Chapter 2
Severus thinks of that night often, the memory burned into his flesh just as much as his mind. It’s nights like these, when his body trembles with crutiatus aftershock after a particularly tricky death eater meeting, that he allows the ghost of her in that lake to soothe him and he forgets to feel guilty about wanting her so badly.
Just for a moment.
“Severus,” he hears Hermione’s voice quietly call just outside his private infirmary room door— he often stays here on Poppy’s insistence when she finds him stumbling back to the castle. “Are you there?”
He shouldn’t— he really shouldn’t— but oh, how sweet that voice is, and how agonizing his pain feels, and how utterly excruciating does his heart ache for her.
The door sways open with a wave of his hand and he watches silently as she comes to his side, trying with all his might to ignore the swell of emotion tightening his chest.
“Would you like me to read to you?” She asks.
“Very much, little witch,” he says with a small smile.
There are no chairs, and despite both knowing either of them could have conjured one, she crawls into the cramped bed next to him. He folds his arm closest to her behind his head to make room and stares fixedly up at the ceiling as she settles against his side.
He can’t help the occasional drift of his glance from the book to her face as she reads to him, eventually finding himself on his side so that he can better watch the way her mouth forms around the words, how the flame from the lone candle on his nightstand glitters in her deep amber gaze as her eyes rove across the pages.
She turns her head to look at him as she flips a page and he wonders if she can hear his heart thudding hard against his chest like he can.
They are so close now, and he can smell her scent and it drowns him, and he can feel her heat seeping into his skin, and…
Her lips are so soft, so warm as he gently presses his mouth to hers, and his blood is burning at the sound of her faint whimper as he tastes the curve of her lip with his tongue.
He can hardly breathe when their mouths part, can hardly bare the gorgeous look of affection in her eyes as she smiles at him. He can only gaze at her in wonder as an easy silence stretches between them.
“I thought I told you to forget me, Hermione.” He finally murmurs softly, almost to himself.
“You did.”
She continues reading where they had left off.
***
Severus stops in front of a door he’s never seen before in a seldom- visited corridor of the dungeons, somehow knowing who he will find once he slips inside.
On his way here, he had wondered briefly if he’d finally gone mad as he chased after an otter he spotted scampering through the winding dungeon halls. After quickly losing sight of the damned thing, he had followed the sound of its claws skittering across the stone floor straight to this most mysterious door.
The room is more of a great hall than an ordinary room, stretching long and narrow with a vaulted ceiling (magical architecture has always fascinated him) and thick stone columns running along the length of its sides. He steps onto a lush carpet of grass rather than stone and catches sight of Hermione standing at the edge of a seemingly natural pool of water carved out of the ground at the hall’s center.
He watches from behind her as she drags her shirt up over her head and tosses it to the side. Severus wonders briefly if he should leave, if she even knows he is here. But then she glances at him over her shoulder for just a moment with that cheeky grin of hers before shedding the rest of her clothes. He has mere seconds to marvel at her, to drink in the glowing ivory of her skin with his fists clenches at his sides, before she bends over and dives over the edge.
He moves closer, following her lithe figure as she glides effortlessly under the clear water with his dark gaze.
“How is it that Hogwarts’ most notorious busy-body has time for a midnight swim?” He asks with a smirk as her head emerges. “Don’t you have an army to prepare, Granger?”
“I’ve not the faintest idea of what you mean, Sir,” she grins.
He arches a brow as he ambles alongside the pool, drawing closer to where her head bobs above the water. “About which part exactly— your reputation as a busy-body or a general?”
She merely huffs, but he catches the smile she attempts to suppress.
She wades closer then, and stills before him. His eyes follow a glistening drop trailing down her neck until it’s caught in the delicate hollow of her collarbone. A lovely flush of pink touches her cheeks as he meets her gaze and he longs to feel her warmth against his hand.
“This room isn’t mentioned in Hogwarts: A History, you know,” she finally says in a voice full of reverence. “They say the castle has some level of sentience, but I think… I think this place may be its heart, in some sense. Or this lands’ heart, perhaps. Maybe that’s why they built the castle here… That sounds a bit strange, I suppose.”
“I don’t think it’s strange, Hermione.”
“My scar seems lighter for it, at least.”
His eyes impulsively dip lower to where her scar is, obscured by the water rippling around her movements when she suddenly draws her limbs upward, stretching out to drift atop the surface and stealing his breath as she presents herself to him.
Gods, has there ever lived a creature more divine? He thinks as he reaches out to her with little thought and gently traces along her scar, caressing from the tip of her shoulder and across her sternum to graze just below the swell of her breast.
“Stunning,” he whispers, letting his touch linger just a moment longer to drift his fingertips down her side before withdrawing with a ragged exhale.
Time seems to stop here in this ethereal hall— or perhaps it was her— and he shifts back to sit, savoring every exquisite line and curve and dip of her body as she floats peacefully before him.
How could he ever think that it would be possible for him to let her go? She was a constant thrum of intoxicating heat under his skin, burning in his veins and driving him to desperately cling to the wildest, most unfathomable notions— Perhaps he could survive this war and have Hermione and never let her go. Perhaps the world could be kinder after all this darkness and he wouldn’t be eternally despised for all that he has done.
Perhaps… Perhaps he could live.
Something moves in his periphery then, and he glances over to see a curious patch of flowers blooming up from the grass right under his gaze.
Severus sighs.
Forget-me-nots.
Hermione’s eyes flutter open and he feels as if his heart is being strangled as she folds her arms over the edge and peers up at him. He pauses briefly before extending his hand to smooth back a wet lock of hair from her face.
“Do you remember what I said to you in the lake that night?” He asks.
Severus adores the habitual way she catches her lip between her teeth.
“You told me to forget you.” She finally murmurs softly.
Severus looks down and plucks a cluster of the pale blue flowers, a smile tugging at his mouth as he tucks the delicate stem behind her ear.
“What are they?” She asks. “They weren’t here before.”
“A stubborn weed, perhaps… although undoubtedly captivating in their beauty.”
***