for hours, his fury taken over by regret and enouement. How he wondered what the future held for his vision of what should have come to be had become such a tangled web. His wont of ellipsism was disquiet. His deep eyes turned to the beautiful blue spectral of his Patronus standing just beside him.

It had taken longer than expected to take its form, leaving his heart torn. He would never say that he'd fallen in love with another, that place in his heart was solidly held by another. Yet still, he found himself trying to give a name to his missteps. He had never meant to do as he had, never meant to allow the girl to come inside his world. His tightly confined and rigorously restrained world.

It enraged him beyond comprehension how his nodus tollens had taken over nearly every aspect of his pensive. It had been so clear before. Protect the boy, die in the final days, be forgotten in history. How had his want to be loved by another, to be seen as a human being have wrought such destruction? How could one act of mercy have rewritten his entire destiny?

A deep breath raised his chest from the back of his chair and he rolled his head towards the mirror on his desk. His fingers absently ran through the light of the doe beside him as he watched Miss Granger move through the darkened streets. It was a risky but calculated move, a plan al her own to try and weed out information from the goblins who worked at the bank. He had furiously told her that if she were to leave he would no longer stand by to protect her but like many times in his life—he had lied.

oOo

Hermione curled her lips and nose to the horrid smell of weeks old refuse that lined the dirty streets. She'd skillfully kept to the shadows, using a combination of disillusionment charms and notice-me-not spells. His words of dismissal rung hard in her ears. She wanted to believe that it had been solely his anger talking but in her heart, she feared that she had pushed her luck too far.

She had never wanted to deceive him and to her, she felt as though his reaction had been well overexaggerated. She had wanted to tell him so but something in his eyes had held her tongue. Instead, she bid him a good day and left through the front door making sure it hit the frame as she threw it open. Three steps out of his wards she'd been gone a deep crack of thunder echoing in her wake.

A small lick to her bottom lip brought her finger up to her ear cuff, she didn't know if he was watching her or not but if he was, she wanted to make sure that he heard everything she did. It was every bit of her intention to return to him and finish what they'd started. She wasn't about to let him throw whatever was between them away. If nothing else, he was...her friend and she was loyal to her friends—to the very end.

"Imperio." Hermione's under-breath spell hit its target expertly, the small goblin going still in his walk before a whispered suggestion sent him back on his way.

Hermione stayed close enough to keep the spell strong but not close enough to be spotted. She knew deep down in her heart that she'd very much broken the law and with it stepped fully into the realm of dark magic. She knew exactly what the spell was capable of, what she could have this goblin do for her. It was oddly empowering and disempowering at the same time.