Chapters 121-130

A Good Person, and a Good Teacher

For a moment Severus glared at Hermione in silence. Then he spit out, ‘And don’t look at me like that! I do not want your pity! I do not need your pity! And besides, what is it to you, anyway? You loved him, just like everyone else.’

‘Yes, I did,’ she replied, forcing herself to remain calm. ‘Just like you. Dumbledore had a great gift of commanding love and respect. But he also possessed a ruthlessness when it came to using that love and respect that I have never encountered before. Oh, he was certainly justified. Defeating Voldemort justified all means, didn’t it? Sacrificing a child’s life, sacrificing your soul.
‘And pity? I don’t know about that.’ Abruptly rage rose inside her. She jumped up and started pacing. ‘Mostly, when I think about Dumbledore, about those memories of yours, I—I just feel so fucking angry. Is that pity?’ She blinked quickly, but it was too late. Impatiently she dashed the tears from her eyes.

Strangely, her volatile reaction seemed to calm Severus. He sat unmoving and watched her with glittering eyes. Only his hands, still balled into fists, betrayed his tension. ‘He did what he had to do,’ he commented finally.

‘That may be so,’ Hermione hissed. ‘But does that excuse everything? He should have trusted you. You! Not the spy, not the traitor, not his oh so perfect tool, not the…the remorse in you that he could use so conveniently to make you do everything that he deemed necessary. He should have respected you. And he should have forgiven you.’

Furiously she wiped her sleeve across her eyes, but for some reason she couldn’t stop crying. ‘It’s not fair.’

‘Life is not fair, Hermione.’

She snorted. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I may have been a Gryffindor, but I’m not stupid and I’m not a naïve little girl anymore.’

She stepped between his knees and put her hands around his head, intertwining her fingers behind his neck. He raised his head to meet her gaze. He looked tired, exhausted, incredibly sad, but calmer.

‘Can you forgive him?’ she asked at last. ‘But even more important, can you forgive yourself?’

oooOooo

Neville scowled at his spade. The November air was cool and crisp, but after digging up two plots behind the greenhouses, he was comfortably warm. He didn’t mind the menial labour; in fact, he’d been looking forward to working on Anne Flamel’s honours project. However, he had not expected her to be late on the first day of the project. Well, at least he could hand out her detention right then and there. But the thing was, he did not want to give her a detention. He wanted her to love herbology as much as he did. He glared at the wooden door and the small drawbridge that connected the hallway near the kitchens and Hufflepuff House with the Hogwarts gardens.

As if on cue the door opened and a tall, thin black scarecrow of a man emerged, followed by the plump form of a female student who had to run in order to keep up with the teacher’s long stride. Neville gulped and tightened his grip around the handle of his spade. Then Snape swooped down on him.

‘Mr. Longbottom. Here’s one of your students for you.’

Neville managed straighten his shoulders and to meet the potions master’s black gaze without flinching. ‘Thank you, for bringing her down, Professor. I’ve been expecting her.’

‘Ah. Yes. I’m afraid we—the Headmistress and I—detained Miss Flamel.’

‘I’m really sorry, sir,’ Anne hastened to add with an apprehensive glance at the black-clad figure next to her. ‘I didn’t want to be late, but…’ She trailed off with a shrug.

Neville nodded. ‘That’s all right. May I ask what kept you?’

‘I assume I owe you the courtesy of an explanation,’ Snape said sourly. ‘We needed Miss Flamel’s assistance in contacting one of her relatives, who happens to be an expert in portrait-lore.’

‘It’s my aunt, sir,’ Anne explained. ‘Claire Dubois. She’s a mistress in the painters’ guild. At the moment she’s working at the Met in America, making wizarding pictures safe for a big Muggle exhibition. But she has agreed to come to Hogwarts next weekend.’

‘Ah, I see,’ Neville said. So they still had no clue about what had caused the paralysis of Dumbledore’s portrait. ‘It’s really quite disturbing what happened to Professor Dumbledore’s portrait, isn’t it?’

Snape’s already thin lips froze into a straight white line. ‘Quite.’ He surveyed the dug up earth of the garden, before looking back at Neville’s spade. ‘No foolish wand-waving here today, Lo—Mr. Longbottom?’

Neville allowed himself a tiny grin at the respectful form of address. ‘No, Professor. Good old Muggle-muscle work. Miss Flamel’s project is a reconstruction of the herb garden of Hildegard of Bingen. To keep the properties of medicinal plants as pure as possible no magic will be used in the gardening at all.’

To Neville’s surprise Professor Snape nodded appreciatively. ‘That is an interesting project, Miss Flamel. You should get together with my—with my apprentice one of these days. My—wife’s current project involves Muggle homeopathy and medicinal potions.’

‘I’d love to do that, sir,’ Anne said breathlessly. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Snape nodded. ‘Mr. Longbottom. Miss Flamel.’ Spinning on his heels, he turned and strode back to the castle.

Miss Flamel’s shoulders slumped with relief. Neville couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. It’s only…’ She fell silent. She blushed even more fiercely than before.

‘Professor Snape can be quite intimidating,’ Neville admitted. ‘But he is a very good teacher. And a good person.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Anne agreed readily. ‘Absolutely. I’m just not very brave, so I can’t help feeling a bit…scared.”

‘Well,’ Neville said. ‘Then we’d best start working, Miss Flamel. The garden won’t dig itself up.—There’s another spade over there, and please put on your dragon-hide gloves.’

oooOooo

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