Scarred One

Pairing: Hermione - Severus

Rating: T

Status: Complete

Summary: It can be seen, and it cannot, but it makes no difference. Two people are drawn together by it, and they draw strength from it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable as J.K. Rowling's beloved Harry Potter books/movies.

A/N: Thank you for giving my story a chance everyone, hope you enjoy! Favorites and reviews are much appreciated!

P.S.- I don't currently have a beta, any mistakes made are my own. Sorry if there are any :)

It hurt everytime I breathed, but it was okay, it was a sign that I survived. I held up a hand mirror in front of my new scar, my head cocked to the side as I lightly ran my finger around the jagged violet scar starting from my collar bone down between my breasts to wrap around my hip, the tip covered by my black cotton underwear. It hurt less now that I had undone the strings of the white gown which had been rubbing against it, but it helped ground me from the emotional pain of knowing Harry had lost the only family he had left, and the knowledge of what I had to do next. Physical pain can sometimes override thoughts swirling around in your already dizzy head, but only just.

The Department of Mysteries had put things into perspective for me. We had already known Voldemort was back, but tonight had given a physicality to it that only the threat of certain death could. As I lay in this bed, scarred, I knew this was just the beginning. Voldemort had revealed himself to the Ministry earlier than he had planned, but now the Ministry couldn't deny it any longer. We had almost died, I had almost died, and strangely, I didn't feel as hysterical as I always thought I would be when faced with it. My head was clear, and I knew if I died, it would protecting the ones I loved.

"Miss. Granger," a deep baritone came from the now closed gap in the privacy curtains surrounding my bed, I could still hear low voices on either side of them.

I put down the mirror on the bedside, my dress strings falling open to expose my sternum even more without my notice. "Professor Snape," I inclined my head to the black clad man as sat heavily in the chair on my left. I studied him as he watched me, his face was void of his usual sneer and it made him look younger despite the dark circles under his eyes. His robes fell somewhat bigger around him as if he had lost weight that his lean frame couldn't afford to lose, and his hair that I could now see was really shiny and not at all greasy was somewhat longer than he usually allowed it to be. "Are you okay sir?"

His eyebrow slowly raised, a slight tilt to his lips, "You are a stupid girl." His long fingered hand gestured to my chest and pulled potion bottles out of his robes, "These should help with the pain."

I grabbed them, brushing my fingers against his in a silent thanks, ignoring his first words and staring at the clear potion for a moment before setting them aside on the bed table. "The pain helps me remember what we have to do." I said to his questioning look that melted into a calculating look that seemed like he could see into my soul.

"You shouldn't be making these decisions."

I smiled slightly, "How's the others? Madame Pomfrey won't let us near each other until she feels like we're up to it."

"Miss. Lovegood and Mr. Longbottom are with Miss. Weasley," he inclined his head behind him, "Weasley and Potter are asleep." he nodded to my right.

I looked to where I knew Harry slept, seeing his faint tossing outline. "Will headquarters still be at Grimmauld Place?" I asked lowly.

"Possibly. The Fidelius Charm will still be active even with Black gone." He narrowed his eyes at my downcast gaze, a question in his obsidian eyes.

I answered knowing someone had to know or else I would go crazy, I met his gaze. "I have to send my parents away, to protect them." A sort of respectful gleam entered his eye that I knew came from his seeing that I would anything to keep my loved ones safe, but there was a sadder glint underneath it all that stabbed at my heart.

"May I?" he gestured to my chest once again, his pale graceful hands drawing my attention to how I had never noticed how large they were, "If I can feel how rough it is I can see if it's healing properly."

I nodded unhesitatingly, and gasped softly when his cold fingers ran down the length of violet and blue, his touch igniting something in me that was similar, but much more stronger to what I had felt with Viktor last year when he had touched not much farther than where the Professor's hand was currently on my hip underneath my gown, his large palm covering most of it very close to inside my thigh. My eyes locked onto it until it squeezed my hip slightly, causing me to look up at him through my lashes.

"I can try to heal the scar away," he was acting not at all like his usual self, or a teacher, and I didn't know what to make of him.

My gaze back to his own scarred and calloused hand as he started to pull away but I grabbed it and ran a finger down his heart line and his life line on his left palm, up to where I knew his Dark Mark to be and he made to jerk it away from me but I held steady, moving back to his lines. I didn't believe in divination, but my dad's mother had a certain sight for a muggle, and she once told me a person's destiny lines never lied.

"You have a big heart that you have been afraid to show anyone since it has been broken the first time," my finger traced the broken line starting from between his index and middle finger to an inch below his pinkie. My mouth seemed to be moving of it's own accord now. "But you will find it again." His hand spasmed, but didn't try to pull away again as I traced the curved line from between his thumb and pointer fingers that ended at the crease of his wrist. "You will live through this war, and you will be happy even in the bleakest of days as you will find the person that will want you to keep on living." I lined both our hands together, mesmerised at how much bigger his was to mine, my other over his tense forearm, again clutching at his most hated decision. "We all have our scars Professor, but we have to live with them and try hardest to heal them ourselves." His eyes were turning hard, once again adopting his ruthless teaching persona and adopting a certain coldness in the air around him with the tell tale sign he was occluding. "But we must know when to ask people for help at the right times. My scar tells me I'm a survivor, and that I will keep fighting." I let him go with a sad smile, knowing I probably wouldn't be able to talk to him like this again. Like two equals trying to survive yet another self- elevated tyrant bent on killing everyone he thought was impure. I put my hand to his cheek. "I would hazard that your's tells you the same thing now."

He only stared at me, "Silly girl."

…

I didn't have a chance to talk to him about it again, but something audible had shifted between us, and I never wanted to go back to how we were before. To the loathing sneers, the scathing comments were still present in class, just not as frequent as before. Towards me anyway, Harry and Ron seemed to think he was even more of a git and didn't even notice anything was different towards me. I was kind of thankful for that fact, I wouldn't be able to explain it to them.

…

I learned more of his past than I would have thought after Harry told me about their Occlumency lessons. Snape was bullied by the father and godfather Harry had idolized and put upon a pedestal, betrayed by the one he loved after one unforgivable word, and it was a major emotional blow to Harry, but he wasn't the only one. As I walked into 'enemy' territory,' the vulnerability on Snape's scarred heart was clear on his face and around his body.

"Oh," I breathed as I took in the wreckage around the usually ordered classroom. Desks overturned, scorch marks branded the smooth blacktops as jars of gruesome potions ingredients adorned the walls and the ground around my broken teacher. "Professor Snape." I tried to rouse him out of his seemingly fugue state he had occluded himself into as he lay in the middle of his uncontrolled pain, his eyes blinking the only thing showing he was alive as well as the faint rising and falling of his defrocked chest. Repairing the damage around him, I knelt to my knees and picked up his bleeding hand that looked as if it had been punched into one of the stone walls. Healing the cuts and bruises my eyes strayed back to his face; with all the destruction he had inflicted around him, it didn't look as if he had broken his sadness, only his pain. Cupping his cold cheek, I tried to keep my own tears in check as he continued to blink. "Severus."

His head turned towards me and frowned vaguely, his own hand coming to mimic my own actions, wiping away the few tears that had escaped. "Why are you crying?"

"It's okay to cry. You can't always see your scars, but that doesn't mean they're not there."

He stared at my tears for a moment, and as his blown pupils dilated I watched his face crumple and start sobbing, holding onto me like a little boy holds his mother. His face buried into my stomach, I ran my fingers through his soft hair in an effort to soothe his as I hummed a lullaby my mother used to put me to sleep with when I was a child.

"It's okay. It's all going to be okay now. I'm here, I'll always be here. Always."

…

He stood right beside me as I watched my parents drive away, knowing I would never see them again. And then he held me to his chest as I sobbed at losing the life I was born into in favor of the one he was a part of. I knew it had to be done, and I would do it again if it kept them safe. Now I had an invisible pain he knew about and didn't turn away from me for doing.

He stroked my untamed curls as I clutched at snake embossed buttons, soothing my nerves with calming nonsense. "I'll be here, I promise. I'll always be right here."

…

It was the end of the war, and as I held the man that had become my life's lifeblood from spilling to the dirty floor of the Shrieking Shack, I felt incomprehensibly calm.

"You can't leave me, you promised, you can't, you just can't," I chanted over and over in my head as I found the bottle that would save his life, and by extension, mine, in my dirty beaded bag. "I won't allow it." I tipped the potion into my mouth and pressed my lips to his, allowing the liquid to flow from me into him, my magic helping it spread throughout his body.

It felt like an eternity before his beautiful eyes opened to me again, his neck wound knitting together right before me as I finally allowed myself to cry in joy rather than fear. The war still went on around us, but I felt like we had already won because there would be no after for me without the man I loved. All evidence of a fresh wound vanished, leaving only horizontal bumps where Nagini had intended to take him from me.

"I promised," he said weakly, right before my lips descended on his.

…

Everyone has scars, some physical, some emotional, and you never know which one is more painful. Maybe they were both the same; one couldn't be more painful than the other because they were both equal in every painful breath. They make us who we are, and show that we have lived through an ordeal, life threatening or no, but we are alive with evidence to back it up. Pain, scars, they all show us we can still live no matter what, no matter how bad something gets. The people around us give us a reason to live, and there is at least one person that cares for us no matter how little or how much. Our life is worth something in this world.

Severus would have died for the person he loved, but was saved by the one who loved him, and in a way he saved her, even if it was only holding her together with his arms and his love. Sometimes he runs his fingers that she loves so much over the scar she had gained from Bellatrix, and then kisses it with his loving lips, and that is all she needed. Other times he would just offer soothing words. He loves her no matter who she is, or what she has done. And she loves him the same. He still can't believe it and looks at her like it's the last time he'll see her, so she takes his arm and kisses his faded Dark Mark, and just like that they show each other they love the other unconditionally. No one, nothing, can pull them apart. No scar, no person, and no unfavorable emotion.

They hold each other together.

Fin.

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