Soulsavers

Hermione

Hermione remembered her first kiss and the disorienting sensation it had brought. It had been a small thing, but seminal: from a girl who'd never kissed before to a girl who had. She remembered it had been satisfying, not so much because of the kissing itself - that part got better as she practised - but because she had known how shocked everyone would be when it transpired she'd been snogging Viktor Krum, the international Quidditch star.

The second person she'd kissed was McLaggen, and it was not worth dwelling on. Ron had been third, and it changed her too - or rather, it changed their relationship. Too much, and not enough. She had wanted this to happen for so long and when it finally did they could never go back to just being friends. Everything became too personal, too fraught, too invested between them. Both of them depended on Harry when they wanted to complain about one another, and Harry... Harry had never experienced dealing with a fight between mommy and daddy, had he?

Now she was in the middle of kissing her fourth romantic interest, and she recoiled when she remembered the awful truth. The kiss was not bad - Severus was surprisingly good for someone who did not have much experience (she assumed). But his first kiss shouldn't have been with her.

"Stop," she gasped. He took a step back. Yes, still in love with him. Great. She had a job to do. She couldn't let what was sure to be a failed romance get in her way.

"You didn't want -" he started, but Hermione couldn't bear to let him finish this ridiculous thought. Matilda had been teasing her about her attraction to Severus for months. Blast that selectively perceptive idiot.

"You love Lily," she blurted out, strained.

He seemed confused. "Maybe I used to, before. I think I did."

Think? How can he not know for sure? Didn't his Patronus take the same form as hers?

She shook her head. "You don't have to lie, Severus. I'm not mad or anything, it's fine - but - you love Lily."

He turned his back to her and she thought he might make to leave, but he stayed rooted on the spot. "Ever since you came here you've been meddling in my plans, patronising me, making assumptions about me that you refused to shake," he said, still not looking at her. Is this supposed to make me feel better?

"I only said you love Lily, you don't need to explain that even if you didn't, you would never love me!" She huffed.

"Interrupting me," he added pointedly, "making a fool of yourself and embarrassing me next to my friends... and you never answer questions like a normal person." And then he turned slightly to look at her, or at a point in her general vicinity, in any case. "But it's been... better. Since you've been. Been here, I mean," he cleared his throat. "It's been - before you got here, you should know - people don't really like me very much - and I know why, you know, I wouldn't like to get the stench of Cokeworth on me either, but... you're different."

She tried to get him to look her in the eyes as he said it. Never had she seen him looking so vulnerable, as a teenager or as a grown man. How could the man who would lie to Voldemort's face avoid looking at her now?

"I won't do it again if you hated it," he said, and though he tried to sound nonchalant and even affronted, she felt an undercurrent of longing in his tone.

"I didn't hate it, Severus," she said to the undercurrent, ignoring the minor provocation. Part of him seemed to want her or expect her to tell him to leave her alone forever, but that part would not have its way. Not until they made Time Turners that could go forward in time.

"And why would you think I love Lily," he asked suddenly, resuming his more familiar, defensive tone. She sighed. Absent a good deflection, all she could think to do was to tell it to him again: "I didn't hate it. I've been dreaming about this for months."

Now she felt like she couldn't look at him, and she felt his eyes probing at her and looking for the lie. What would a Slytherin do? Whatever her uniform said, Hermione had spent the past years of her life with Ron and Harry for best friends, and she felt under-equipped for dealing with Severus, even though he was technically younger than her, even though she knew him better than he knew himself. A true Slytherin, she felt, wouldn't have confessed to a weakness like she just had.

"So... you'll let me do it again?" He asked her, and there was no denying it anymore: He was, truly, still so very young, and also - her deflection worked. At least this time.

"Yes, I'll let you do it again," she intoned, and felt him drawing near her. Sure, his love for Lily was the reason he turned. Yes, she could think of nothing else that would motivate him now, considering that back in the Great Hall, he had referred to himself and his friends as Death Eaters as though they'd all already been marked. But the day's been long, and she was too tired, and when they weren't kissing she was too overwhelmed with sorrow over everything that had happened to Professor Prewett and Molly, and everything that would happen to Molly, and to Hermione herself, and to Barty, and to Severus. She decided that if she failed, even if she failed, she - and Severus - deserved a little peace and happiness. So she "let him" do it again, and let herself get fully lost in the sensation. She had forgotten how just plain good it felt to be kissed, how excited she could get at the sensation of skin on skin, and how soft another person's mouth against hers felt. If she had known, she might have tried to dress nicer, or do something about her puffy eyes, or the static that made her hair look  like she'd been electrocuted. But Severus didn't seem to mind all that.

Severus

He only left Hermione's room because dinner had ended. His bliss was cut short by a squeak of a door and a nasal, snooty girl's voice saying, "oh, finally. Astrid, you owe me a Galleon."

Hermione withdrew quickly and he as well, and he hoped they did not look too disheveled, but, all the same, he moved a length of hair from his face and smiled at Matilda with his lips pressed together. "Glad I could be helpful to you, Matilda," he said. "Hermione, I'll be seeing you," he added, and glided out of the room feeling light and airy and magical. More than the kiss itself, it was that she'd been dreaming about it, that apparently it had been so obvious to her roommates. He never bought into the idea that he truly was inferior to his classmates, no matter how hard some of said classmates attempted to drill this notion into his head. But he did understand that it would take a lot for other people to see it, considering his cursed Muggle heritage, his cursed name, his... lacking people skills. Lucius confirmed as much, after all.

And then, of course, there was the kiss. He'd tried, and it worked, and then it happened again. He never expected it to happen here at Hogwarts, but then - it didn't help that he really harboured feelings for Lily, had it? Lily. Please. He had tried to explain to himself how Lily could ever go for Potter, and now, now that she was no longer his only prospect, he suddenly realised how little he cared. If Lily wanted Potter, she could have him.

Severus did, however, realise he now had to worry about Crouch.

Barty - some time after

Someone elbowed Barty to get his attention. Apparently, his father made headlines again: "Crouch, Head of Magical Law Enforcement, to Authorise Unprecedented Measures Against Dark Forces."

Barty grabbed the newspaper out of his housemate's hand. What had that delusional hypocrite done now?

"It was with a heavy heart that I signed a decree authorising the Aurors  to use the curses commonly known as "unforgivable" in attempt to curtail the tide of darkness and terror sweeping our bla bla bla and tearing apart loving families bla bla bla," Crouch said to Ministry Correspondent Brownnosing Shill. "I must also give due credit to my assistant, Dolores Umbridge, who took great care and nuance helping me draft this sadly vital decree."

Heavy heart. Loving families. Barty knew all about his father's heavy heart and loving family. Father loved pretending he had ran out of options, that he had had no other choice... almost as much as he loved using the Imperius on his own son to make him behave. Since the day Jr. was born, he could do no right, and had been coerced even into doing things he wanted to do, like study magic with tutors so that he would excel at Hogwarts. With an ordinary wooden stick, of course. No underage magic. Barty had lost so many days to the haze of the Imperius curse, and he hated how pleasant it was to give in. It made his skin crawl.

"He has the right idea," what's-his-name said. "Those Death Eaters, you know, you can't fight them with normal stuff."

Daddy's statement went on: "Even with these admittedly extreme new measures, there is a long, hard fight ahead of us, and we must not let law and order get in the way of law and order as we protect our fragile community from the scourge that plagues it."

Barty only prayed that this will not dissuade the Dark Lord from letting him join the Death Eaters. Without the Dark Lord, no one would teach Barty how to resist his father's control of him.

"You should be really proud of him, Crouch. I know I would be. I know you must be scared they'll retaliate against him now."

Crouch excused himself, and he noticed that Hermione rushed out of the Great Hall too.