Author's Note: A birthday gift fic for the lovely Claude Amelia Song! I hope for only happiness in her life as she begins to make her way in the world.
A Secret Heart in the Darkness
"The Dark Lord wishes to see you, Severus." Yaxley stood at the door, his face stony.
"I see…" Severus placed a Stasis Charm on the potion he was brewing, and washed up, his mind reeling with the possibilities of what the Dark Lord—the man who, until recently, had never even known his name—had in mind for him.
It had all changed after he'd reported back the prophecy he'd heard, but already Severus was beginning to grow disillusioned with working for the Dark Lord. He had been promised fame, wealth, and connections to help him make his way in the world. Instead, he'd been painfully branded, forced to work all manner of hours brewing potions for no pay at all, and had nearly been hexed by Bellatrix Lestrange, who was (by all accounts) loonier in person than the scathing exposé on her dubious character in the Daily Prophet. She and her cohorts, the Lestrange brothers, made the Marauders look like toothless toddlers in comparison.
"Ah, Severus, there you are," the Dark Lord said, turning in his chair as Severus entered the ornate room. "Come. Sit."
"Thank you, Sir." Severus did as he was told, his mind reeling with the possibilities for this impromptu meeting.
"So, I have thought over your request, the one about the girl you desire," Voldemort said, twirling his wand in one hand. "I have decided to honor your request…"
"Oh, thank you, Sir!" Severus said gratefully, his face flushing at how stupidly happy he sounded.
"I was not done, Severus," The Dark Lord replied, his mouth set in a firm line, and Severus felt panic spiking in his chest. "What I meant to say is this. I have decided to honor your request, if you indulge me in a little...experiment."
Severus paled. "Of course, my Lord. I am your loyal servant."
"One wonders just how loyal you are, Severus," The Dark Lord said, turning and grabbing something from a small cabinet to his right. He placed a tiny flask on the table in front of Severus and tapped it lightly with a single gloved finger. "Well, now you have the chance to prove it. Drink all of this and share the results with me."
"My Lord?" Severus stared at the tiny metal bottle. He knew that it was not something he had created himself, and he was instantly both curious and suspicious of the contents.
"Drink it, Severus," The Dark Lord said in a slightly harder voice.
"O-of course," he said, fumbling with it and unscrewing the lid.
The scent that escaped the inside of the flask was sweet and heady. Severus felt his body moving of its own accord and he tipped the liquid into his mouth, guzzling it down greedily with a look of pure bliss on his face, tears appearing in his eyes and streaming down his cheeks.
"Interesting," he heard the Dark Lord say from seemingly far away.
He found himself shoving his tongue into the opening of the flask, trying to get out every single drop with a hunger that could not be sated, and when he finally could get no more, he sa in agony, his desire for more burning in his throat.
"It burns," he moaned, falling back in his chair, his chest heaving. "Oh Merlin, it burns, it burns!"
"Very interesting," The Dark Lord said, grinning slowly as he watched what was happening to Severus. "Very interesting, indeed."
Hermione had never meant to do it. It had just...happened. At first, she used it only for classes, just as she'd promised. Then, of course, for homework. And then, studying. And then, well...there were tons of amazing books in the Hogwarts Library, weren't there? And there were far too many for any one student to read, even if said student were to read one per day for all seven years of school, including holidays.
Hermione knew this.
She'd done the math, actually, at eleven years of age. It had been rather depressing math, when all was said and done, but she'd managed it, and it had taken her a week of moping about with her head in An Assorted Compendium of Trolls and Trollish Beasts before she could make peace with that fact.
And, in the end, it was what had finally prompted her, at the end of her twelfth year, when she'd finally been cured of petrification and had used this as leverage to ask the Headmaster if there was some way for her to fit in extra studies.
"I just...I don't have access to the Wizarding World during the holidays!" she'd exclaimed, "but if I had more classes and more time to review more books, I might have figured out the basilisk earlier."
She'd managed to make her pleas sound more like the emphatic desire of a scholar and less like a whiny brat, but eventually it seemed as though Dumbledore had relented starting in her third year and that was when she was given the Time-Turner.
Now that she thought back on it, they'd never asked her parents to sign anything. Hermione had been given a set of rules, of course, and told to follow them, but there were plenty of things a clever girl like herself could come up with that were not technically prohibited. For example, she was allowed to use the Time-Turner to study. Study was such a general term, really.
By the end of her third year, she'd spent so much time studying, that she'd not only aced her tests, but she'd actually read nearly all of the books in the library.
That she'd grown at least two feet and her body had changed quite a bit by the end of a single year seemed to go unnoticed by most everyone. Hermione was glad for the voluminous robes. It was also easy for her to laugh her growth off with her parents when they saw her again—after all, it had been a year since she'd seen them.
But secretly, she'd used an old charm that she'd found in Deception and Determination: Charms to Mask and Unmask the Discerning Wizard just to know for certain if it was the truth.
She had aged herself nearly three years in only one.
Hermione felt the Trace spell break on her in her fourth year, but she told no one. Sure, she was technically seventeen, but there was no way she was going to part herself from all that Hogwarts had to offer just because of a silly Time-Turner. By this time, Harry was far too busy with his Triwizard tasks and Ron was too busy being a git to notice. Hermione noticed almost at once that her magical abilities had changed. It was almost as though the Trace also instilled certain limits on her magic and casting ability. For lack of a better term, it was like training wheels for magic. She soon began to cast nonverbal spells with ease, and she was able to make her wand do all manner of advanced magic that it had not allowed her to do before. She made sure to test this theory very carefully, though, for she knew that there might be consequences if she were caught.
And, there was one more thing that changed, a thing that troubled her most of all.
Her heart would start racing at random intervals, as though she'd just seen something exciting even though she had no idea what it was. Her palms would start to sweat and she'd feel intensely flustered to the point of sounding nonsensical. Soon after, Hermione began to feel as though someone was following her. She'd get a sensation on the back of her neck as though someone was right behind her, but when she turned, there was never anyone there. At first, she wondered if it was Harry in his Invisibility Cloak, but sometimes she would feel it even when he was right beside her.
As the months wore on, Hermione tried to attribute the strange throbbing feeling in her chest to Viktor's determined pursuit of her. But the more she tried to deny it, the more she would dream of another pair of arms wrapping around her tightly and a decidedly different voice whispering ardent words in her ear.
One evening, she was rushing back to Gryffindor Tower late from the library, and one of her straps had snapped. Her books and parchment fell to the ground with a crash and she scrambled to get everything in order again.
"Out after curfew, are we?" said a familiar voice, and Hermione's belly flip-flopped.
Professor Snape loomed above her like a wraith, his sneer and dark eyes full of an almost comical disdain. Hermione frowned at this, for she had never really noticed before just how much he was trying to look intimidating despite the fact that the rest of his body language showed something almost completely the opposite. His foot was tapping nervously and his hands appeared to be bunched in his pockets. A small muscle twitched briefly on his neck.
'Is he...nervous?' Hermione thought to herself, but then he was pulling out his wand and levitating her remaining things.
"To my office, Granger," he drawled. "Now."
Hermione's heart did another somersault, as she saw his cheeks growing pink. "Y-yes sir."
Though she didn't know what to expect, something inside of her told her that this was more than just a detention.
"Sit." Severus pointed at a chair on the other side of his desk and then levitated the contents of Hermione Granger's bag onto a nearby table. "You can collect your things when we are done."
"Sir?" The girl squeaked, her face flushing a bright red.
Damn. She really was adorable. Severus resisted the urge to grin in a decidedly sappy manner and stomped on his toes under the table to get his mind off of her. He'd never felt this way for another human being in his entire life, and he would be damned if he started now. Severus prided himself in never having a romantic feeling for a student, regardless of age, and none of them had any reason to be attracted to his greasy, dour self. The teachers, too, treated him platonically but there was never any sign that there was anything beyond that between them.
But Hermione...Granger...was different. And Severus needed to know why. He knew he would not simply start crushing on a fourth year student. Not only was the thought of an underaged girl disgusting, but the idea that he would be predating upon her made him feel unclean. Still, his heart tumbled nervously in his chest and he knew something strange had happened only a few weeks earlier and had he not been busy up to his neck in stress about the Triwizard Tournament and the possibility of the Dark Lord's return, he probably would have noticed it sooner.
"Tell me," he said, looking down at her with a neutral expression. "Have you encountered or begun to use any strange charms or charmed products in the last few weeks?"
The girl squirmed in her seat under his gaze and then finally shook her head. "No, sir. I know the rules. Why, in Hogwarts: A History—"
"Hogwarts: a History, yes, yes, I know," Severus replied, exasperatedly.
The girl fixed him with an odd look, then, and Severus had to stop himself from squirming in his seat.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Granger?"
"This isn't about my book bag or being out after curfew, is it?" She fixed him with a neutral expression of her own, but her cheeks were practically scarlet. She crossed her legs and then uncrossed them as though she was barely able to stay in her seat.
Shite. That clever little Gryffindor. She'd seen through his ruse.
"You may go," he said, his voice cracking slightly as he said it. "I mean, get your things sorted, and leave."
She stood, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. Severus grabbed a random pile of parchments and a quill, trying to make himself look busy.
"Professor?"
"What?!" he barked loudly.
"I feel strange," she said, taking a step towards him, and the feelings flickering in his belly began to swell to a roar. "I...I feel hot...and…" She took a couple of deep breaths. "My heart is racing."
"Have you eaten anything recently?" He stood, pushing the chair away from him, and hunched over his desk. His hands gripped the corners of the table to keep him from keeling over.
"Nothing out of the ordinary," she replied. She was wiggling her hips back and forth in a seemingly unconscious way, and he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from looking.
"Other than heat, do you have any other symptoms?" he asked, knowing he should take her to see Madam Pomfrey, but his body refused to cooperate.
"I'm having trouble thinking clearly," she blurted out, "and I feel a tingly sensation in my belly and my chest...and...other places." This, she said in a rush, covering her mouth with embarrassment.
"Tell me," he said, his voice shaking, "What has changed recently with you?"
"N-nothing!" she said, far too quickly.
Aha, a lie. Now this was something he was more used to dealing with.
He raced around the desk and grabbed her by the shoulders, barely restraining the urge to shake her. "Do. Not. Lie. To. Me," he growled.
She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. "No...I...I can't…"
"TELL ME!" he roared, and she let out a soft sob.
She went silent for a long time, and Severus realized that he was drawing his face uncomfortably close to hers. He could feel the desire pressing against him, telling him to kiss her, to wrap his arms around her, to comfort her…
He froze, unable to let go of her as a new, heady sensation filled him. Oh. Oh no. It couldn't be.
"M-my T-trace," she said shakily. "It...it broke…"
"Broke?" he echoed softly.
"I'm seventeen." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Please, Professor. Please don't tell anyone."
"I'll spare your Mudblood," Voldemort had said. Then he'd given Severus the substance to drink. "The Mudblood isn't your true love, Severus, and you know it," he'd said, after. "This will merely prove my point. Oh, I'll let you have her. A man has needs, after all, but love? You'll see, Severus. I can't see what you see in her, though. She's already filled to bursting with a traitor's dirty child anyway. I wonder, will you cut the brat out and cauterize her womb to ensure that she cannot bear any more dirty children?" He'd laughed in his high, cool voice. "Or do you desire to fill her with your own progeny?"
Severus had stood, then, his anger rising in him despite his attempt to chain it down.
Voldemort had smiled, then, and shook his head. He was a god looking down at an ant and Severus knew it. "I am doing you a favor, my trusted servant. I am teaching you truths about this world just as I have promised. You would do well to remember this lesson."
All Severus knew that night and for every night after was the need of his true love. The ache of wanting someone he could not have. Sometimes, he could turn down the volume on the desire for it using Occulumency, but it buzzed annoyingly underneath like a thirst he could never satisfy.
He hadn't been able to see Lily before she died to prove the Dark Lord wrong. By the time the horror of that Halloween had settled down, Severus had hoped that the need in him would settle down as well, but it didn't. He couldn't even look at anyone with desire, not in the way his soul ached for him to be sated. No matter what he did, he still could not quench his body's thirst.
But now, his fingers were digging into the soft skin of her arms and the sensation of touching her was like an electric shock.
"How?" he asked, his throat painfully dry.
She shook her head. "I can't tell you. The headmaster told me I couldn't."
"It's something to do with Black's escape, isn't it?" he asked bitterly.
Her eyes were large, her pupils dilated as she looked up at him, her face filled with shame and desire. "I'm sorry, really I—"
He placed a finger over her lips.
"Shh," he said, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. "If you don't stop talking, I'm going to do something that I am going to deeply regret."
"Are you going to hurt me, Professor?"
"No, Granger," he replied, trying to shove down the overwhelming desire in his head. "I should think it would be the polar opposite of hurting."
"Not Granger. Hermione," she whispered.
"What?"
"Please. Call me Hermione," she said, and with one swift movement, she kissed him.
Severus was simultaneously in both heaven and hell. He wanted nothing more than to slip into mindless bliss. On the other hand, he was also fighting to regain control of himself so that he could somehow regain a sense of propriety. A professor did not moan into his student's mouth the way he was doing. A professor did not melt against her body like a lover. A professor did not confess his love in ardent gasps as she wrapped her arms tightly around him and kissed him more deeply. A professor did not request to be called Severus and then whisper her name over and over like a sacred prayer as she kissed his neck.
"Hermione, Hermione, Hermione."
He was so, so lost.
It took him over a month after that night to see her again. He lost his nerve, but then he remembered the peace of falling asleep in her arms, and the fact that the peace had lasted him over a week, and the lack of her gnawed at his soul.
She'd tried to seek him out, but he was far too clever. Far too good at being unseen, at running away.
When she finally cornered him in his office, she'd pounced on him, and his mind had nearly gone blank with pleasure as he warded the door shut.
"Oh, Severus, how I've missed you," she'd whispered against his lips, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.
The next day, he hated himself. He told himself that he was sick and it was wrong for him to feel the way he did. That it was Voldemort's vile potion that had convinced him that she was his true love when it had to be Lily, or someone else—someone his age.
'She's of age,' a nasty voice, a voice that sounded suspiciously like the Dark Lord's, whispered in his head. 'You're doing nothing wrong. Simply taking what you want, and what is offered. That can't be wrong, can it?'
Severus tried to ignore it, but then he would dream of her pressed against his side, her arm wrapped lazily around his as they drifted to sleep. It filled him with such a feeling of satisfaction and wholeness that it terrified him to lose it.
He pretended to hate her. He hated it, but she seemed to find it amusing.
Cheeky girl.
He caught her trying to defend him all the time and doubled down on his meanness.
Later, when they were alone, he would beg for her forgiveness as she kissed lines down his neck and across his collarbones and behind his ears.
"You are forgiven, Severus," she would say sweetly, and he would look into her eyes and see the closest thing to peace that he had ever known.
It wasn't until after the war that Hermione returned to Hogwarts. Severus, too, was working in a purely administrative role due to Minerva's kindness once she had learned the truth from the pensieve. Most people didn't even know he was still alive, which was fine with Severus.
There was only one person who he wished he could tell, but cowardice and self-hatred prevented him from doing so. He'd done so much wrong. There was no way that she could not hate him. There was no way that she would not recoil in horror at his face.
Still, when he knew she was coming for an interview at the Headmistress's office, he watched, hidden, through one of the vents.
"Well, my dear, you'd be helping us out quite a lot if you took over the post of Potions professor," Minerva was saying genially. "We haven't been able to keep anyone in the position after Horace retired, so I've been doing double duty. Triple if you include the Headmistress duties, but I've basically been doing them for years already."
"Thank you so much! I promise, I won't disappoint you!" Hermione said, grinning wide and shaking Minerva's hand. "Now if only I could somehow convince the Ministry to revoke their stupid marriage law thing. I suppose I'll have to marry Ronald if it passes through the Wizengamot next week."
"You better bet that I gave the Ministry a piece of my mind," Minerva said angrily. "Forcing witches and wizards to marry is more backwards and medieval than this entire castle, and that's saying something!"
Severus' heart stopped in his throat. Hermione was going to marry Weasley? No. That couldn't be right. She couldn't...she just couldn't…
"Hermione," he sighed, before he could hold it back.
"What was that?" Hermione was standing, her face full of emotion.
"What was what, dear?" Minerva asked, looking towards the grate, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"I heard someone say my name."
"I'm sure you're just hearing things," Minerva replied, sounding terse.
"No, I really heard it," Hermione said, fidgeting and pacing the room. She pulled out her wand, her eyes brimming with tears. "I know you're there. Come out, now, or I'm going to Accio you so hard that you fly through the wall."
Minerva was walking towards the grate with her hands on her hips just as Severus entered through the side door, his head hung low. "Please, Hermione. Don't hate me."
"Hermione?" Minerva asked in a puzzled voice just as Hermione ran forward and wrapped her arms around Severus so tightly that he could barely breathe.
A sense of calm filled Severus as she pressed tightly to him, her hot tears staining his jacket and her voice coming out in stutters and sobs.
"Oh god, Severus, you're alive. You're alive, you're alive, you're alive," she whispered over and over and over again. When her lips found his, he moaned softly against her, shuddering with delight as she held him and told him that everything would be ok.
Minerva hastily drew a curtain over the wall of headmasters and left the room, her face still white with shock.
They married quickly and tried to keep the news out of the papers, but it was hard when it became common knowledge that Severus Snape had not died as had been thought. There had been some inquiries, but the combined fury of Harry Potter and Hermione herself was enough to make it a moot point. Ron held a grudge for awhile, but he got over it eventually when he met Matilda Watkins, who was a far better match for him and made him a happy man.
In the end, Severus and Hermione purchased a small, Unplottable cottage in the country outside of Hogsmeade, and spent their summers and breaks there with their pets and, eventually, their children. They were unspeakably happy together, and had no qualms about making that annoyingly obvious to their friends and family members.
Every night, she would wrap her arms around him and he would kiss her tenderly and their hearts would thrum with the rightness of their love for one another. And every day, Severus was thankful that when the Dark Lord had tried to teach Severus about the suffering wrought of love, that in the end, he could not have been more wrong.