Severus stood in his secluded back yard, rooted by the weight of his heavy wool cloak, surrounded by a tangle of leafless oaks stretching toward a darkening sky. Swirling the last of his brandy absentmindedly, he surveyed the dormant garden then the purple above; the last vestiges of the day were fading.

Twilight seemed to stretch on without end for him, teasing the arrival of true nightfall. The precise instant when day transformed into night was imperceptible no matter how hard he tried to pinpoint it; he could only look back from the darkness of the other side, after its passing, to discover it had happened right before his eyes without notice.

Much like the subtle passage of day into night, the express hour that it had happened was lost to him. And what he hid now, after its happening, felt dark even to himself. He knocked back the snifter of brandy in his hand with a grimace. Letch. I'm old enough to have fathered her. It's sick.

She had come to him after a mere month of classes, protesting that Advanced Potions wasn't challenging her. That she had been thirsty for more instruction. That N.E.W.T.S. were imminent and Slughorn had refused her. That Slughorn hadn't sufficient confidence in her abilities to consent to mentor her. She had demanded he teach her, she'd demanded, the presumptuous, insolent brat.

But then he'd taken one look at her riotous hair making its own demands, and nearly laughed. Good God. Granger.

He had suppressed a smirk and assured her that he understood what it was like — that instinctive, almost carnal, irrepressible need to learn, to conquer a subject. To master it. And he'd agreed.

Yes, he could certainly empathize with her; her insatiable drive to learn was almost a match for his own. Yet, that had not been the real reason that he had agreed to take her on. In part, he had acquiesced as payment for the debt that he owed her for nursing him to health after Nagini's attack. In that last summer, the summer that they had been finally freed of Voldemort, she had grown into much more than his former student; without her, he would have never survived. There were few things that she hadn't done for him, and he had accepted her help without fully understanding why she had offered it. As for the rest of the reason that he had agreed…well, it was best to keep that hidden from her...from everyone.

He may have been approaching forty, but, God help him, he wasn't blind.

The day after he had named himself her mentor, he had discovered her on the doorstep of his unassuming cottage, arms laden with tattered potions books, brown eyes bright with anticipation. In the beginning, she had come to him daily after classes for perhaps an hour of guided potions lessons, no more. Lately, she lingered in his library far past any deliberate study – far past twilight, even. Seemingly, his cottage had become her refuge. It was her eighth year: he knew that she felt like she didn't fit in at Hogwarts anymore; he had understood that, too. He had never really fit in there himself.

And then, at some point amidst those countless days of stirring potions counterclockwise, of languid evenings perusing parchment by firelight, of tending rare plants in the quiet of the backyard—it had happened, unnoticed, in the same way night had arrived.

She was no longer the insufferable pest with questionable hair. No longer simply the young, pretty witch that fed his private middle-aged fantasies. She had become so much more. His cottage—God, his life—was empty without her.

Now, on this dark night, as the month of November drew to a close, he shrugged off his grey wool cloak and entered the sitting room, the warmth from the softly crackling fire welcome on his chilled skin. More brandy was in order.

She stood at his desk, beside his empty chair, casually rifling through the post he had ignored that morning. He stopped to appraise her. She no longer wore her school robes at the cottage; the green brocade she had chosen this evening was lovely against her skin. He realized abruptly she had wrapped herself in the colour of his house.

"Miss Granger, is there anything for…" The words evaporated on his tongue. He cleared his throat and closed his eyes briefly. It was a ridiculous question. Of course there would be post for him. All of it was for him. This was his home, for heaven's sake, even though a day hardly passed without her presence there.

He glanced out the sitting room window. The night was clear and sharp and still. Darkness itched to fill the small room and the tiny spaces between them. This had gotten out of hand. He—they needed to speak of it.

He rephrased the question, leaving the words open to her interpretation, and the emphasis, subtle yet clear enough for her to discern, if that was her desire. "Hermione…." He drew in a ragged breath. "Hermione...do you…have anythin'…for me?" The last two words came out a whisper.

The question was not about the owls in her hand.

Her eyes, the colour of bourbon in the firelight, did not stray from the parchments before her, but widened slightly at the use of her given name — twice in as many seconds. He had never spoken it before. He was close enough to notice her try to still her hand from visibly shaking.

It appeared that his question had rendered the sometimes garrulous Miss Hermione Granger speechless.

He decided to force the conversation; it was required to retain his sanity. He crossed the space between them and grabbed her wrist, not harshly but not particularly gently, either. She jumped. He pulled her out the back door to the private garden and sat her down on a rough cold stone bench, dropping himself down a few scant inches from her. The night enveloped them, the darkness feeding his willingness to talk.

He bent forward, elbows on his knees, fingers threading through his hair. "What are we going to do?" he asked softly, eyes on the flagstone at his feet. He reached down and singled out a dried oak leaf, busying himself with separating the thin, desiccated brown from the centre rib.

"I don't know," she responded earnestly, as if she had pondered this identical question and it had utterly confounded her.

He turned then to look at her. She was staring forward, still as stone, face flushed from the cold or perhaps, the conversation. Her bushy hair, rebellious as ever, was planning its escape from the tie at the base of her neck. He longed to free it. He yearned to grab a handful, twist it until it strained at the roots, forcing her head away to expose more of her neck for him to ravage with his teeth. Then he pictured his fingers entwining it more deeply, using it as leverage as he took her from behind…Good God, where had that come from? I've lost my fucking mind.

She turned and met his eyes. "Severus…what do you want to do?" she whispered into the darkness between them.

It was a simple enough question.

He had never heard a word spoken as enticing as his given name escaping her lips. Clothed in it was a promise. A future. So he answered her question the only way that he knew how: "this, only…this."

He pulled her lips toward his, guiding her by the gentle pressure of his hand against the back of her neck. He kissed her, slowly at first, then deepening the kiss so that they both emerged breathless.

Her lips were still parted expectantly, her honey coloured eyes half-closed languidly as if in blissful satisfaction and longing. He held her face in his hand, caressing her cheek with his thumb, and remarked, "Hermione…you're so young. It's not…appropriate for me to…"

Her eyes snapped open. "I'll be the one to decide that, Severus." His name again, tinged with a gentle rebuke. He'd nearly forgotten her stubbornness; no one could tell her what to do or how to feel—not even him.

"Why would you want me?" he persisted. "You are beautiful, intelligent, young…you could have anyone you please. It is…irrational."

"I want you. I don't want anyone else." She paused to take a breath. "You forget how attractive you are. You forget…how brilliant." Her eyes followed her own hand as it reached up, her longest finger gently tracing his hairline down past the swell of his ear and then his jawline, finally coming to rest at the point of his chin. She returned her hand to her lap. He let his eyes fall shut momentarily, mourning the loss of her touch. "We have a connection, you and I. I know you feel it."

There was no hiding anything from her. He did.

"I'm in love with you, Severus."

This woman before him deserved a response from the man that she had fallen in love with, not this bumbling idiot, who'd brought up the difference in their age and reasons she should run, as if she had not weighed those things with cold precision herself. Enough of this simpering man that he'd become during these last few moments. He pulled on his dry sense of humor and sarcasm like his most familiar cloak.

He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. "I know."


A/N: Thanks to my awesome beta Metatrix for her feedback on this chapter (and putting up with me)!