Work Text:
He opens the door with his wand up, which is to be expected, but Hermione isn’t having any of it.
“Put that wand away, Severus Snape. I have no intention of tattling on you to the Ministry, but if you don’t let me in right now I may have to take matters into my own hands.” Her voice wobbles a little at the last, and she’ll never know if it’s that or her own raised wand that startles him into gliding backward and opening the door. “Good,” she says, stepping into the cramped front hallway, almost toe to toe with him. “Put the kettle on, please. We have a lot to discuss.”
To Snape’s credit, he simply turns and walks further in. “Very well, Miss Granger,” he says quietly. “Follow me.”
It’s a surprise to her; she’s been imagining this moment for so long she can barely believe that it’s real, now. Years since she fled, heart in her throat, back to the Shack to find him. Years since they incinerated what they found, eulogized him in word and stone. She was the only one who believed it wasn't him there. She was the only one, and she was right, and now she has no plan and quickly faltering resolve, but she got herself into this mess.
There’s light in his kitchen—another unexpected gift. Light and plants, stretching out to see the English sun, and a workbench under a window. He waves his wand at the kettle and the cupboards, as adept at wordless magic as ever, and gestures for her to sit. “I hope you’ll forgive my keeping you here in the kitchen, Miss Granger. I have some work brewing, and besides—I’m hardly certain it's a good idea to let you paw through the rest of my home.”
She sits as requested, accepts the cup and saucer he offers, and tugs a handkerchief out of her breast pocket, clutching it tightly. “I’m sorry for barging in, Severus. I simply—” She breaks off to raise the handkerchief to her eyes, where furiously relieved tears are threatening to fall. “I was the only one who thought you might be alive, you see. You covered your tracks so well. Nearly flawless.”
He can’t help himself—he arches a brow, just as he would have in the classroom, and frowns down his formidable nose at her. “Nearly, you say?”
Hermione flushes guiltily and half-shrugs, nodding. “Well, I’m not—I don’t know if—the fact is, there was something missing from the simulacrum, you see. It’s how I knew it was a simulacrum at all, not your flesh and blood.”
“It was, in fact, my flesh and blood,” he points out dryly. “But what did I miss? Now that you’re here, I imagine it will be a devil of a time trying to run you out, so go on and show off.”
She gestures to the back of her neck, and her flush deepens. “On your neck, you see. Just here, there’s a birthmark. You may very well have never seen it, given the angle—it wasn’t on the body. No-one believed me, of course. Mad Hermione Granger, desperate for you to have a happy ending.” She casts her eyes back down at her tea, as it’s something to focus on other than the inscrutable look on his face. When she looks back up, he’s gone from the opposite side of the counter.
It takes everything in her not to crumble into her tea like a digestive before she sees him in her periphery, stirring something on the far workbench. When he turns back towards her, he’s carrying a small pewter cup, filled with something that wafts steam as he walks. “Here, Miss Granger. Try this, would you? It’s not a Calming Draught—I’m not trying to faff off your emotions.”
She smells it beforehand, a habit impossible to break, and when she looks up to his face he’s actually smiling a little, not smirking or sneering. It’s tea, or tea adjacent, full of lavender and lemongrass, and it smells and tastes heavenly—much better than the PG Tips he hastily brewed on her arrival. There’s honey, and a faint trace of something magical she can’t quite place, to her shame. “Moonstone?” she finally asks. “Is that what I’ve tasted?”
He inclines his head gently. “Very good, Miss Granger. I’m almost tempted to give you House points, although I’m out of practice.”
She takes another sip of the tea, letting the heat and the herbs relax some of the anxiety carried in her shoulders. “You’re taking this very well, sir. Far better than I am, it seems, although I can’t imagine why. If I’d tried to hide for years from the rest of the Wizarding world, only to be disturbed by the know-it-all chit, I’d be furious.”
“And you think so little of yourself, even now? After solving the mystery none of your companions knew existed?” Snape tsks under his breath. “You declared as soon as you arrived on my doorstep that you didn’t plan on—what was the phrase?—‘tattling’ on me to the Ministry, and you’ve accepted not one, but two drinks from my hand with only the most cursory of inspections. It seems I have as only as little or as much to fear from you as you have from me.”
Hermione takes in a sharp breath, then exhales it slowly, eyes closed. “Thank you, sir,” she finally says. “For indulging my curiosity, and my stubbornness. I am—relieved to see you are hale and whole, and it comforts me more than I can say.”
Snape, to her surprise, places a warm hand on her shoulder. “I’m relieved to be hale and whole as well, Miss Granger. Will you stay for supper?”
She never suspected this version of Snape existed, buried under the man he had to be. This Snape who is relaxed, even kind, able to smile and make a joke even on this, a day she thought would be a trial from start to finish. But his hand is still on her shoulder and the look in his eyes is still unconcerned, and it's been so long since anyone looked at Hermione with anything like openness. She nods dumbly and sips more of the tea, trying vainly to let it do its work. She still feels so unmoored. Snape turns away from her, towards the crisper and the cooker, deftly balancing a handful of ingredients while she sits.
“You were right, Miss Granger,” he says over his shoulder. “I didn't know there was a mistake in the simulacrum—I believed I’d gotten away clean, as the saying goes.” Hermione puts down the now empty pewter cup and turns towards him on the kitchen stool. “It was all I wanted, you understand. To be free. Free of masters and free of memories.”
From here she can see the mark on the back of his neck, the one she noticed once in Potions class and could never forget, peeking out from the high-collared shirt and the familiar dark coat. “It's what you deserve, sir. To be free, I mean. I’m sorry if I’ve intruded on that.”
Snape shrugs, moving things around on the cooker. “Miss Granger, I suspect you’ll give yourself a headache if you contort my meaning any more severely. I’m not angry with you for following a path to its end. It is, after all, who you are. I can't imagine a person alive more trustworthy with my secret life than the brilliant young woman who helped a boy save the world.”
Hermione doesn't know what to say to that—she doesn't know what to say to this new Snape at all. She stares at his back for a few more moments. “I’m glad you found what you were looking for, sir.”
“You called me Severus before, Miss Granger. I’d rather you continued on with that than ‘sir.’”
Had she? She’d been trying to be firm in her convictions, trying to show she meant what she said. She might have called him by his given name. “Then you must call me Hermione,” she finally says, smoothing back a lock of hair, determined to return to a state of calm. “Since you're apparently not planning on Obliviating me after supper and sending me back to wandering.”
Snape puts a spoon down and turns towards her. “Hermione, then. Equal footing.” Her shoulder burns where he touched her. She looks at him for a long moment, taking in his person, real and tangible in front of her, not a dream or hallucination, and he looks back, until the silence stretches between them. “I’m pants at entertaining, Hermione,” he finally says with a rueful smile. “Supper has a little while to simmer before it can be laid, and I still have that cauldron to decant. It's hardly a nice leisurely chat, but would you care to assist?”
She nods immediately, taking the invitation as if reaching for a lifeline. “This is your work, now? What are they used for?”
“St. Mungo’s still receives the benefit of my overtly magical brewing, but the scars of the war cut deep,” he answers. “These are for the Muggle hospitals—calming teas for the nurses and doctors tasked with caring for those who will never understand what they saw.” He summons the small glass decanters from under the bench and hands Hermione a basket of stoppers. “If you would?”
Hermione nods and they go to work. This silence is comfortable, rather than oppressive, and it is easy to lose herself in the familiar work. She hasn’t decanted potions since school, but it doesn’t seem to matter; the sense memory overtakes her within moments. In the quiet she can feel the draught from earlier working, the panicked thoughts no longer racing through her mind. “I feel loads better,” she finally says, as they’re corking the last and laying them in a carefully warded box for transport. “I had forgotten how soothing that can be.”
Snape smiles at her, really smiles—which is twice, today. “And supper is ready as well. Thank you, for helping me finish the day.”
Hermione shrugs. “I disturbed you—it’s the least I could do.”
“Perhaps you would be amenable to assisting me in the future, should I need you?”
Hermione’s mouth goes a little dry, listening to the words I need you coming out of his mouth. She never thought she’d hear—well. It’s time she pulled herself together. She suspects there are going to be a thousand things she never thought she’d hear, if she accepts. “Yes, of course,” she finally blurts. “I’d love to.”
He has two bowls in his hands, and he nods towards a drawer. “Spoons and forks, would you? We’ll eat in the sitting room, it’s more comfortable than the stools.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with my old professor, Severus?” She finds the cutlery and the napkins besides, and follows him through.
“New life and all that,” he replies dismissively. “I’ve got a telly, even, to keep me company in the long English nights.”
A warmth suffuses Hermione’s body, starting from her heart and trickling out to every cell. It lasts until she finally, finally, finally (after dessert and coffee) Apparates home.
It’s a week or so later when she hears from him. She’s sitting in her living room, penning revisions to a long-overlooked piece of legislature, and the Floo flares in her periphery. The magic of the Floo makes Snape look ten years younger, and she smiles involuntarily to hear him. “I have an extra-large batch of Skele-gro to make—some sort of Quidditch accident. You don’t happen to have the afternoon free, do you?”
“Depends,” she answers, setting aside the work. “Does the job pay in another dinner? I’m still having dreams about that carbonara.”
He answers with a smirk, more familiar than the smiles he granted her last time. “I suppose you’ll just have to finish the work to find out, won’t you?”
“Oh, feeling cheeky today, are we? Budge up, I’m coming through. Severus Snape’s home,” she says into the flames, and steps out of the fireplace only to end up nose to nose with him. He steps back gracefully, allowing her to move through the living room, and tucks a lock of hair behind an ear as he follows her.
“Make a left, Hermione. The cellar is equipped for two.”
She descends down the narrow stair, one hand brushing the whitewashed wall. “Your home is beautiful, Severus.”
She can hear his steps behind her, and his soft chuckle. “Amazing, what a little canny investment can accomplish. I am rather pleased with it.”
The cellar is indeed set up for efficient brewing between two—cauldrons and ingredients readily available. There's a large built-in shelving unit along the widest wall, including a series of tiny vials that draw Hermione’s attention briefly. “Are those—Severus, are those memories?”
He’s very close next to her when he answers, so close she very nearly jumps. It occurs to her suddenly that she may have made a series of horrible mistakes—that this “new” Severus is nothing of the sort, and might not take kindly to the scrutiny. “Ah—yes, in fact. Some of the more disturbing experiences. I can still remember them, even in great detail—such is the curse of eidetic memory—but the feeling, the torturous self-loathing and profound, unmanageable guilt? Those are relegated to the shelves, where they belong. It was at the recommendation of my Healer,” he adds, “with whom I necessarily correspond by owl.”
Hermione nods mutely, scanning the spidery handwriting on the small vial labels. “It must still be very difficult,” she says carefully, “to live in relative solitude as you do.” She doesn't really expect to see a label for “mutilation and near-death by giant bloody snake,” but it's worth the cursory look. After a moment she turns away from the memory vials and towards the brewing counters.
“It is becoming easier,” he says simply, and she flushes with pleasure. “I have left the instructions by the cauldron, should you need a refresher. Not that I doubt your performance.”
“No, that’s lovely. Saves me the anxiety of asking, thank you.”
They work along each other without breaking for a few hours, carefully slicing, crushing, and stirring in tandem. It’s been a long time since she felt the need to brew anything for herself, spoiled for choice and access as a member of the Ministry. She’s forgotten how soothing it can be, although the heat from the cauldron wreaks havoc on her curls. There's nothing to be done about it, so she carries on brewing and bottling until he taps his stirring rod on the lip of his cauldron and sets it aside. She’s finished only a few seconds after, and smiles brightly at him and the work they’ve accomplished.
“I hope this has been helpful,” she says. “I had forgotten how nice it can be to put my mind to brewing. I was always so tense in class.”
“Yes, very helpful,” he replies, his wand already directing the bottles into boxes for transport. “I made the conditions stressful on purpose, you know. Needed you lot to keep your cool under pressure.”
“Well yes, of course,” Hermione says. She hesitates for only a moment before closing the distance between them and putting a hand on his shoulder, much as he had done to her the week before. “It proved invaluable, especially that last year. Thank you.”
Snape reaches out to cover her hand with his own and smiles at her again. “I am glad I was of use to you.”
There isn't anything she can say to that, no way to express the thousands of ways he proved himself useful in the years they fought the war. The truth is, she can't think about those years without thinking about him—the sacrifices he made to keep her and Harry and Ron safe, the tortures he endured to protect Albus Dumbledore’s secrets. Decades of living in unimaginable danger—no wonder he is open and approachable now. Even living in his self-imposed solitude, at least he isn't thirty seconds from brutal murder at any given time.
Finally she squeezes his shoulder and drops his hand, helping to levitate the boxes back up the stairs. “You were,” she says quietly. “Of that you can be sure.”
For the second night in as many weeks, Hermione spends the evening in Severus Snape’s sitting room, eating his cooking. So begins their Thursday evening routine, hidden away from the world, laughing and talking and gossiping until long after darkness falls.
She takes to coming over regularly, Apparating directly into his foyer before calling her arrival down the stairs. Sometimes she brings him bags of groceries, potion ingredients he can't harvest himself—sometimes she brings him sweets, so they can chat over chocolates when they finish their supper. Entering into his home is like traveling to another world, a secret enclave in which nothing can bother her, a refuge from the tedium of working at the Ministry, the endless parade of weddings and baby showers, the still-omnipresent Prophet reporters trying to ask her opinion on idiotic subjects. Here, with Severus, there is none of that, only discussion of literature and magic and history. They hardly ever agree on a subject for long, but Severus debates her with such vigor, such raw enthusiasm for discussion, that she can hardly mind the hours they spend bickering. She understands completely how a man such as him could retreat from the world of wizardry near-entirely—sometimes she wonders how difficult it would be to vanish, herself.
“You don’t really want to hide out forever, you know,” he says one afternoon, looking down his nose at her. “Don’t go so far as to misunderstand me—I’m certainly not aiming to be rid of you, as I’m wholly used to you now. I simply mean to say that excising yourself from the world of magic isn’t the answer you’re looking for.”
She blinks at him over her teacup. “You have the answer I’m looking for, Severus? My god, what have I been doing? I’ve wasted so much time, when you were here with the solution all along!”
He huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes. “You should leave the Ministry, Hermione. Let them live without you for a while. You work too hard solving their problems, and you don’t take enough time for your own.”
“I skive off for afternoons with you every week, Severus.”
“Yes, and you spend them turning problems over in your subconscious, working even when you’re watching bad telly in silence with me. Not a complaint, mind, just an observation. You don’t take breaks, Hermione. You’re not a third-year with an ill-advised Time Turner any longer—you don’t have anything to prove to anyone.”
There’s nothing really to say to that; he’s right, of course. Years of her life dedicated to the mystery of this man, and she’s still trying to hold onto the hunt, even though he’s right there in front of her. She scowls down at her tea. “Ugh,” she finally mutters, and flips two fingers up at him.
“Yes, yes,” he says, waving a hand at her. “Take a vacation. Mykonos is beautiful this time of year.”
I love you, she thinks, out of nowhere. It startles her nearly to the point of gasping, the flood of feeling suffusing her body. She does want to go on a vacation, she does want to go to Mykonos, she does want to bugger off away from the Ministry and damn the consequences. But she wants to do all of those things with him. And it aches, oh it aches, it hurts to realize that her obsession with him hasn’t gone away now that she’s satisfied her curiosity; it’s only increased now that she knows him as a person. Because he’s funny, often, and thoughtful, always, and handsome, surprisingly. Because he has no masters, now, save his own dedication to solitude. Because he’s alive.
What the hell, she thinks.
“Come with me,” she says. “You could use a vacation from being cooped up here. Do you like the beach, Severus?”
He doesn’t turn to meet her eyes, which saves her the trouble of looking away. He just keeps his gaze steadily out the window, on the quiet street he chose. “I was fond of the beach for a time, as a child. I have not had much opportunity to revisit it as an adult.”
She has a sudden flash of him, standing in linen trousers and bare feet, watching the surf break over white beaches, the wind in his hair. She wants it so badly she can almost taste the salt.
“One week in Greece, Severus. You aren’t the only potioneer in Britain, just the most mysterious one. A break for both of us.”
The silence stretches out around them, as he thinks over the notion. She schools herself to hear him say no, for him to decide that this overstep is the last straw, for him to draw himself up to his fullest and most imposing stature and unceremoniously throw her out. Instead, he sets down his teacup, steeples his fingers, and sighs.
“No island hopping. One week, one accommodation, one beach.” Ah—hesitation on the basis of exposure.
“Agreed,” she replies. “A retreat from the world is precisely what I need. We don’t even need to leave the bounds of the property, if you don’t want.”
He hums thoughtfully. “All right. I need two weeks to prepare my vendors. Is that acceptable?”
Hermione smiles so widely she’s momentarily afraid her cheeks will split, and she can’t stop herself from jumping to her feet and leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Brilliant. Thank you. You’ve saved me from a week alone on a beautiful island with no company. I’ll arrange everything.”
“Yes, yes, harridan,” he says, but there’s no heat in it. “I have no doubt you’d be able to find company if you needed it, but I’ll go. Now hush, I’m watching.”
She beams at him for half a moment longer, warmed from the inside out by the fondness she feels for this prickly, unkind man. Then she collects his teacup and hers and vanishes into the kitchen to make a pot fresh.
Disaster. Unmitigated disaster, Hermione thinks to herself, sitting in the kitchen of their week’s lodgings, head in her hands. Three Portkeys (for safety, so she thought) and he barely had time to set down his bags before running for the loo to retch. She waves a wand and summons a small kettle and a canister of tea from her satchel, but it seems like a small comfort when the gift she meant to make of this vacation is already ruined. With anxious hands she unbraids her mass of curls, smoothing and rebraiding what's come loose in their whirlwind of travel. There's little else to do but wait, heart in her throat, for him to return. If he even does return, she thinks bitterly to herself, and sets the kettle to boiling a little more viciously than necessary, if only to make herself feel better.
The ritual of making tea ordinarily occupies only a fraction of her concentration, but with nothing left to do except fret, it's a lifesaving distraction. Measuring leaves, warming the pot, pouring slowly from the kettle. Breathe, one, two, three. The sun is setting over the water and it's beautiful, the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
“Oh, good, tea,” Severus says from the kitchen doorway. Hermione’s shoulders sag in relief, but she doesn't look back at him for fear of giving away the profundity of her feeling.
“I thought it might help your stomach settle,” she says. “Have I apologized for that, by the way?”
“Mm,” he hums, closer than he was before. “Spycraft is, perhaps, not your calling. Cups?”
“Haven't had time to look around—will you find them? I’ve been too busy feeling sorry for myself,” she confesses, watching the steady stream of hot water to avoid looking up at him.
“Still taking small mistakes to heart, I see. I suppose it’s nice to know that some things haven't changed.” He sets down two white mugs. “Hermione, honestly. It's all right. Lucky for me, we don't have to use them to get home. I’m not angry with you.”
“I don't know why not.” She finally looks up at him. He means it; she can tell. It twists her up inside, the thought that without her, he’d still be at home in his solitude, safe from the world. She can't quite bring herself to regret it, but for the moment it is a near thing. “Thank you for coming with me, Severus,” she finally says, and it's a concession. She’s rewarded by the quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth. It is enough.
They busy themselves with the meditation of tea, until Hermione's anxiety has eased and she can appreciate the amenities of the rental home she chose. It's exactly as peaceful as she hoped it would be, the ocean visible through the window and the sky a cloudless blue. Snape is excellent at companionable silence, and before long they've relocated to the breezy porch with books and wine.
Emboldened by the wine and the change in scenery, she studies him over the top of her book, cataloguing and memorising. The sweep of his hair, the curve of his jaw, the way he frowns when he disagrees with something on the page. He is so much less forbidding now, in shirt, trousers, and waistcoat, open to the breeze. She's always been able to see the edge of scarring on his neck, the place where it peeks over the collar of his shirt, but now his top buttons are open and the ropy white flesh is exposed. She catalogues the pattern of his skin before flicking her gaze away, terrified that he'll catch her looking. But if he notices her scrutiny, he is adept at ignoring it, a little spycraft that still proves useful to him (or so she imagines). A kindness to her.
Hermione turns her gaze back to her novel and valiantly tries not to think about Snape's proximity. She's signed herself up for a full week of this, a torture of her own devising, and if she can't contain her anxiety, it will not be a week he remembers well at all.
She's suddenly struck by a notion, absurd and wonderful enough that it lifts the worry from her heart. If nothing else, Severus Snape will remember this week in Greece well. She's determined of it.
In the night, without warning, she finds herself in the destroyed courtyard at Hogwarts. She’s gripping her wand so tightly she could snap it, blood streaming down her arm from Bellatrix Lestrange’s cursed souvenir, hair unbound and falling around her in crackling waves. She is full of potent fury, ready and willing to bring down the heavens around her. She scans the field, locates a target, and readies a wicked Cutting Curse, her old enemy, her old friend.
“Diffindo!” she shouts, but the curse is out of her control. The beam of purple light veers wide, dancing through the battlefield until it finds its target. And she sees him, Severus, as he is now—relaxed posture, half-smile, trust in his eyes. And she watches as her spell rends him to pieces.
She’s screaming, and sobbing, and her heart is broken and her arm is bleeding and the scar on her breast cracks open like parched earth. When she falls, her body lands next to his, and they lie there together as the rain starts to fall, their lifeless hands outstretched to one another.
But she can't reach him. She’s watching from above and watching from her body, and she feels nothing and everything and wants to comfort him as they die, why can't she touch him, why can't she reach him? “Severus,” she tries to say, and it's a gurgle of blood. “Please.”
“Hermione!”
There's a strong hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. She’s gripping it before she’s really conscious, yanking and twisting until she realizes it's Snape, that he’s really here next to her, that she’s not dying on a battlefield, choking on her own blood. She flings herself into sitting, only barely aware enough of her own body to avoid headbutting him in the jaw. He doesn't flinch—doesn't even move, just puts a hand back on her shoulder.
“It's all right, Hermione,” he says softly. “It's over. You're safe here.”
She reaches up to touch him, there where his shoulder starts to curve. He’s warm under his light shirt, the flesh at his collarbone unmarred by the spell of her nightmare. “I dreamed I was killing you,” she says slowly, eyes fixed on the place where her hand rests. “I’m not killing you, am I, Severus?”
She’s afraid to look up, but there's no pity in his eyes, just steady understanding. He could detect her thoughts if he wanted, could delve deep and find the truth of what she feels for him. She almost wishes he would, just so this agonizing part of their lives can be over.
But he won’t, because he’s not that Snape anymore. He isn’t bound by the restrictions of his station, walled off from all feeling by necessity. He isn’t cruel, or harsh, or unforgiving. He’s kind.
His thumb wipes away a tear she didn’t know she’d shed. Now he has both hands on her, one on her shoulder, one on her face, and the intimacy is so stark it takes her breath. “You’re not killing me, Hermione,” he says quietly. “Far from it.”
She pictures herself leaning forward, closing the distance between them. Instead, she closes her eyes, uncomfortable under his gentle scrutiny.
“You can go back to bed, if you like,” she says. “I’ll be up a little while yet, but no reason for you to be.”
“I have a better idea,” he says quietly, and slowly draws away. “Take a walk with me. Sun will be up soon—let’s watch it from the shoreline.”
She nods, and gathers the bedclothes to rise. He’s already out the door before she stands, to preserve her modesty, she imagines. He is too kind to her, now. She could probably goad him into cruelty, if she worked at it; it seems unlikely that the caustic, abrasive man she knew before war’s end is totally gone. What would it take away from him, she wonders, if she loosed all his carefully managed control? She draws on a dress and a cardigan, runs a hand through her hair, and pads into the foyer barefoot, ready to descend the white steps and onto the white sand.
The beach looks blue in the moonlight. Snape walks next to her, hands clasped behind his back, head slightly inclined towards her as she quietly relays the events of her nightmare. He’s right that the walk is better—they find a small dune and sit watch the sunrise come over the horizon before making their way back to their vacation rental door. Her hair is windswept and tangled now and her feet are sandy, and she’s still a little cold, but her heart is eased.
“You’re surprisingly good at that,” she says finally, over a cup of tea while he cooks eggs. “Not cooking—that’s less of a surprise.”
“Listening?” he asks dryly. “Yes, I imagine it is surprising to you. You have never been a professor of teenage girls, much to your misfortune.”
“Oh no,” she sighs. “Don’t tell me I still remind you of your students.”
He looks back from the pan, one eyebrow raised. “Only when you interrupt,” he says pointedly.
She hums thoughtfully, but waves a hand that he might proceed.
“You are not the only person in the world I have woken from a nightmare, Hermione,” Snape finally says, his voice quiet and even. “Nor are you the only person in this room who has suffered from them. I had the privilege of having Headmaster Dumbledore to confide in, for a time. It is in some ways only fitting that I listen to you.”
She smiles at him, grateful and glad. Mindful of her promise to herself, her resolution to walk the fine line of friendship and love, she stands up from the table and pads over next to him where he stands at the cooker. Very carefully, she puts one hand on his shoulder and pushes up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Just as quickly, she backs away. "Well, in that case, thank you," she finally says. "In case it wasn't clear."
Snape just peers down his nose at her, eyes dark and glittering. "Hm," he finally says, and plates the eggs and toast. "It's a dangerous game you're playing now," he continues. "I hope you know."
There's a thrill here, the joy of attraction. She's realized there's no reason for her to pretend she doesn't want him, here. No consequences on vacation, no-one to recognize them when they walk, nothing to be afraid of. Nothing but the nightmares. If he thinks it's a game, all the better.
"Is it?" she asks brightly. "Seems like the perfect place for it, to me.”
Hermione doesn’t have another nightmare that week, not once she decides to lean in to the joy of vacationing with him. She spends her time sitting out on the sand, basking in the warm sun, turning positively brown while she reads. For Snape’s sake, he sits under an umbrella, his pale skin so much more likely to burn, but he doesn’t leave her out on the sand alone.
She asks him questions, things she’s always wondered but never had the opportunity to know. In the waning light of one evening he tells her about the simulacrum he created, about the weeks of recovery in a Muggle teaching hospital in London, the resolution to begin his life again. His voice is low and dark, and she reaches to place one of her hands in his while he speaks. “I didn’t think I deserved to live,” he confesses, eyes on the waves at the horizon.
“I’m so selfishly glad you did,” she says firmly. “Your friendship has been a great gift to me.”
Snape looks at her without speaking for a long moment, and the silence yawns between them. She flushes, heat rising in her cheeks, and leans towards him, brushing his cheek in a kiss that has become customary, over the last several days. She may very well be out on this limb on her own, but it seems to give him comfort, so she squeezes his hand before letting go.
“Hermione,” he starts, and then seems to think better of it, his gaze skittering away to look to the horizon. “Walk with me,” he says abruptly, standing, holding a hand out to her. “I have a sudden need to visit the village.”
“It’s almost dark,” she replies, but she’s rising already. “I’ll get shoes, and a purse—I’ll need sustenance, venturing out this late.”
“Yes, I intend to feed you,” he says quietly, and she’s left wondering, breathless, as she fetches her things. Wrap, sandals, bag—she dashes a spot of color on her lips after a moment’s thought, too quick to second guess herself. She imagines the charmed mirror complimenting her at the Burrow, a flash of memory (or perhaps fantasy) as the soft voice in her mind says “lovely, dear, just enough.” It has been a long time since she’s considered herself beautiful.
He waits at the door, his arm extended to her. It’s nearly dark, and the lights from the village twinkle like stars as they approach, beacons of joy and merriment. And there’s music as they move closer, sweet and slow, a far cry from the usual weekend wild abandon, as if he’s enchanted the whole island just for her pleasure. He leads her, surefooted, to a little restaurant with a long patio. Suddenly, she squints her eyes at him.
“How long have you been planning this?” she asks, as a waiter in an apron pours her a glass of wine. “When did you have time?”
“I’m resourceful,” he replies, and that is all he will say on the matter.
If she weren’t the brightest witch of her age, she’d think he was courting her.
He even invites her to dance, bowing deeply and offering her his hand as if they’re at a ball, not swaying alone to the strains of a Greek man’s guitar. But this is a vacation, this is a dream, this is the world free of double meaning and consequence, so she takes his hand and steps closely into the circle of his arms. So much of their time here has been spent in silence, a comfortable and companionable quiet she never thought to possess. Here in his embrace she can imagine a future, can picture the world as it might be, without the gulf of their shared history between them.
And perhaps it is the same for him, she muses. She’s not blind to the fact that he worries more about his anonymity now that they spend more time together; the link between them also links him to the Wizarding world. Eventually it will come to a head, and he will vanish from her life again, and this time she’ll try to respect his wishes. But for now, they can have this. She can have this.
She presses closer, until her head is resting on his chest, and closes her eyes, the better to memorize the sensation of dancing here with him. She’s just tall enough to tuck her head under his chin, and he lets her, which might be the most delightful and perplexing experience of her whole week. I intend to feed you, he had said, and she does feel fed, sated with memories of joy and ease and kindness. A veritable hoard on which to subsist in the coming years. Hermione strokes down Severus’ back, fists her hand in his shirt, sways to the music. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “This is beautiful.”
“Mm,” Severus replies. “Well, you did bring me along on an island vacation, let me read as much as I liked, and asked nothing of me but that I do the cooking. I don’t know that it’s you who should be thanking me.”
“I just wanted to spend time with you,” she confesses. “You’re the only person I know who doesn’t expect me to be exactly as I was when I was a child. Even the people who used to be closest to me.”
“Masters Potter and Weasley,” he says.
“Mm,” she confirms. “Harry wants me to attend the Ministry’s anniversary ball next month, as if I want to endlessly celebrate the fact that I survived something horrible. He lives large on it, of course—he can’t imagine anyone wishing not to be famous, when he spent so much time as a little boy having to be invisible. And Ron loves to feel special, still. That’s all right for them, of course, but it’s not for me. I want to be left alone with my cat and my books and you, for the most part.”
“And me?” Severus asks quietly, as the the last notes of the music fade and they slowly come to a stop. Hermione looks up at him, resolute.
“And you,” she says, meeting his gaze until he steps back, holds her seat for her to sit down. She catches his hand and squeezes as he walks back around the table, too nervous to say anything more. She’s come so dangerously close to admitting to him the truth, the depth of her emotions, and she can’t trust herself not to ruin it, if she speaks again.
But oh, how she wants to. She wants to fling herself across the table and into his arms, convince him without words that she needs no careful treatment, that the years she spent fracturing her sanity were resolved when he opened the door to her, whole and bright and alive. Instead, she beams across the table at him and releases his hand to unfold her napkin, intent on enjoying every last moment they have.
All too soon after their return to Britain, their return to the carefully platonic routine, it's time for Hermione to attend a memorial ball at the Ministry. She complains to Severus, loudly, for weeks, but at the end of the day she has a responsibility to appear, and she has never taken her responsibilities lightly. (As Severus reminds her, irritably, just a few days before, “there's never been an assignment you didn't complete with full marks, witch,” and although she laughs at the rightness of it and the tone of his voice, the truth of the remark wounds.) So she dresses in the quiet of her flat, charms Crookshanks' fur off of her dress robes, and puts on the same lipstick she wore their last night in Mykonos, armoring herself against the bright lights the best way she knows how.
After a moment's deliberation, she dashes off a note to Severus, and leaves a window open for her owl to return—Enjoy your evening in! (I am profoundly envious.) Look to the Prophet for pictures tomorrow, if you'd like to have a laugh. See you next week! H—before checking her reflection one last time and spinning into nothingness.
The Ministry hall is beautiful, warmly lit by charmed candles, already filling up with old friends. Hermione drifts from table to table, holding a cool flute of champagne, and tries to enjoy herself without thinking of Severus too often.
Inevitably, she finds herself standing in a circle of familiar faces, Harry and Ginny, Ron and George and Luna and Angelina, all eager and delighted to be there. She does a good job of pretending, for a little while; it's only after Harry's had a third Firewhisky that he peers closely at her and realizes she's not really smiling.
“What's the matter with you, then?” he finally asks, drawing more attention to her than she's ever felt comfortable with.
“Nothing's the matter, Harry. I'm glad you're having a nice time.”
Harry wrinkles his nose, pushing his glasses a little further up in the process, and sniffs.
“I just don’t understand why you aren’t any fun anymore, Hermione.”
After all of the primping and the preening, after making such an exorbitant effort, this last is a step too far. If he wants to be the center of attention, by Merlin she will let him be the center of attention. “You listen to me, Harry James Potter,” Hermione says, voice deceptively quiet. “I am delighted that you feel like this is a celebration. But if you think for a single moment that it is such for everyone, you are profoundly mistaken, and dictating how any of us experience this event emotionally is as pigheaded as it is cruel. It is not wrong of us to acknowledge that people we love died.”
“I remember that people I love died! I just don’t understand why you’re so dour about being here! It’s not just the ball, it’s everything! You never spend time with us, Hermione, you never come to the weekends out at the Burrow or the Leaky nights when we’re all off work. You went away for a week and none of us had anything so much as a postcard from you. What is wrong with you? Are you still so hung up on Ron that you just can’t bring yourself to see any of us? Because if that’s the case, you’re a very different person than you used to be. I just don’t get it,” Harry fairly shouts, the purple line of his scar flushing deeper with drink and fury.
It contrasts perfectly with the white mark her hand leaves when she slaps him.
The Ministry ballroom goes silent for only half a second before someone lifts a camera. Hermione is quaking with rage, so incensed that she can barely look at the person who used to be her best friend. “How dare you, Harry,” she hisses, and she’s distantly aware that she’s learned at least one thing from Severus—her voice doesn’t break, doesn’t change in pitch or volume at all. “Maybe I don’t want to spend my time in a large group reminiscing about the good old days. Maybe I don’t feel like they were good old days at all. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? The last time you spoke to me personally was to share something rude about your wife, at work, which you framed as a joke. Is it any wonder that I don’t want to go out carousing with you?”
Harry stands there, stunned, for half a moment before he turns without a word and pushes into the crowd. She’s left there, alone, what feels like the entire Wizarding world staring at her, and for a moment she thinks she’s going to faint and complete her humiliation. It’s then that she sees him—Severus Snape, standing in the doorway, in the flesh.
He crosses to her in a few long strides, sweeping her into his arms with confidence. Her hand is gripping his like it's her only tether to reality—and it very well might be, if the quickness of her breath and the pounding of her heart is any indication. “What are you—?” she manages, before she is quelled by a single look. “But they’ll have seen you,” she says numbly.
“They have already seen me, Hermione—they are watching us now. Let it out of your mind. Remember the beach, the dinner in Greece. Dance with me. It will distract you.”
She falls into the stance of a dance on autopilot, allowing him to embrace her closely, as if it’s not what she’s been yearning for since they left Mykonos. “How much did you hear? How long have you been here?”
“Most of it,” he says quietly, careful not to be overheard as they move across the floor. She’s dimly aware of the noise resuming around them as they dance, although the flashbulbs haven’t stopped capturing this intimate moment. She refocuses her attention onto him as he speaks. “I was always planning to attend—one of these years. It seemed like the right time, but I found myself…anxious when I arrived. I Disillusioned myself,” he finally confesses, and she’s gripped by the realization: he is just as terrified of this as I am. “But when I saw you—when I saw him yelling at you—I couldn’t let you face them alone.”
“Severus,” she says softly. “Think of what you’ve given up. We could split up, Obliviate them all one by one. You could go back to your life.”
He peers down his nose at her and only draws her more tightly to him. “There is no part of that life I wish to go back to. Unless you’d like to fake your death and disappear?”
Hermione feels suddenly lightheaded, the adrenaline of the confrontation with Harry and Severus’ sudden rescue starting to fade away. “It sounds as if you’ve just asked me to run away with you, Severus Snape,” she manages breathlessly.
“No, Hermione,” he murmurs, and she can feel the vibration under her chest. “I’ve just asked you to stay with me.”
There is only earnestness in his eyes when she looks up—well. Earnestness and hunger, she realizes, previously unidentifiable. If I weren't the brightest witch of my age, I'd think he was courting me. But he had been courting her, meeting her step for step, tension growing higher, until they came home and she tried to pack it away. And now he's here, and the world knows, and it's not what she expected at all. She meets his gaze steadily, basks in the intensity of his stare. It’s almost enough to erase the memory of how this night began.
“You’re going to be in the papers tomorrow,” she says. “They’ll hound you until you give a statement.”
“I’ll give them a statement if you’ll give me an answer,” he replies.
“Why not do both at the same time?” she asks, and slides the hand holding his shoulder into the hair at the base of his neck, strokes two warm fingers over the birthmark there. “As long as you’ll have me,” she confirms, and closes the distance.
There's no hesitancy when their lips meet, no chance she's aiming for his cheek instead, just a warm, matter of fact kiss. Modest enough for the public nature of the thing—cameras still clicking furiously—and long enough to confirm what will come next for them. She loses herself in the heady rush of inevitability, anchored by his hand gripping her waist, her hand in his hair. She can feel the press of his nose against her cheek, smell his washing soap, taste the liquor he must have drunk for courage before arriving to this cursed, magnificent ball. When their faces drift apart, she breaks into a genuine smile for the first time all night.
“Shall we go speak to the reporters?” she asks, but she already knows the answer.
“Absolutely not. Let the rumour mill spin,” he replies, and drops his embrace of her only to tuck her hand into his elbow and stride purposefully for the door.
The crowd parts to let them pass.
This will come to haunt them later, she suspects—there will be speculative articles and opinion pieces. There will be people who think that he is a charlatan, pretending to be a long dead war hero to pull the wool over her eyes. There will be people who think she’s a harlot, duping a much older man into leaving a vast fortune to her in a will. But for now, he’s a man come back from the dead to rescue her, and there is no reason at all for them to be here at this function any longer.
Outside the ballroom, he sweeps her back into his arms and Apparates them away.
They land on their feet in Severus’ shadowed sitting room, a familiar and comforting sight. Hermione’s heart is racing, but she takes a long, steadying breath as Severus stares down at her, intensity vibrating from his very being. It is enthralling to be the sole recipient of that scrutiny, if a little daunting. She’s never had an assignation that felt like this—like she is on the precipice of a cliff, and if she jumps, it will be the end of her life as she knows it. If she jumps now, here, something new will begin.
But she’s let the moment of silence linger too long, and Severus starts to draw away, slowly putting distance between the two of them, eyes shuttering, features schooled, ready to return to uncertainty if it is more comfortable than this awkward rallying. So she leaps, tightening her hands in his robes and drawing him back towards her. “You’re not getting away from me that easily,” she murmurs, and kisses him again.
He groans into her mouth, sending a frisson of desire rolling down her body, and tightens his arms again. This kiss is nothing like the last one, the first one—nothing modest about it. Severus buries a hand in her hair, pulling it free from its elaborate pinning, and tilts her face up to meet him, holding her where he can taste every part of her. Hermione, for her part, throws her arms around his neck and simply holds on. This time, when he draws back, it is simply to breathe. “Hermione—” he begins.
“Shh,” she says quietly. “Take me to bed, Severus. I’m not going anywhere.”
He takes her up the stairs and into his bedroom, her hand clasped tightly in one of his as he leads. He lights candles with a solemn face, and she can see the nerves starting to build. She knows the smallest things about him, after the last months. She knows that he’s wearing more layers than usual because they were armor against the world once, and that he needed them tonight. That he makes medicine so he can try to give back, even though so much was taken away from him. That he opened his home and his heart and his life to her, and there is nothing, nothing on this earth she wants more than to be next to him forever.
She shrugs off the midnight blue robe she’s been wearing and lets it crumple to the floor. He turns, silently, to look at her where she stands in front of his bed, at the dress she wore underneath.
“I put this on because I was thinking of you, you know,” she says, and watches the minuscule changes in his expression. “I wanted you to be there more than I could say, so I pretended you were coming with me.”
It’s the same midnight blue as the robe, made from velvet, tailored to fit. She bought it on a whim, weeks ago, just after they’d returned from Greece, thinking she’d never wear it for him to see. With a smooth of her hands, the magical fabric lights up with minute stars, bright and dark as the night sky they danced under so many weeks ago.
She tells him so, now, turns for inspection, preening as she has never done before. Even with her hair pulled loose, she feels beautiful under his gaze. “I’ve wanted you for what feels like forever,” she finally whispers, stepping out of her heels and sliding down the straps of the dress until she’s before him in only her underwear. "It wasn't ever a game, to me."
Something comes loose in his expression and he’s bearing down on her again, hands on her face, mouth on hers, and she’s smiling and smiling and pushing his robes and coat away. “I love you,” he whispers, into her mouth, and she just draws him closer, working his buttons, opening him up. “Hermione, I love you.”
“I know,” she whispers back, and it's true. “I already knew. You must know I love you too.”
After that, it’s quiet, just the soft sounds of the clothes and the sheets moving. She traces the scar Nagini left with her fingers, then her mouth, tucks a strand of his hair behind an ear so she can reach. He presses kisses to every part of the word that Bellatrix left, and she knows he remembers the early morning walk on the beach, the shape of her nightmares. She isn’t afraid any more.
There is plenty to fear, of the future. In the morning they will have to face the world at large, the humiliation she heaped on the Boy Who Lived Twice, the fine tangle of declaring Severus alive. The shape of the very world will be different. But for now she has him, she has him, as she’s wished to have him for so long, their bodies so close it seems for a moment like their scars have joined. His head is bowed into her neck and their fingers are entwined, and it’s slow and deliberate and languid, the universe distilled to the place their bodies have joined. Pleasure warms her from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head, and when she crests the wave of her orgasm it wrenches a long, low moan from her, speeds him on into his own release. There is nothing but them, nothing but this. They will tackle tomorrow when it comes, but they will tackle it together.
Curled together in the quiet of his cool bedroom, hands clasped and noses nearly touching, she is too enamored of him to sleep. “My heart is yours,” she whispers, and there’s a magic to it, a promise, a prophecy, settling around them as warmly as the duvet. They will stand, undivided, for the rest of their lives.