Pieces of You
Early January, 1999
It was storming again at the cottage. Severus was certain that the icy rain hadn’t subsided in days. The ground outside was frozen, covered in a thick layer of snow. Granger had arrived slightly earlier than he would have wished her to, but he decided to continue on with his lessons anyway.
Despite his desire for a quiet day of lessons, Granger had yet to stop talking since she arrived. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t entirely sure what the young witch was talking about. She talked idly as he poured them each a cup of tea and sat down at the table across from her.
“Have you finished the book,” he asked at last.
“I assume you’re talking about ‘The Empath’. Yes, I’ve read it twice now.” She said proudly.
“You’ll get no congratulations from me for being an overachiever. Remember, Granger, I cannot grant you points to Gryffindor just as much as you can no longer earn them. We are no longer at Hogwarts.”
“I know that,” her mood did not appear the least bit dampened by his less-than-friendly attitude.
“Can you explain what you’ve read?”
“I thought we were no longer at school. Why do I have to prove my reading comprehension skills?” She raised a brow.
Snape gave her a cold look. However, he found himself slightly amused by the woman in front of him. It was a feeling he rarely felt towards anyone–let alone a Gryffindor.
“If you don’t like my assistance, you may leave whenever you feel,” he said, stifling the amusement.
Granger didn’t take the bait. She sat back in her chair and sipped her tea. “From my understanding of what I read; the Soft Arts are divided into three main subcategories. Each of those categories is defined by unique characteristics.”
“And what are those three categories?”
“Tactile Empathy, Visual Empathy, and Divination Empathy.”
“Yes, and can you explain each of those?”
At that Granger sighed. “Tactile Empathy is based on physical touch–it’s what I likely have. Visual Empathy is based on the ability to see someone’s emotional wellbeing in the form of colors and shapes–similar to Aura Reading. Divination Empathy is the only kind of empathy that any witch or wizard can learn. It’s the process of reading someone’s emotions and memories through a means of Divination such as a crystal ball or a black mirror.”
“I think it’s fair to say you understand the basics,” Severus replied. “After reading, do you share my theory that you are a Tactile Empath?”
Granger nodded. “In theory, yes.”
“Just theory?” He raised a brow.
She folded her hands on the table and bit her lip. “Well,” she began slowly. “It’s just that there are so few real records of what you call Magical Empaths that it’s hard to determine if anything in this book is factual. There are many theories that contradict the ideas laid on in The Empath.”
“That’s true,” he nodded. “I have no way to prove that you are a Tactile Empath. And I certainly cannot prove that any form of Magical Empathy is a real skill. The Soft Arts are wildly under researched.”
Granger twisted a curl around her gloved finger. “I might have some hesitations,” she began, “But I think this is the closest thing I’ve had to a starting point than I’ve had in a long time.”
Severus nodded. It was one thing to have Granger agree with his assessment of her situation. It was another entirely to try to find a solution. So far, she had been aggressively against any form of ‘practice’. She refused to remove her gloves when she was around anyone.
“Granger, if you expect to ever be able to control your ability, you’re going to have to practice.”
She let out an irritated sigh. “I can’t just ask my friends, ‘hey, can I touch you and possibly re-traumatize you?’”
Severus rubbed his temple. “If you want to control it, you have to get comfortable with seeing into the minds of others.”
“Is that what you had to do?”
He hadn’t been expecting the question to be turned on him so suddenly. “Yes, I suppose it was.”
“How did you get comfortable with seeing things that weren’t meant for you?”
“I had to do much worse things than Legilimency,” Severus replied.
He didn’t care to share the dark nature of working for Voldemort. Granger had no business knowing about the terrible things he had done. Many of those things would certainly have her running away from his cottage as quickly as she could muster.
“Perhaps you can compartmentalize when you use Legilimency, but I can’t. I feel what others have felt. I feel their hurt and joy and…it’s too much. I can hardly manage my emotions, let alone someone else's.”
He thought about her words for a long moment. Severus had been so used to comparing Granger’s abilities to his own that he had overlooked the obvious difference. She wasn’t seeing into the minds of others; she was reliving important moments of their lives. Outside the winds hurled icy rain against the side of his house. Dark clouds hung low in the skies. Despite it being afternoon, it felt much later.
Severus met the clever eyes of the witch in front of him. She watched him with unabashed curiosity. Even after a few months, it still surprised him that Hermione Granger–Gryffindor Princess–would show up to his house willingly.
“How do you deal with your own emotions?” He asked.
She bit her lip in concentration. “I suppose I do my best to understand the source of those emotions and deal with them accordingly.”
“What do you mean when you say, ‘deal with’?”
“If I’m feeling angry, for example, I figure out what made me feel that way in the first place. Are my basic needs being met? Did someone say something to upset me? Once I figure out where that emotion came from, I typically feel better.”
Severus had never heard emotions explained in such an open and free manner. He couldn’t help but rethink the way he dealt with his own emotions. “So, do you suppose that technique could work on others?”
“I’m not really sure,” she said. “I’m not a mind-healer.”
“Perhaps you should be?”
She scoffed. “I think it’d be a little overwhelming to feel everyone’s trauma over and over.”
“But you could help them?”
“You’re suggesting I lean into it?” She raised a dark eyebrow.
Severus leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh. “I am not the person to ask when it comes to important life decisions. However, I was skilled and Occlumency and Legilimency and those skills are what made me a good spy.”
“But wasn’t it hard?”
He furrowed his brow. “Of course it was hard.”
“I…” She trailed off and looked down at her half-empty cup of tea. “I don’t want my life to be hard.”
If Severus was someone who laughed, he would have then. “Are you under the delusion that life is easy? I thought you were-”
“I know life is hard,” anger flashed in her eyes as they met his. “Of all the people to tell that too, you needn’t tell me. I may have survived the war, but I’m far from…adjusted. But I don’t want to over complicate my life. I want to be happy. This…this bloody curse is doing the opposite. I want it gone.”
It was the first time Severus had seen any real venom from the young witch. It should have pleased him to know that even the happiest people had a touch of anger. However, it made him feel conflicted. He realized that if it had been within his power to take away her gift of Empathy, he would have.
“I’ve told you before,” he said quietly. “This isn’t something you can simply be rid of.”
“I know,” she looked away from him as if embarrassed by her outburst.
Severus let out a long sigh. Granger needed someone to comfort her and tell her that it was going to be alright. However, he was no good at such things. From his experience, it was rarely ‘all right’. He stood slowly and put another kettle on the stove. He watched as the flame ignited and the water began to heat.
Glancing out the kitchen window, Severus watched the rain come down in heavy sheets. It was impossible to see further than a couple meters. He focused on the gloomy weather as the kettle began to boil.
After making another two cups of tea, Severus sat back down with Granger. She looked tired. It was the first time he realized it. Her condition was weighing heavy on her.
“I was five when I first showed signs of magic,” Severus said.
Granger looked up.
“I had been taught that magic was a bad thing–a dangerous thing. Naturally, I was scared of my own power. I hoped it would go away.”
She took a sip of her tea, waiting for him to continue.
“Obviously, it didn’t go away,” Severus cleared his throat. “My point is that you can’t just decide what pieces of you get to stay. But you do get to decide what to do with those pieces.”
“Didn’t your family encourage your magic?” It was an innocent question, but it brought nothing but darkness to his mind.
“No, they did not.”
“But if you had a magical parent, why-”
“Not everyone with magic is happy with their abilities. My mother had hoped for my own sake that I would not be a wizard.”
Granger was quiet for a moment. She sipped her tea. It was clear that there was a question (or several) that were burning in her mind. He was relieved when she did not pry further into his personal life.
“You’re right. I know you are,” she hesitated. “I just…I feel like if I admit that Tactile Empathy is a part of me, then I’m admitting that I’ve changed–that the war changed me.”
“You fear change?”
“No, but sometimes change feels an awful lot like scaring.”
Severus couldn’t help but think about the scars that crisscrossed his neck from where Nagini had nearly ripped out his throat. He knew the witch had physical scars of her own, yet he wondered why it was the Tactile Empathy that wounded her so much.
“You have time to heal,” Severus said quietly. “This doesn’t have to be a bad change.”
Mid January, 1999
It was snowing when Hermione woke. She could hear Ginny in the bathroom, singing along to a pop-song that rang out from Harry’s radio. She smiled to herself as she pulled on a robe and walked downstairs. For months, she had felt guilty for staying at Grimmauld Place for as long as she had. Only recently she had come to accept that Harry and Ginny wanted her there.
The realization had come after Hermione made two dozen chocolate chip cookies. After trying one, Ginny loudly proclaimed that Hermione could never move out of their house. She had simply laughed at her friend’s response, but something about Ginny’s genuineness lingered. She was wanted there.
Ginny’s proclamation wasn’t the only thing that Hermione had been slowly digesting. Even days after her most recent meeting with Snape, his words still hung around her like woodsmoke. You can’t just decide what pieces of you get to stay. But you do get to decide what to do with those pieces. He was right. She couldn’t change the fact that she was different.
Knowing this didn’t exactly lighten the weight on her shoulders, but it gave her more drive. It made her realize she needed to learn how to control her skills.
“Are you actually done at Malfoy Manor?” Hermione asked over coffee.
“Finally, yes,” Harry grinned as he sipped his own drink.
“That must feel good.”
“It does. I won’t miss that bloody library at all.”
She laughed. “Do you know what the Ministry has next for you?”
“No, I’m meeting with Moody today,” Harry said.
“Don’t volunteer yourself for more stuff you don’t actually want to do. You shouldn’t have had to go back to the Manor in the first place.”
Harry shrugged and avoided her eyes. “I’m sure whatever he’s got for me will be better than getting stuck at that bloody house all day.”
She nodded and sipped her coffee. Surely, almost anything would be better than that. She was impressed that Harry had stuck out the assignment until the end. She wasn’t sure if she would have been able to do the same.
“How’s things going with Snape? You’ve got another meeting with him today, right?”
“Yeah, this afternoon. The last time we met was…productive.”
“That’s good. Does he think he can help you stop…what’s happening?”
“There’s no way to stop it,” she admitted. This time it was her who broke eye contact. “But I think I’m finally ready to start practicing. I’ve been afraid but now I feel…better about it all, I guess.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“Well, it’s not like I can keep on ignoring it,” she replied. “I might not view it as a gift but…maybe it doesn’t have to be a curse.”
When Hermione arrived at Snape’s cottage, the sea was calm. The sky wasn’t quite blue, but it was far from the winter rains that were pouring down the last time she was there. It was a pleasant day–at least as pleasant as a winter day on the North Sea could be.
The cottage was alive with signs of life. Smoke rolled out of its chimney and nearly every light appeared to be on inside. Hermione couldn’t help but smile to herself as she approached the door. Despite everything, she had found a strange solace in Snape and his comfortable little house. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that–he’d probably kick her out and reset his wards.
Upon knocking, the door opened almost instantly. However, Snape himself wasn’t standing there. Instead, he was sitting at his potions’ counter against the back wall in deep focus.
“Come in,” he said. “Make yourself tea, if you wish. I’ll be finished shortly.”
Hermione walked into the house and shut the door behind her. While it wasn’t storming (for once) it was far from warm. The hot hearth sent the chill running from her skin as she entered the cottage. She didn’t want to disrupt whatever Snape was working on, so she wandered into his kitchen to make herself tea.
It was an oddly domestic thing–to make tea for oneself in someone’s house. Had it been anyone else, Hermione might not have thought twice. However, it was Snape–professor, spy, Potion Master. She found it strange that she felt so comfortable in his home.
As Hermione placed a kettle on the stove and ignited the flame, she thought about their last encounter. She couldn’t help but begin to wonder about Snape as a person. For so long she had seen him as a cold-hearted professor who enjoyed making his students suffer. However, the more and more she visited, the more and more she was beginning to see the man behind the mask.
Snape was complicated. She knew that much for certain. Hermione knew that he was the ‘half-blood prince’ who had written in the potions textbook that Harry had found during his sixth year. Along with tips, he had composed his own (less-than-friendly) spells. At some point Snape had joined Voldemort and then defected to the Order and became a spy. It was next to impossible for Hermione to figure out why had made him go to the dark to begin with and what had made him come back.
If Snape had been anyone else, Hermione would have asked him.
With two cups of tea, Hermione sat down at her usual spot at the table. She sipped her tea, wishing she had the courage to ask for milk and honey. She glanced at the doorway that led into the main space, where Snape was. Perhaps she had enough time to dig around in search of milk and honey.
She stood and walked to his refrigerator and immediately found a glass jug of milk. With a grin she put it on the counter and moved on to his cupboards in search of honey. After opening several doors, she finally found a half-used jar of wildflower honey.
Hermione turned, feeling wildly successful only to find Snape standing in the doorway with an icy look in his eyes. She wanted to cower under his expression but instead, she raised her chin and said, “I hope you don’t mind if I add a little milk and honey to my tea.”
“Of course not,” sarcasm dripped from his words. “I love when people dig through my kitchen without permission.”
“Sorry, I thought you’d be busy for longer,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to distract you with a question.”
“You’ve been coming to my cottage for months now, why haven’t you asked before?”
Because you frighten me, she wanted to say. “It didn’t cross my mind until now,” she said instead.
Snape didn’t look convinced. However, he took a seat at the table regardless.
After a cup of tea (now with milk and honey added) Hermione reluctantly removed her gloves as Snape had instructed. She hated how naked she felt without them. Somehow her hands had become something that needed to be hidden away.
“The goal,” Snape began. “Is for you to be able to touch someone without immediately falling into their memories and emotions. If Tactile Empathy is anything like Legilimency, you will need to have incredible control over your mind.”
Hermione nodded.
Snape reached out one of his hands across the table. Reluctantly she placed hers on top of his. The moment her fingertips grazed his skin; she felt a wave of nausea. Her vision faded and she was pulled into his mind.
Fear coursed through Hermione as she watched a younger version of Snape walking through the familiar halls of Hogwarts. He couldn’t have been older than fourteen or fifteen, tall and lanky with the same dark hair. Hermione could feel his fear as much as she could feel any of her own emotions (perhaps more so).
She was trying to figure out the source of that fear when she noticed four boys following him down the school hallway. She was shocked to discover who was there. Sirius and Remus were the first she noticed, since she had met them in her real life. The leader of the group looked so similar to Harry it was unnerving and the last was mostly unrecognizable. It took Hermione a moment to realize that it was Peter Pettigrew.
The four boys shared a mischievous look as they tracked down Snape. Hermione felt the fear in her body increase as they gained on him.
The image faded faster than ever before but Hermione was still left feeling on edge. She stared at the man across from her with wide eyes as if she had been the one fearing the Marauders. The fear of a bully was familiar to her. She knew it all too well to ignore the implications.
“How does it begin for you?” If Snape felt anything, he was brilliant at hiding it.
“What?” She felt a bit dizzy.
“I assume there is a visual aspect, yes?”
She nodded.
“How does it begin?”
“I feel nauseous,” she said. “And lightheaded. Then my vision blurs and all I see is your memories.”
“So, you can’t see this kitchen?”
“No.”
“Are you viewing my memories through my eyes or your own?”
“I’m watching it all unfold…like a play.”
“What did you feel?”
“This time? Fear,” she said. “I was afraid of…the others. What did they do to you?” She didn’t like the idea that he had been so afraid of people she considered to be heroes.
“My past is of little concern to our task at hand,” he said simply. Snape had begun to take notes in a leather-bound journal.
Hermione said nothing. Part of her wanted to tell him that she knew how it felt. She knew what it was like to fear another student–to be bullied for things out of her control. However, she had a feeling Snape didn’t want to hear it.
“Have you tried to pull yourself out of a memory?”
“Sometimes, I realize what’s happened and I panic. Only once has that actually resulted in pulling myself out.”
“Next time, when you enter, remember that.” He placed his hand out, palm-up on the table.
“Again?”
“That’s typically how practice works,” he said.
Hermione took a deep breath and let it out slowly before placing her hand on his once again. Nausea hit and her vision blurred.
Hermione felt a combination of irritation and boredom. Snape stood at the front of his Potions class, lecturing about Wolfsbane. Hermione tried to focus on the students, but she didn’t recognize any of them. It was before she had started at Hogwarts.
“Do you have something to add, Miss Tonks?”
Hermione looked over at the purple-haired witch. Tonks was around twelve with a wide-eyed expression as she stared at her professor.
“No sir,” she said quietly.
“Fifty points from Hufflepuff for that interruption.”
“B-but I didn’t do anything,” her hair turned a bright shade of orange.
“Fifty more points.”
Other students groaned. Tonks’ hair faded to a dull blue.
Hermione returned to the present moment only to find Snape looking at her with the same expression he had just shown Tonks.
“You’re not even trying, Granger.”
“Sorry, I…it’s hard. And I don’t really understand how I’m supposed to ‘pull away’.”
“Remember that you are in my memories and not your reality. Let’s try again.”
After getting pulled into Snape’s memories nearly ten times over the course of the afternoon, Hermione was certain of two things.
One: Gaining control of her powers would be no easy feat.
Two: Snape had an incredibly depressing life.
It was the second fact that lingered in her mind as she sat in the living room at Grimmauld Place.
Hermione supposed that she had respected Snape a great deal since finding out that he had secretly been working for the Order. However, respect was about as much as she had been willing to offer him. Upon seeing the tiniest snippets of his childhood and adult years, she was beginning to understand why he chose to live in a cottage at the edge of the world.