Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do I own Severus or Hermione. Or Hogwarts. Or anything, really.
Rating: K+
A/N: Figured I'd try to get this posted while it was still February, even if I missed Valentine's Day by two weeks...
Her Dream, His Reality
They stood in a small clearing, hands joined and heads bowed, listening in silence as the quavering voice of a wizened old man washed over them.
It wasn't what she'd dreamed of, when she was a carefree young girl filled with idealistic visions of a handsome prince and a white voluminous wedding gown. There was no pomp and fanfare, no crowds of friends and family. Her father wasn't there to walk her down the aisle, and her mother wasn't crying in the front row. There wasn't an aisle, really… just a small game track that led them to this place. Her hair was held back haphazardly, and there was a scorch mark on her robe from a narrowly avoided hex. He had a cut above his eyebrow, and a smudge of dirt on his face.
Neither cared.
Despite the date, unlike the days of St. Valentine, who defied his Emperor and secretly continued to perform marriages for young lovers, they weren't trying to avoid a war. How could they, when it raged all around them?
Truth be told, theirs was a quintessential tale of forbidden love… at first because she was a student and he a professor, then later because he killed a man beloved to all to appease his Lord. She was the only one, out of all of his so-called friends and colleagues, who had bothered to look beyond the testimony of the famous boy-wizard. She was the only one who knew what happened. And she still loved him.
And that was all that mattered.
So here they were in the middle of the woods, binding their lives together for as long as they continued to draw breath… be it the next hundred years, or the next hundred minutes.
Hermione Granger hoped for the years.
Severus Snape resigned himself to the minutes.