Regrets (4/4)
Title: Regrets
Team Name: The Order
Word Count:4 x 100 (400)
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Fight Challenge
Characters: Hermione, Severus
Summary: Severus ponders what went wrong.
Authors Notes: First post here, and so very far away from my usual fare... I hope I've done everything right.
If anyone had bothered to ask, Severus would have been perfectly willing to admit his most glaring mistakes-and some of the more obscure ones. He lamented most of them.
Cataloguing failures was slightly more interesting than the wall of his cell in Azkaban, and one of the few things that the presence of Dementors allowed him to contemplate.
So he did.
There was a shorter, more depressing, list of things that he had managed successfully: following orders, leaving behind enough evidence to vindicate himself, and feigning death.
He had never expected his chief regret-the most condemning one-to be Hermione Granger.
*
It wasn’t that he had made a habit out of seducing students, but he considered himself a dead man anyway-might as well enjoy himself before the opportunity was barred to him. And she was there, staring at him with wide-eyed pity that infuriated him and intrigued him all at once.
So, against his better judgment, he had kissed her, and it had led to other things, and some awkward fumbling and four hours later she was slipping from his chambers, blushing and finger-combing her hair.
At the least, it would teach her not to turn him into a charity case.
*
“Do you love me?” she had asked three months later, pulling the blanket around her shoulders as she spoke.
In the dim light, it was difficult to see how young she was and easy to avoid her piercing eyes. He puzzled over how to answer for a moment-there was contentment mingled with the sense of guilt that he only carried because it seemed the right thing to do, and he certainly wasn’t indifferent to her. How to define it, though, was uncertain.
In the end he didn’t want to hurt her, so he said yes, although it was a lie.
*
A lie that had placed him Azkaban. Not directly, of course, but Hermione had strange Muggle ideas that involved love conquering death-and the absence of a body had been a small flaw in his overall plan, but he had been counting on nobody noticing. That was one of the last mistakes on his list, right before expecting her to understand his lie.
Acquitted for the murder of Albus Dumbledore, but charged for the sexual assault of a student.
Now that student stared through the bars, arms crossed and a smile playing across her lips.
“Do you miss me?”
He shivered.
Team Name: The Order
Word Count:4 x 100 (400)
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Fight Challenge
Characters: Hermione, Severus
Summary: Severus ponders what went wrong.
Authors Notes: First post here, and so very far away from my usual fare... I hope I've done everything right.
If anyone had bothered to ask, Severus would have been perfectly willing to admit his most glaring mistakes-and some of the more obscure ones. He lamented most of them.
Cataloguing failures was slightly more interesting than the wall of his cell in Azkaban, and one of the few things that the presence of Dementors allowed him to contemplate.
So he did.
There was a shorter, more depressing, list of things that he had managed successfully: following orders, leaving behind enough evidence to vindicate himself, and feigning death.
He had never expected his chief regret-the most condemning one-to be Hermione Granger.
*
It wasn’t that he had made a habit out of seducing students, but he considered himself a dead man anyway-might as well enjoy himself before the opportunity was barred to him. And she was there, staring at him with wide-eyed pity that infuriated him and intrigued him all at once.
So, against his better judgment, he had kissed her, and it had led to other things, and some awkward fumbling and four hours later she was slipping from his chambers, blushing and finger-combing her hair.
At the least, it would teach her not to turn him into a charity case.
*
“Do you love me?” she had asked three months later, pulling the blanket around her shoulders as she spoke.
In the dim light, it was difficult to see how young she was and easy to avoid her piercing eyes. He puzzled over how to answer for a moment-there was contentment mingled with the sense of guilt that he only carried because it seemed the right thing to do, and he certainly wasn’t indifferent to her. How to define it, though, was uncertain.
In the end he didn’t want to hurt her, so he said yes, although it was a lie.
*
A lie that had placed him Azkaban. Not directly, of course, but Hermione had strange Muggle ideas that involved love conquering death-and the absence of a body had been a small flaw in his overall plan, but he had been counting on nobody noticing. That was one of the last mistakes on his list, right before expecting her to understand his lie.
Acquitted for the murder of Albus Dumbledore, but charged for the sexual assault of a student.
Now that student stared through the bars, arms crossed and a smile playing across her lips.
“Do you miss me?”
He shivered.