Chapter 6
The first thing Hermione did was return to the muggle library. She holed up at a table in the back and stayed there for hours, thumbing through old novels she loved and then taking a crack at classical poetry. As the afternoon wore on she left to venture into the pub across the street and get some lunch. Then she returned to the library, too nervous to go anywhere else. She hated admitting it to herself, but she was afraid. Afraid of running into her parents or any other muggles she knew, afraid she’d somehow seriously tamper with the fabric of time, and she was also afraid of straying too far from Hogwarts. Too far from Severus.
The day turned into night and several hours after the sun had set Hermione finally steeled up the courage to return to Hogwarts and the horribly awkward situation that awaited her there. She tucked the books she had checked out into her borrowed satchel and made her way down the street. She had her head down, shuffling along in the early evening air, her mind drifting away in a haze of anxiety.
And then Severus was standing in front of her. Her head snapped up, she had been so lost in her mind that she hadn’t been paying proper attention to her surroundings. Severus had rounded the corner at the end of the block, clocked her, and was striding towards her in that classically intimidating way of his, his black robes billowing out behind him with each step.
“There you are,” he said, coming to a stop rather close to her.
“I told you I was going—”
“When you said you were going into London I did not think you meant all day. I’ve been expecting you back for hours.” Hermione realized how angry he sounded. “I had no idea what had happened to you.”
“Nothing happened.”
Severus sneered. “Yes, Miss Granger, I see that now.”
“Were you…worried?”
“Yes. Oh don’t look so surprised, I have already told you several times the dangers posed by you gallivanting around out in the world. Neither of us knows to what extent you being here could damage the timeline.”
“I was just sitting in the library. Reading.”
“For seven hours?” Severus glared daggers so sharp Hermione felt as if she would die from blood loss right there on the sidewalk.
“I took a break for lunch.”
Severus made a strangled, growling sort of sound deep in his throat before turning on his heel. “Come, let’s go back.”
He began striding quickly back the way he had come, leaving Hermione no choice but to follow along behind him. They walked for several more blocks before Severus found a secluded alleyway and stepped inside it, waving Hermione to follow. She stepped into the shadows as Severus held his hand out for her. Hermione quietly took it as he apparrated them back to the Forbidden Forest.
Without the London city lights they were completely eclipsed by darkness. Severus shattered it quickly by casting a silent lumos. His wand glowed just brightly enough to light the path a few steps in front of them.
“Come,” he practically barked out, the word curt and sharp on his tongue.
Hermione followed him back through the forest, inside the passageway, and then back into his apartment. Severus sighed, sounding to Hermione both exhausted and infuriated. Hermione deposited her satchel on the couch as Severus stood in the center of the room, still as the petrified.
“I—” Hermione began but Severus whirled around to face her, his eyes aflame with anger.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he snapped. “Do you hear me? Do not leave me here to worry whether or not something terrible has happened to you.”
“I…okay, I won’t. I’m sorry.”
Severus took a small step closer to her. Hermione felt every bone in her body quiver.
“Promise me,” he hissed, forever the snake even in speech.
“I promise,” Hermione said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
The crease in Severus’s brow lessened a bit and some of the flames lowered in his eyes.
“You don’t need to avoid me. You’re an adult. I would think you could actually communicate whatever it is that’s bothering you as opposed to running away and hiding like a child.”
Hermione balked at his words. “I wasn’t—”
“Oh, but you were .”
Hermione pressed her fingers to her temple. “Stop it,” she said tersely.
“I would gladly stop it if you would actually speak to me.”
“Oh so suddenly Severus Snape is a man of many words?”
Severus’s nostrils flared, his rage returning in the wake of her retorts.
“When I have something to say, Miss Granger, I say it.”
“Fine!” Hermione practically shouted. “Yes, I was avoiding you. Happy?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Hermione scoffed, shrugging her shoulders in defeat.
“You win, okay? You looked into my head and saw everything I was imagining and how ridiculous it all is and I was embarrassed.”
Severus was quiet. Hermione waited for another sharp word or snide remark but none came. With a resigned sigh she began to make her way past him, wanting to take a hot shower and hopefully wash away some of this wretched feeling. But then Severus took a step to the side, blocking her path. Hermione looked up into his fierce eyes, noting that the anger from only moments before had seemed to have vanished entirely.
“Did it ever occur to you,” Severus said, “that if you were to look into my mind you would see the same things that I see in yours?”
Hermione’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat.
“Really?” she breathed.
Severus nodded.
“You’re not lying?”
“Shall I brew some veritaserum and prove it to you?”
“I–no, that’s okay. I believe you.”
“What a relief,” Severus intoned sardonically.
“If you have the same thoughts then why did you pull away this morning when I…” Hermione let her voice trail off between them, unable to bring herself to finish the sentence.
“I have my reasons.”
“Care to share what they are?”
“I’m too old for you.”
“I suppose.” Hermione studied his expression, trying and failing to find any answers there to the burning questions bottled up inside her. “Have you read Jane Eyre ?”
“I have not.”
“It’s a muggle novel about this governess who falls in love with and marries her employer, a man twenty years older than her.”
“I see.”
“It’s considered one of the greatest literary romances of all time.”
“And citing this muggle novel is your rebuttal to me citing our obvious age gap?”
Severus almost sounded like he was going to laugh.
“Yes, it is. And it’s a very good source to cite. So what are your other reasons?”
“Oh, so you deem this one resolved?”
“Yes.” Hermione nodded once. “I do. So next reason please.”
Severus actually managed to lift one corner of his mouth up in an almost smile but it quickly disappeared.
“I have been cruel to you in the past.” Hermione parted her lips to argue but Severus kept speaking. “And don’t tell me it’s not the same because we’re from different timelines. I was cruel to you here in this timeline and another version of me was cruel to you there and I am sure there were quite a deal of similarities if not identical sets of events between us.”
“Okay.” Hermione exhaled slowly. “So…apologize to me then?”
“What?”
“Apologize for being cruel to me.”
“I—”
Severus appeared genuinely surprised by her response. Hermione smirked as she watched him flounder for a few moments before regaining his composure.
“I’m sorry, Hermione.”
“For?” she prompted.
“Would you like a list?”
Hermione smiled. “No, that’s alright.”
He took another step closer to her. “I am sorry for the things I did to you.”
Hermione tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “You are forgiven. Are there any other reasons?”
“You…”
“Yes?”
“You’re leaving in a few months.”
“Then why are you wasting time?”
Severus was silent for a moment, his black eyes locked onto her brown ones, a thousand unsaid words traveling between them. Then he moved, closing out the remaining space between his body and hers, wrapped his hand in her hair and pulled her lips to his. Hermione sighed softly against his mouth as it moved against hers. This kiss felt like something she didn’t even know she’d been waiting for, for so long.
Hermione wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down closer to her as he moved his hands to press against the small of her back, bringing her body flush against his. Severus began to guide Hermione back towards the bedroom, their feet shuffling across the cold, stone floor. He broke away from her briefly to close the door, as he did Hermione took a few steps back towards the bed, trying to catch her breath.
Severus shrugged out of his robe and hung it on the hook on the back of the door. He turned back to Hermione slowly, his eyes desperate and hungry. No man had ever looked at Hermione like that and it thrilled her.
Severus advanced on her and Hermione took a step back on instinct, her breath catching softly in her throat. Severus took her face gently in his hands, tilting her head back so he could look into her eyes again. The two of them held each other’s gaze for a few silent moments before Severus tilted his head down and captured Hermione’s mouth in a gentle kiss.
“Undress,” he murmured against her mouth. “I want to see you.”
Hermione opened her eyes, taking a tentative step back. Severus held her gaze, nodding once to urge her on. She kept her eyes locked on his while she pulled her jumper off, standing before him in her black, lace bra. Severus’s eyes drank her in and Hermione felt herself blush. Every time she had had sex in the past she and whoever she brought to bed with her would pull at each other’s clothes frantically without much thought put into it. To stand here and slowly strip while Severus gazed intensely at her was an exhilarating and terrifying experience.
“Keep going,” he said.
Hermione toed off her converse, kicking them aside, then began to unbutton and unzip her jeans. She pushed them past her hips, down her thighs, and shimmied out of them. She stood still, standing now in only her bra and underwear, burning under Severus’s fierce gaze.
Severus moved towards her, backing her up against the bedpost, knocking the air out of her as he pressed his still clothed body up against her nearly naked one. Hermione’s mouth fell open in a silent gasp as she felt his erection press against her through his trousers. He reached up and knotted his fingers in her hair, tilting her head back and leaning in close.
“Are you scared?” he whispered.
“Terrified,” she breathed.
“Good.”
He crashed his mouth against hers, nipping at her lip, sucking it between his teeth and biting until Hermione rewarded him with a moan. He wrapped his other hand around her waist, tilting her hips against his, causing a delicious friction that made Hermione moan louder.
“Take this off,” Hermione murmured, tugging at the buttons of his waistcoat. “Let me feel you.”
Severus stepped back slowly and Hermione noticed that he almost looked afraid. She remained silent as she watched his lithe fingers precisely undo each button. He shrugged out of the coat, letting it fall to the floor, revealing the flowing white shirt he wore beneath. Hermione thought he looked something akin to a byronic hero in a gothic novel and it made her heart race. He met her gaze once more and she smiled and nodded.
“Keep going.”
Severus gave her that odd, almost half-smile from earlier, where just one corner of his mouth lifted up, and then he tugged the shirt off. Hermione’s eyes widened a bit when she took in the sight of his scarred chest. The past few nights she had done her best to avoid staring at his bare chest, she saw the scars but didn’t study them. Now she was drinking him in, committing his skin to memory. There were more than half a dozen zig-zagged old scars marring his flesh. She recognized immediately what kind of spell could cause such a thing.
“Sectumsempra,” she whispered.
“How do you know that?” he asked, surprised.
Hermione didn’t feel like bringing up Harry and Draco fighting in the bathroom while she was standing in Severus’s bedroom, practically naked. For all she knew such an event never even happened here in this timeline. So instead of revealing this piece of possibly alternative history to him, she said:
“I know most things.”
“Of course you do.”
“Do you think I find you less handsome because of it?”
His almost smile returned which caused Hermione to smile fully. She lifted her left arm up between them, bearing her mudblood scar. Then she ran her fingers along the jagged, purple scar on her stomach, and lastly the small one under her chin. Severus followed her fingers with his eyes, taking in each stroke she made against her own skin, showing him all of herself.
“I’m no stranger to scars, Severus.”
He silently walked back over to Hermione, his inky eyes never leaving hers. When he was close to her again he gripped her hips in his large hands, pulling her close. He dipped his head down and began to kiss along the tendons in her neck. Hermione sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck, keeping him close.
“You’re so lovely,” he whispered in her ear before making his way up her jaw, nipping and licking in all the right spots. “So, so lovely.”
Hermione smiled, digging her nails into his back, savoring the feel of his skin against hers. He kissed her mouth again, more hungrily this time, his lips moving perfectly against hers. Hermione reached for his trousers but he tore her hands away.
“What?” Hermione breathed, dazed against his mouth.
“I may be cruel, Miss Granger, but I’m still a gentleman.”
“What?”
Severus pushed Hermione back on the bed and crawled on top of her, settling himself between her legs. He dipped down and brushed his lips lightly against hers.
“Ladies first.”