QLFC Semi-Finals
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Captain
Captain's Prompt: An angsty story using the prompt 'happily married' (concept)
Additional Note: Very AU. There's an accident with a magical artifact, and it creates a time-space distortion.
Beta Love: To Sehanine and Fragilereality for looking things over! You are the best! :)
Word Count: 2,666
In Time, Love Endures
There is darkness. Someone screams in the distance. Across the battlefield, voices moan in pain like a chorus of the damned. Hermione can smell the thick, metallic scent of blood in the air. She sees flashes of light as spells fly through the battlefield, reflecting off silver Death Eater masks. Fire burns the forest to her right, and she sees the flickering forms of Acromantulas skittering from behind the trunks of the trees.
Harry is shouting something, but she can't hear him. He's holding something up in his hand.
A Time-Turner?
She reaches towards him and he throws it to her. It seems to move in slow motion, and she hurls herself towards it, stretching out to grab it until her arm screams with pain.
She sees the spell moving like a jagged snake through the sky. She knows she won't be able to grab the Time-Turner before the spell hits, but still she tries.
She fails.
The spell hits the hourglass with a sickening jolt. There is a flash of light as it explodes, and time stands still.
Hermione looks around at the frozen forms around her. She wonders momentarily why she is the only one able to move, and then she realizes that shining sand has embedded itself in her skin. Tiny droplets of blood ooze around the unspeakably hot substance as it continues to sink deeper into her flesh.
Pain blooms across her body, and she screams and screams and screams.
"Hermione! Hermione!" A frantic voice calls out to her, and someone is shaking her awake.
Hermione sits up in bed, clawing at the air with her fingers. A light is switched on and she can see immediately that her skin is pristine. No bruises, no burning time sand. Nothing.
"What's wrong, love?" A familiar silky voice makes her shiver with pleasure.
She turns to look, and she cannot believe who is putting a hand on her shoulder with genuine concern in his features.
"Professor?" she squeaks, noticing that she is wearing a silk nightgown and nothing else.
He frowns. "That must have been quite the nightmare. I haven't taught in years, thank Merlin. You're the professor now, Hermione."
Hermione stands and runs to the mirror that hangs over the chest of drawers. Her reflection is still young, but she can tell that she is older than the dirt-streaked image she's used to seeing in the mirror.
"What happened?" she asks, turning back to him. She looks down at her hands and realizes there's a gold band on her ring finger. "Is this what I think it is?"
"Hermione, do I need to take you to St. Mungo's again?" He stands and comes to her, concern in his face. She smiles instinctively at the flannel Hippogriff-print pajama pants he's wearing along with a rumpled Slytherin Quidditch t-shirt.
"Again?" She blinks in confusion, then shakes her head. "Of course not. I'm just being silly."
"Hermione…" He trails off and wraps his arms around her. She can't help but catch the minty, herbal scent of him. It is both familiar and reassuring. She closes her eyes, breathing him in as he holds her close. She can feel her heart rate slowing.
"We should go back to bed," she says hesitantly, and he softly kisses her on the forehead.
Her body responds to this affection with a thrill of glee, and Hermione begins to realize that it's not some sort of trick. She is safe and warm in a softly-lit bedroom along with a man who is apparently her husband. He is attentive and loving in ways that seem somehow familiar even though she knows that this is all wrong.
They both get back into their shared bed and he spoons with her, kissing her behind the ear and settling his weight against her. She realizes that it feels so very right, despite the fact that she is still not sure what is going on.
She falls asleep with the fading horror of the battle twisting in her belly and the budding knowledge that she is married to Severus Snape.
Hermione's parents have been married for over two decades, and they still love each other deeply and openly to the point that it is obvious to anyone who sees them together. She has always hoped for a relationship like theirs, perhaps with Ron. She'd never have expected such a thing from someone like the cruel Potions professor. Still, when she wakes up whimpering with phantom pain from the white-hot time sand that no longer sears her skin, he holds her close and whispers comforting words into her ear until she settles into sleep once more. When she wakes up the next morning, she can smell the delicious scent of something sizzling. The gentle morning light streams through a stained-glass window on the far side of the room. She stretches, surveying the bedroom with fresh eyes. She showers and finds that he's laid out robes for her on the neatly-made bed. Then, she follows the scent of breakfast down the hall into the kitchen.
She stops when she realizes that there is a small figure sitting at the little table swinging her feet back and forth with excitement.
"More toast, Daddy!" the girl exclaims, grinning as she slams her fork down onto her plate.
"More toast, Daddy what?" Snape replies without even looking at her.
"More toast, Daddy…" The girl trails off and shakes her dark curly-haired head from side to side thoughtfully, "...please?"
"Very good, Sedna," he says, placing two triangle-shaped pieces of marmalade toast on her plate in one smooth movement. "Oh, look who it is. Good morning, Hermione."
She stares at the picture of domesticity, goggling at the "kiss the cook" apron he's wearing. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"
"If that's a compliment for the dreamy scent of my cooking, then I'll take it," he replies with a smirk that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"MUMMY!" The girl stands up, her pancake forgotten, and runs around the table, latching herself onto Hermione's robes.
"I— um, hello," Hermione mumbles back, patting the girl's hair and wondering at how bushy and curly it is. The girl looks up at her with huge dark eyes—Snape's eyes—and grins, showing off teeth that Hermione knows will be a mirror image of her own in a few years.
"Leave your mother be, Sedna," Snape chides the girl without any real venom, gently steering her back to the table. "She's still tired."
He glances back, giving her a meaningful look before attending to the girl. She knows that look. They will talk later.
Hermione sits down, and tries not to stare at the girl as she tucks into her breakfast. Snape is a fantastic cook, it turns out, and Hermione's eyes tear up at her first bite of sausage. It's been ages since she can remember the taste of it in her mouth. The toast is crispy and hot as it breaks against her teeth. The sweet and tangy flavor of marmalade fills her with pleasure. Hermione is ravenous. She finishes off at least ten slices of marmalade toast, seven sausage links, two fried eggs, and several sliced tomatoes. By the time she's finished with her food and her tea, Snape has cleared away the empty plates and the girl is working on a puzzle.
The doorbell rings and Snape goes to answer it.
"Come, Sedna! Your gran is here!" He calls from the doorway.
"Coming!" The girl leaves her puzzle at the table and tackle-hugs Hermione. "Bye Mummy!"
Hermione closes her eyes and sees the battlefield frozen in her mind. She can smell death. She opens her eyes, seeing this safe, sunny kitchen filled with people who love her and a sense of vertigo overcomes her.
"Have a fun time," she says absently, and Sedna looks at her with concern.
When Snape comes back, he is alone. "I've sent our daughter to spend time with your mum so we can talk properly."
"Mum? Mum!" Hermione tries to stand, but catches her leg on her chair and stumbles forward, nearly knocking over her teacup.
Suddenly, Snape is beside her steadying her with one hand and catching the teacup with the other. Hermione sits back down shakily and does not speak for a long moment, her mind playing and replaying the moment that she forced her parents to forget her in an endless loop.
Silently, he sits down across from her and takes her hand. Hermione is surprised at how she does not flinch at his touch. It is as though her body knows to welcome this contact. "Let me see," he says softly. He takes a finger and smooths a ringlet of hair behind one of her ears and caresses her temple gently with his thumb.
Hermione does not want him to see it, but she needs to know if it is real. The alternative is unthinkable.
"I—I am not sure what is real and what is a dream," she says, her voice cracking.
"Please," he says, softer than a whisper.
She nods and lets him in.
The screams of the dying surround her and deadly spells fly every which way. Hermione begins to hyperventilate as she raises a Shield Charm. A warm hand takes hers and she looks up to see Snape looking down at her. "Don't worry, I'm here with you. This is merely your memory."
As he watches the scene unfold around them, he wraps his cloak around Hermione and raises his wand to dispatch an attacking Death Eater. She clings to his hand until he watches the Time-Turner explode and the memory version of Hermione begins to scream. Finally, the memory goes dark.
Hermione blinks. She is sitting at the kitchen table, her fingers tightly entwined with his. Her face is streaked with tears. "What was that? Er…"
"Severus. Call me Severus," he says softly, his expression full of sorrow. "And I believe it's your turn to see."
"See what?" she asks, but then she is falling into his memories.
She watches herself meeting Severus in Dublin, of all places. She goes there after the war is over. Voldemort is dead for good, but the war has been costly. Harry is dead. So are the twins. Ginny is catatonic from spell damage. Ron has crawled into a bottle and cannot abide sobriety. Molly has lost an arm. Arthur is blind. The Malfoys escape punishment again. Kingsley is running against Umbridge for Minister of Magic, and it looks as though Umbridge might win.
Hermione accepts the first apprenticeship that will take her out of desperation. She finds Severus working at the local apothecary. At first, he hides behind a glamour. Then, one day, he lets her see his real face. They bond over having survived a war that nobody else in their new surroundings has had to face. She watches herself falling in love with him over the next few months.
"I look like such a lovesick fool," she mutters, blushing.
"For the record, I was the bigger fool," Severus says, from her side, "I fell for you within a week."
"Oh?" she says, looking up at him and smirking back at him.
"How could I not?" he replies, and she feels her heart leap.
She is holding his hand as she watches his memories like a movie on fast-forward. He helps her heal her parents' memories. She watches their simple wedding ceremony on the cliffs with only a few witnesses and the sea to watch over them. She watches Minerva officiating the proceedings. After she receives her mastery in both Herbology and Potions, she accepts a job at Hogwarts, and things are quiet for a time. Then, a few years later, Sedna is born. Hermione has to hold back tears at the memory of her daughter's birth. If she finds a way back, she knows that she may lose all of this. Her daughter may never exist.
"All of this is…" She trails off, staring up at Severus.
"Your future...or perhaps merely one possible future," he says sadly.
Hermione's heart tugs her towards the memories before her. "I don't want to go back. Not now that I know the truth."
"You may not have a choice, Hermione," he says, squeezing her hand.
They sit in the darkened study on the couch watching the fire flickering merrily. It seems to mock their respective somber moods. Hermione rests her head against him, his cloak wrapped around her as they look through a book together.
"This book I have on hypothetical magical theories says that time sand gets overheated when it activates," Severus says, showing Hermione the passage in the book he's been looking through. "If it passes through an object, it can create a temporal anomaly until it exits the other side."
"What if it it stays embedded?" Hermione asks.
"Impossible," Severus replies, pointing to a diagram. "Time sand is four dimensional, which means that it can interact with physical objects in three dimensional space, but it is mostly intangible. If it has any inertia, it will continue on its course unless gathered in certain charmed objects or a temporal charm field."
Hermione nods. "That makes sense. So, eventually, the sand will pass through my body?"
"At this time, there are two schools of thought. Either you will return to the time and space you were initially located when you became trapped in the time distortion, or you will remain wherever you've ended up." Severus looks up at her. "If you return, you will likely remember nothing, and as the dominant theories are of many branching timelines, there is no guarantee that you will be able to find your way back to this timeline."
"I could never forget this," Hermione says, and she tries to make herself believe it.
They spend the next few days as though Hermione might disappear at any time. She takes some time off from work and they take Sedna out to the theatre, to the park, anywhere that they can spend time together as a family. Each night, after Sedna is deep asleep in her room, they twine their bodies tightly together and comfort one another without words. There's a deeply satisfying familiarity in listening to him cooking dinner while she pores through back issues of the Prophet, trying to memorize this timeline.
"It might not do any good," he says, as he places the napkins and silverware on the table.
She kisses him on the nose and tries to look confident. "I aim to do better than good."
"Ever the overachiever," he purrs, kissing her on the lips.
"Again," she demands. Anything to quiet the fear of being wrong that is rising in her belly.
"What's the magic word?" he whispers against her lips.
"Please," she breathes back.
Four weeks later, Hermione begins to feel moments of fuzziness. It is as though she is fading out of existence for moments at a time. At first, she tries to brush it off as exhaustion. She stays up late, after all.
Then, one night, she grabs for her spoon and her hand passes through it.
"Severus," she says, her voice filling with alarm.
But when he hastily sets down their plates and flies to her side, her hand is solid again.
Hermione begins to feel the most indistinct when she is about to fall asleep, so she takes potions to avoid it and her long nights get longer. Severus stays up to keep her company, but exhaustion eventually sets in and they find themselves dozing together.
One night, when his arms are tightly wrapped around her, it happens. He wakes as she grows more and more insubstantial until the sheets finally fall flat.
She is gone.
A choked sob escapes his lips as he calls out her name, but receives no answer.
"Hermione, please. Find your way back to me." He is begging in an empty room, but he is past caring.
He dreams of a battlefield that he cannot reach.