Pensieves
JKR gave us a marvelous gift when she introduced us to the Pensieve. Our SSHG authors have certainly taken the concept and run with it! Join us as we view all sorts of interesting memories.
Want to give Hermione a run for her money in the know-it-all field? Simply play the quiz by commenting on this post with your answers at any time over the weekend. All comments with answers will be screened until the answer sheet is posted on Monday morning EDT. On Monday, all quizzlings with the correct answers will receive a pretty banner to prove their quiz prowess. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the story titles without picking the red herring titles:
Losing Myself by Dryad
The Amber Effect by wandlimb
Forget Or Not Remember by whynoy
Of Troubled Minds and Stolen Pensieves by Canimal
A Destiny Fulfilled by pearle9240
And Then Rose the Phoenix by karelia
Atlantis is Sinking by grinnifer
Rented Memories by Jinxie4
Beyond All Doubt by dolefully desired
Confluence of Truths by Liasis
We Don’t Say Goodbye by Lorraine Bluestar
Tree of Life by shefa
1. Hermione stared fixedly into the swirling mist of the Pensieve. What would it be like in there?
She glanced over at the unconscious wizard on the bed - the man she loved. A man who had made an unfortunate choice in his youth, experienced unspeakable atrocities because of it, and was now attempting to atone for that mistake by risking his life regularly for the side of light.
What would it be like see life through the eyes of Severus Snape?
Dumbledore stood beside her, the ancient book he brought from his estate open on the table before them. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Before going in, there’s something else you should know about the effects of the Attineo Effigia spell. What I have to say might change your mind.”
Hermione took a deep breath. “Headmaster, what could possibly be more intimidating than standing here anticipating a Death Eater’s memories?”
The old wizard sighed. “Living through them would be worse, don’t you think?”
“Of course it would,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how he did it.”
Dumbledore shook his head. “You miss my meaning, my dear. Allow me to begin again. What I believe is contained in this Pensieve are memories that predate Severus’s worst experiences in the service of Tom Riddle. This is very fortunate. Because when you enter his world, you will not merely be witnessing them.”
Hermione stared at him. “What are you saying?”
2. “Miss Granger.” Professor McGonagall seemed to be restraining herself from waving an inquisitive and slightly mocking hand in front of my face. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I was still incredibly floored by the Wizengamot’s request, but they had no reason to doubt my loyalties: I’d come out of the final confrontation with a broken leg, two broken ribs, and plenty of my own scars to vouch for my dedication.
“They feel,” she continued, “that you are the most mature and promising of the… younger people involved… and are therefore ideally suited to their need.” She folded her arms primly in front of her and looked me squarely in the eyes, her gaze grave. “Miss Granger, you need to be aware of the totality of what they require of you. You will sort through Professor Snape’s memories-each and every one of them, regardless how… unpleasant-and you will report back to them your objective opinion of what they contain. It is the council’s hope that if Professor Snape did ultimately undermine the Headmaster’s wishes and declare his loyalty to Voldemort, it will be contained within that vessel. They cannot justify convicting him on a bad reputation and public opinion alone, though I suspect they desperately want to do just that.
“You cannot simply pass the memories onto them via your own Pensieve. Professor Snape was… exceedingly thorough in his precautions. Though the wards placed on the object will not permanently harm you, as you have not yet finished your schooling and your magic does not have the signature of an adult witch, you will still be unable to remove any of them. Thus you cannot give up halfway through.” She stared at me, awaiting a response. “And you have less than two weeks before the beginning of the school term.”
I squared my shoulders and rose, trying to convince myself that I could handle seeing firsthand the unsavory side of a man whom I had lately preferred not to dwell upon. “All right,” I said reluctantly, and I could see the relief flash in her eyes. “Where is the Pensieve? Would you like me to start right away?”
She nodded curtly.
3. "Forget it, Muirgen," he sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "There is really no reason why you would be in here, so I will not listen to your excuse. Please just go back up to your room quietly so you do not disturb your grandmother."
He turned to leave towards the door. Muirgen thrust a tiny box she had been holding onto a bookcase beside her. The sound of it hitting the solid wood case stopped Severus is in his tracks. Abruptly he turned back around to face his granddaughter. His sharp hearing had not missed her attempt to conceal her real reason for being in his study in the middle of the night. With almost cat-like grace, he was at her side without a moment's thought. Muirgen's hand had hardly left the box when he reached out and grabbed her wrist.
"Grandfather…" she stammered.
He saw what it was she had been trying to hide… his pensieve. Years ago when he had caught Harry Potter inside his pensieve during an Occulmency lesson he swore never to let another break into his again. He had a small wooden box constructed to hold the pensieve and it always had an intricate locking spell on it. To be able to break into the box was virtually impossible.
Muirgen had a startled look on her face as he reached past her with his free hand to pick up his pensieve box. The lock had been picked by magical means. There were very few wizards capable of breaking through any of Severus Snape's defenses. He sighed as he took one more look at his granddaughter. Muirgen Snape had been in trouble from the day she was born. She had stumbled into his private stores of potion ingredients at the tender age of four. It had taken her no time once she returned from her first year at Hogwarts to break into every locked room and cupboard in the entire Snape manor. Muggle or magical did not matter to her. She could pick all those locks. Now that she had just finished her fifth year she was into almost everything.
"What are you doing with this?" he demanded a little louder than he had anticipated.
"I… I…"
"For a girl who usually had more than enough to say and perhaps too much, you certainly are having a hard time putting sentences together. You are of the age now that you understand that what one wishes to keep private should be left private!"
"I know… it's just that…"
4. School subjects became less important as I went on a quest to learn everything I could about the magical possibilities of leaving behind specific knowledge before dying. This was entirely new territory for me; I was only familiar with Muggles leaving a will which determined to whom their belongings went after passing on, but I'd never heard of anyone leaving behind specific information in a will. Wizarding families, however, tended to do exactly that. Wizards and witches were more likely to leave behind knowledge of lost spells or charms to their offspring rather than material values. Many recorded cases also involved memory vials placed in a person's Gringotts vault. Some records dealt with a proof of guilt or innocence by using an established Legilimens, similar to Muggle notaries. The Legilimens would look into the mind of the person in question, then record their findings on parchment, which was typically stored in a Gringotts vault or left with someone trusted. It occurred to me that Professor Dumbledore might have used his Pensieve to leave proof of Snape's lack of guilt behind, so I learned all I could about Pensieves. By the time the winter holidays arrived, I'd managed to build one of my own.
I realised quite early in the year that I was unlikely to have a chance to gain entry into the late Headmaster's Pensieve. McGonagall had cooled considerably towards me ever since I had dared to question Snape's guilt.
The Restricted Section of the library became my favourite place. An obscure, ancient text described a Pensieve charmed for the purpose of extracting memories from other Pensieves in the vicinity that might provide me with the truth about Snape. The charms required involved intricate and extensive wand movements as well as Latin incantations, all far beyond my seven-year Hogwarts studies.
5. Hermione saw someone moving in the shadows to her right, past the bed. She stood up, trying to make out who it was, before Severus Snape in his adult form materialized out of the darkness. She stared at him, watching him stare back, before she realized with a jolt to her stomach that the scenery hadn't changed. His adolescent self was still sitting on the bed, sniffling, and Hermione's head snapped back to the Severus which had just appeared, her face blanching and then turning a bright red. She had been caught.
"Time to go, Miss Granger," he snarled, grabbing her elbow and jerking her upwards. Her stomach turned as she was pulled up and out of the Pensieve, landing back into her feet, which she realized hurt painfully from how long she had been standing there on the hard flagstones. Severus Snape's face was whiter than she'd ever seen it, and his voice seethed with so much anger he had difficulty controlling it. "What could possibly possess you to go through my private cabinets, you stupid girl! How dare you touch what isn't yours? Do you not know that a student isn't allowed into a teacher's office without permission?" She made to open her mouth, but shut it promptly, trembling harder than she could ever remember trembling. "Of course you do, but you decided to take special liberties with me and my things, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?" he bellowed, swooping down closer and standing over her, his face slightly flushed but hard as stone, his black eyes penetrating hers, and she knew that he could instantly see everything that she had seen.
She turned away, dry sobs racking her body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she choked, sorry about looking through his memories, sorry for everything they had contained, sorry that he hadn't told her about his past earlier, and sorry most of all that she had never cared to ask what it was that had turned his heart into stone….
"Out… Get OUT!" he yelled, pointing towards the door. He watched, fuming, as she tearfully grabbed her bag and open book, running out of his office to escape his wrath and leaving him alone. His head was bent over the Pensieve, staring blankly into its depths before sighing deeply, sadly, picking it up and putting it back into the cupboard, locking it with his wand as his hands still shook with anger.
6. They made their way towards the figure carved into the rock, the energy flow growing more focused, sharper, as they approached. At the bottom of the hill, they sat, as if at the feet of the giant.
“Will you read the account again?” Snape murmured, loath to shatter the aura that cloaked the hillside.
Hermione retrieved the oft-read parchment from her bag. It wasn’t much, he thought, but the sparse report was all they had to start with. But as the page unrolled, it began to shake. If paper were sentient, he realised, he would have believed it excited to be unfurling in the open air of this place. Black ink rose from the page in a swirl, a chain of letters, words taking new shape, until a shallow bowl lay motionless on the grass between them. The runes etched along its border and the mists churning in the basin were achingly familiar.
“A Pensieve,” she gasped.
“Not of a sort I’ve ever encountered,” he muttered. But visual and magical examination of the bowl revealed it to be just as it seemed: A Pensieve basin for display of one specific memory. A rarity.
“How do we activate it?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” he replied.
As if this were permission to charge forward like an unwary Erumpent, she reached for it--impulsive, reckless, Gryffindor...-- and he leaned forward to grasp it as well--who knows what traps could still be lurking there...steadying the bowl while keeping a sharp eye on her for evidence of cloaked jinxes or curses.
He so hated when she was right.
Their touch set the mist to purposeful motion, and the misty figure of a man rose from the vapour.
An elderly wizard, walking stick in hand, stands at the edge of the giant. He doesn’t speak at all, only walks around the site, periodically crouching to bring his hands into contact with the soil.
7. If you are reading this, then you must be hurting. If I could I would take it away, but it is beyond my ability. I did think of something to help you though. Go to my personal ingredient cupboard, and use the spell, occultus armarium*. A door in the back will disappear and you will find my pensieve.
I use this often, especially when I have to meet with the Dark Lord. You, only you, have managed to make me feel. I knew I couldn’t hide that from him; so my memories of you I would store in here. If he knew of my feelings for you, you would have been in great danger, as would have I. I did what I had to in order to protect you. I wish it could have been more.
Perhaps you don’t want to know how your old professor lusted over you silently, how he watched over you with pride in your accomplishments. But if you truly did feel for me, then relive these memories for me, with me. And know that I loved you then, I love you now, and I will love always.
8. She was sure that she was mad, but she felt so good when they were together, as if no one could ever understand her mind and the way it worked as he did. He too had that thirst for knowledge so well known to her. She had developed feelings for him, although she knew that was crazy. He had always kept a distance between them. She was sure she was nothing to him but an ex-student and a colleague; there was no chance that he felt the same way.
It took some time before she regained control over her emotions. She wiped away her tears, wondering whether she should go to the dungeons, where his private chambers were. He didn’t have anyone in the world, and someone had to sort through his things. The moment she entered his chambers a cold chill ran through her; he had been there just two nights before. Hermione walked toward his bookshelves. She had always admired and envied his vast book collection. She knew how proud he was of it. She opened his wardrobe and pulled one of his black robes to her. It still smelled like him: that unmistakeable essence of ingredients used in potions brewing. She dropped the robe as she noticed a silvery light coming from a stone basin in the bottom of the wardrobe. It was a Pensieve, and in its interior a silvery white substance, like liquid glass, swirled. She couldn’t help wondering about its content, and took the basin over to a nearby table.
She bent closer to watch and she gasped when she saw her own image…
9. Hesitantly, she took a small step in his direction. "Professor?"
She couldn't understand why he hadn't turned around and bellowed at her for intruding, as she expected him to. He surely must have heard her calling him.
Hermione walked all the way up to his desk, until she was standing directly behind Snape.
"Sir?" she called once more and this time, she reached out and tentatively touched his shoulder.
But as soon as her fingertips came in contact with the fabric of his robes, she felt the floor lurch beneath her feet, while the office swam in front of her eyes and rapidly metamorphosed into a completely different scenario.
Hermione was now standing on a suburban Muggle street, between two lines of identical semi-detached houses. What place was this? How had she got there? It couldn't have been by Portkey, she knew the feeling of traveling that way and it was nothing like what she had just experienced.
A sudden blast at her back resembling a gas explosion made her wheel round. One of the houses had spontaneously burst into flames. Its inhabitants were screaming desperately, trapped inside the fire. Hermione wanted to help them, to do something, but when she reached for her wand she realised with shock that she wasn't corporeal. What the… wait a minute. Could it be… a Pensieve? She had read about them, but… how was it possible? Was she really inside someone else's memory?
10. "There now," Severus asked solicitously as the memories faded and they were again alone on the green tinted tower. "Was that all you had wanted to see?"
Severus was pleased to see the witch jump slightly at the sound of his voice. She looked at him, and he could tell that she was struggling with herself, fear and disgust trembling in her voice as she replied, "No. No, I'd... I'd like to see it again."
She licked her lips nervously and looked him in the eye, her brave Gryffindor nature rising to the surface.
Severus stepped forward, the polite smile upon his face looking more like the grin of a corpse, and his teeth looking more sharp and jagged than crooked. "You would 'like to see it again?' My, my, perhaps you have changed even more than I had first thought. Aren't you the morbid little bitch-"
"This time," Hermione said, defiantly squaring her shoulders as she raised the wand again, "Please don't change the memory. It'll not do either of us any good to receive an incomplete or inferior memory."
Severus bared his jagged teeth at her before mastering himself. He would be damned before he would lose control of himself in front of her, never mind that the ignorant little cunt was demanding that he relieve the crime that would see him hang in less than two day's time. He groaned inwardly.
Outwardly, Severus rubbed his hand across his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Granger was still staring at him, wand raised, waiting. He let loose a breath and calmly told her, "That is the memory of what happened. Take it or leave it, Granger; I've nothing else."
"The memory jittered, Severus; it had been altered." The stubborn girl shook her head and gestured with the wand. "Give the memory to me again, Severus. You've nothing to lose do you?"
No, there wasn't anything for him to lose, was there? The grim thought clung to him even as she pulled the strand of memories from him a second time.
Want to give Hermione a run for her money in the know-it-all field? Simply play the quiz by commenting on this post with your answers at any time over the weekend. All comments with answers will be screened until the answer sheet is posted on Monday morning EDT. On Monday, all quizzlings with the correct answers will receive a pretty banner to prove their quiz prowess. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the story titles without picking the red herring titles:
Losing Myself by Dryad
The Amber Effect by wandlimb
Forget Or Not Remember by whynoy
Of Troubled Minds and Stolen Pensieves by Canimal
A Destiny Fulfilled by pearle9240
And Then Rose the Phoenix by karelia
Atlantis is Sinking by grinnifer
Rented Memories by Jinxie4
Beyond All Doubt by dolefully desired
Confluence of Truths by Liasis
We Don’t Say Goodbye by Lorraine Bluestar
Tree of Life by shefa
1. Hermione stared fixedly into the swirling mist of the Pensieve. What would it be like in there?
She glanced over at the unconscious wizard on the bed - the man she loved. A man who had made an unfortunate choice in his youth, experienced unspeakable atrocities because of it, and was now attempting to atone for that mistake by risking his life regularly for the side of light.
What would it be like see life through the eyes of Severus Snape?
Dumbledore stood beside her, the ancient book he brought from his estate open on the table before them. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Before going in, there’s something else you should know about the effects of the Attineo Effigia spell. What I have to say might change your mind.”
Hermione took a deep breath. “Headmaster, what could possibly be more intimidating than standing here anticipating a Death Eater’s memories?”
The old wizard sighed. “Living through them would be worse, don’t you think?”
“Of course it would,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how he did it.”
Dumbledore shook his head. “You miss my meaning, my dear. Allow me to begin again. What I believe is contained in this Pensieve are memories that predate Severus’s worst experiences in the service of Tom Riddle. This is very fortunate. Because when you enter his world, you will not merely be witnessing them.”
Hermione stared at him. “What are you saying?”
2. “Miss Granger.” Professor McGonagall seemed to be restraining herself from waving an inquisitive and slightly mocking hand in front of my face. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I was still incredibly floored by the Wizengamot’s request, but they had no reason to doubt my loyalties: I’d come out of the final confrontation with a broken leg, two broken ribs, and plenty of my own scars to vouch for my dedication.
“They feel,” she continued, “that you are the most mature and promising of the… younger people involved… and are therefore ideally suited to their need.” She folded her arms primly in front of her and looked me squarely in the eyes, her gaze grave. “Miss Granger, you need to be aware of the totality of what they require of you. You will sort through Professor Snape’s memories-each and every one of them, regardless how… unpleasant-and you will report back to them your objective opinion of what they contain. It is the council’s hope that if Professor Snape did ultimately undermine the Headmaster’s wishes and declare his loyalty to Voldemort, it will be contained within that vessel. They cannot justify convicting him on a bad reputation and public opinion alone, though I suspect they desperately want to do just that.
“You cannot simply pass the memories onto them via your own Pensieve. Professor Snape was… exceedingly thorough in his precautions. Though the wards placed on the object will not permanently harm you, as you have not yet finished your schooling and your magic does not have the signature of an adult witch, you will still be unable to remove any of them. Thus you cannot give up halfway through.” She stared at me, awaiting a response. “And you have less than two weeks before the beginning of the school term.”
I squared my shoulders and rose, trying to convince myself that I could handle seeing firsthand the unsavory side of a man whom I had lately preferred not to dwell upon. “All right,” I said reluctantly, and I could see the relief flash in her eyes. “Where is the Pensieve? Would you like me to start right away?”
She nodded curtly.
3. "Forget it, Muirgen," he sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "There is really no reason why you would be in here, so I will not listen to your excuse. Please just go back up to your room quietly so you do not disturb your grandmother."
He turned to leave towards the door. Muirgen thrust a tiny box she had been holding onto a bookcase beside her. The sound of it hitting the solid wood case stopped Severus is in his tracks. Abruptly he turned back around to face his granddaughter. His sharp hearing had not missed her attempt to conceal her real reason for being in his study in the middle of the night. With almost cat-like grace, he was at her side without a moment's thought. Muirgen's hand had hardly left the box when he reached out and grabbed her wrist.
"Grandfather…" she stammered.
He saw what it was she had been trying to hide… his pensieve. Years ago when he had caught Harry Potter inside his pensieve during an Occulmency lesson he swore never to let another break into his again. He had a small wooden box constructed to hold the pensieve and it always had an intricate locking spell on it. To be able to break into the box was virtually impossible.
Muirgen had a startled look on her face as he reached past her with his free hand to pick up his pensieve box. The lock had been picked by magical means. There were very few wizards capable of breaking through any of Severus Snape's defenses. He sighed as he took one more look at his granddaughter. Muirgen Snape had been in trouble from the day she was born. She had stumbled into his private stores of potion ingredients at the tender age of four. It had taken her no time once she returned from her first year at Hogwarts to break into every locked room and cupboard in the entire Snape manor. Muggle or magical did not matter to her. She could pick all those locks. Now that she had just finished her fifth year she was into almost everything.
"What are you doing with this?" he demanded a little louder than he had anticipated.
"I… I…"
"For a girl who usually had more than enough to say and perhaps too much, you certainly are having a hard time putting sentences together. You are of the age now that you understand that what one wishes to keep private should be left private!"
"I know… it's just that…"
4. School subjects became less important as I went on a quest to learn everything I could about the magical possibilities of leaving behind specific knowledge before dying. This was entirely new territory for me; I was only familiar with Muggles leaving a will which determined to whom their belongings went after passing on, but I'd never heard of anyone leaving behind specific information in a will. Wizarding families, however, tended to do exactly that. Wizards and witches were more likely to leave behind knowledge of lost spells or charms to their offspring rather than material values. Many recorded cases also involved memory vials placed in a person's Gringotts vault. Some records dealt with a proof of guilt or innocence by using an established Legilimens, similar to Muggle notaries. The Legilimens would look into the mind of the person in question, then record their findings on parchment, which was typically stored in a Gringotts vault or left with someone trusted. It occurred to me that Professor Dumbledore might have used his Pensieve to leave proof of Snape's lack of guilt behind, so I learned all I could about Pensieves. By the time the winter holidays arrived, I'd managed to build one of my own.
I realised quite early in the year that I was unlikely to have a chance to gain entry into the late Headmaster's Pensieve. McGonagall had cooled considerably towards me ever since I had dared to question Snape's guilt.
The Restricted Section of the library became my favourite place. An obscure, ancient text described a Pensieve charmed for the purpose of extracting memories from other Pensieves in the vicinity that might provide me with the truth about Snape. The charms required involved intricate and extensive wand movements as well as Latin incantations, all far beyond my seven-year Hogwarts studies.
5. Hermione saw someone moving in the shadows to her right, past the bed. She stood up, trying to make out who it was, before Severus Snape in his adult form materialized out of the darkness. She stared at him, watching him stare back, before she realized with a jolt to her stomach that the scenery hadn't changed. His adolescent self was still sitting on the bed, sniffling, and Hermione's head snapped back to the Severus which had just appeared, her face blanching and then turning a bright red. She had been caught.
"Time to go, Miss Granger," he snarled, grabbing her elbow and jerking her upwards. Her stomach turned as she was pulled up and out of the Pensieve, landing back into her feet, which she realized hurt painfully from how long she had been standing there on the hard flagstones. Severus Snape's face was whiter than she'd ever seen it, and his voice seethed with so much anger he had difficulty controlling it. "What could possibly possess you to go through my private cabinets, you stupid girl! How dare you touch what isn't yours? Do you not know that a student isn't allowed into a teacher's office without permission?" She made to open her mouth, but shut it promptly, trembling harder than she could ever remember trembling. "Of course you do, but you decided to take special liberties with me and my things, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?" he bellowed, swooping down closer and standing over her, his face slightly flushed but hard as stone, his black eyes penetrating hers, and she knew that he could instantly see everything that she had seen.
She turned away, dry sobs racking her body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she choked, sorry about looking through his memories, sorry for everything they had contained, sorry that he hadn't told her about his past earlier, and sorry most of all that she had never cared to ask what it was that had turned his heart into stone….
"Out… Get OUT!" he yelled, pointing towards the door. He watched, fuming, as she tearfully grabbed her bag and open book, running out of his office to escape his wrath and leaving him alone. His head was bent over the Pensieve, staring blankly into its depths before sighing deeply, sadly, picking it up and putting it back into the cupboard, locking it with his wand as his hands still shook with anger.
6. They made their way towards the figure carved into the rock, the energy flow growing more focused, sharper, as they approached. At the bottom of the hill, they sat, as if at the feet of the giant.
“Will you read the account again?” Snape murmured, loath to shatter the aura that cloaked the hillside.
Hermione retrieved the oft-read parchment from her bag. It wasn’t much, he thought, but the sparse report was all they had to start with. But as the page unrolled, it began to shake. If paper were sentient, he realised, he would have believed it excited to be unfurling in the open air of this place. Black ink rose from the page in a swirl, a chain of letters, words taking new shape, until a shallow bowl lay motionless on the grass between them. The runes etched along its border and the mists churning in the basin were achingly familiar.
“A Pensieve,” she gasped.
“Not of a sort I’ve ever encountered,” he muttered. But visual and magical examination of the bowl revealed it to be just as it seemed: A Pensieve basin for display of one specific memory. A rarity.
“How do we activate it?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” he replied.
As if this were permission to charge forward like an unwary Erumpent, she reached for it--impulsive, reckless, Gryffindor...-- and he leaned forward to grasp it as well--who knows what traps could still be lurking there...steadying the bowl while keeping a sharp eye on her for evidence of cloaked jinxes or curses.
He so hated when she was right.
Their touch set the mist to purposeful motion, and the misty figure of a man rose from the vapour.
An elderly wizard, walking stick in hand, stands at the edge of the giant. He doesn’t speak at all, only walks around the site, periodically crouching to bring his hands into contact with the soil.
7. If you are reading this, then you must be hurting. If I could I would take it away, but it is beyond my ability. I did think of something to help you though. Go to my personal ingredient cupboard, and use the spell, occultus armarium*. A door in the back will disappear and you will find my pensieve.
I use this often, especially when I have to meet with the Dark Lord. You, only you, have managed to make me feel. I knew I couldn’t hide that from him; so my memories of you I would store in here. If he knew of my feelings for you, you would have been in great danger, as would have I. I did what I had to in order to protect you. I wish it could have been more.
Perhaps you don’t want to know how your old professor lusted over you silently, how he watched over you with pride in your accomplishments. But if you truly did feel for me, then relive these memories for me, with me. And know that I loved you then, I love you now, and I will love always.
8. She was sure that she was mad, but she felt so good when they were together, as if no one could ever understand her mind and the way it worked as he did. He too had that thirst for knowledge so well known to her. She had developed feelings for him, although she knew that was crazy. He had always kept a distance between them. She was sure she was nothing to him but an ex-student and a colleague; there was no chance that he felt the same way.
It took some time before she regained control over her emotions. She wiped away her tears, wondering whether she should go to the dungeons, where his private chambers were. He didn’t have anyone in the world, and someone had to sort through his things. The moment she entered his chambers a cold chill ran through her; he had been there just two nights before. Hermione walked toward his bookshelves. She had always admired and envied his vast book collection. She knew how proud he was of it. She opened his wardrobe and pulled one of his black robes to her. It still smelled like him: that unmistakeable essence of ingredients used in potions brewing. She dropped the robe as she noticed a silvery light coming from a stone basin in the bottom of the wardrobe. It was a Pensieve, and in its interior a silvery white substance, like liquid glass, swirled. She couldn’t help wondering about its content, and took the basin over to a nearby table.
She bent closer to watch and she gasped when she saw her own image…
9. Hesitantly, she took a small step in his direction. "Professor?"
She couldn't understand why he hadn't turned around and bellowed at her for intruding, as she expected him to. He surely must have heard her calling him.
Hermione walked all the way up to his desk, until she was standing directly behind Snape.
"Sir?" she called once more and this time, she reached out and tentatively touched his shoulder.
But as soon as her fingertips came in contact with the fabric of his robes, she felt the floor lurch beneath her feet, while the office swam in front of her eyes and rapidly metamorphosed into a completely different scenario.
Hermione was now standing on a suburban Muggle street, between two lines of identical semi-detached houses. What place was this? How had she got there? It couldn't have been by Portkey, she knew the feeling of traveling that way and it was nothing like what she had just experienced.
A sudden blast at her back resembling a gas explosion made her wheel round. One of the houses had spontaneously burst into flames. Its inhabitants were screaming desperately, trapped inside the fire. Hermione wanted to help them, to do something, but when she reached for her wand she realised with shock that she wasn't corporeal. What the… wait a minute. Could it be… a Pensieve? She had read about them, but… how was it possible? Was she really inside someone else's memory?
10. "There now," Severus asked solicitously as the memories faded and they were again alone on the green tinted tower. "Was that all you had wanted to see?"
Severus was pleased to see the witch jump slightly at the sound of his voice. She looked at him, and he could tell that she was struggling with herself, fear and disgust trembling in her voice as she replied, "No. No, I'd... I'd like to see it again."
She licked her lips nervously and looked him in the eye, her brave Gryffindor nature rising to the surface.
Severus stepped forward, the polite smile upon his face looking more like the grin of a corpse, and his teeth looking more sharp and jagged than crooked. "You would 'like to see it again?' My, my, perhaps you have changed even more than I had first thought. Aren't you the morbid little bitch-"
"This time," Hermione said, defiantly squaring her shoulders as she raised the wand again, "Please don't change the memory. It'll not do either of us any good to receive an incomplete or inferior memory."
Severus bared his jagged teeth at her before mastering himself. He would be damned before he would lose control of himself in front of her, never mind that the ignorant little cunt was demanding that he relieve the crime that would see him hang in less than two day's time. He groaned inwardly.
Outwardly, Severus rubbed his hand across his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Granger was still staring at him, wand raised, waiting. He let loose a breath and calmly told her, "That is the memory of what happened. Take it or leave it, Granger; I've nothing else."
"The memory jittered, Severus; it had been altered." The stubborn girl shook her head and gestured with the wand. "Give the memory to me again, Severus. You've nothing to lose do you?"
No, there wasn't anything for him to lose, was there? The grim thought clung to him even as she pulled the strand of memories from him a second time.