This was an assignment for the Harmony facebook group's competition "Something Wicked This Way Comes" where my story was chosen as "Joint Runner Up for Best Angst". I truly hope that you enjoy it. I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Discolsure: Anything that you recognize I credit to the great J.K. Rowling. Anything that you do not recognize is "Obviously" mine.
Surges
"Harry, I'm sorry that we got such a late start this evening. I know that you had hoped to make it here before all of the crowds came in." Hermione apologized again to her boyfriend of five years.
"Hermione…..it isn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. You don't have to apologize for having an episode and, I am certainly not going to complain how we resolved that little surge. Trust me love, there is nothing you need to apologize for."
Blushing slightly, Hermione squeezed Harry's hand, thanking all of the gods above that she had this man in her life. Without his strength, she would not have survived the war, let alone the aftermath that had nearly crippled her.
It was Halloween night and she and Harry were making their yearly pilgrimage to the graveyard in Godric's Hollow. It was something that they had decided upon while on the run during the war, that if they had survived together, that they would travel together each year to pay their respects to his parents. The fact that Remus Lupin had been laid to rest here, beside his two best friends and a monument to honor Harry's godfather Sirius Black had been erected to honor the fallen marauder made the trip even more important to the two of them. Nobody could fathom what they had experienced on their first trip there and no one really understood their need to make the yearly trip. When they had refurbished his parents destroyed cottage, they called them mental.
As they approached the kissing gate that led to the graveyard Hermione stumbled slightly and caught herself on Harry's arm, a bit of her earlier disorientation returning.
"Are you ok love? We don't have to be here if you need to rest. It's not another surge is it?" Asked Harry concern lacing his words.
"I'm fine, just feeling a bit disoriented after apparating, I will be fine though, no worries love."
Looking over the cemetery, Harry sees a shrouded figure standing by the gravestones of his loved ones, turning to Hermione once more he says.
"It looks like there is someone still paying their respects to my folks. Why don't we wait over here on this bench, get you off your feet for a bit."
"Harry truly I'm fine." Hermione replied with a huff but smiling at this wonderful man that was so worried about her.
"Humor me?"
Sitting on the stone bench under the leaves of a lovely oak tree, its multi colored leaves muted in the moonlight they wondered who the person was at the gravesides and both tried not to stare. They sat side by side, Hermione with her head against Harry's shoulder while Harry was playing with the fingers of her left hand catching the sparkle of his ring on her finger. The sight of it filled him with joy. They had just gotten engaged the month before on Hermione's birthday and it was such a bold feeling for him knowing that she was his and had promised to be his wife.
"I know that we might have to wait a bit to do our bonding, but you made me the happiest I have ever been in my life, when you agreed to marry me Hermione. "
Raising her eyes from staring though the trees to the graves of their friends and loved ones, she looked up at the profile of her best friend and saw the grin that never seemed to leave his face these days.
"You made me the happiest when you asked me Harry; I never thought eleven years ago that you would want to be my friend, never mind one day wanting to be my husband. Through all of those years, I always loved you in some way or another, but the thought of becoming your wife truly fills my heart with joy."
Wrapping his arm around her tighter and laying his head lightly upon hers, he closed his eyes and just breathed her in. He knew the scent of her hair and her soap, the scent of her when she was filled with happiness or sadness and the scent of her when they made love. Every single one of them he could pull out of his Amortentia and had been able to since their sixth year.
He knew shortly after beginning his relationship with Ginny Weasley that it was just as wrong as the thought of Hermione and Ron together. It felt like a friction against his skin whenever she was close by and a shock against his magic whenever they touched. When he and Hermione were close to each other he felt excited, happy, and loved and when they touched he felt like he was coming home.
Across the cemetery was a man who longed for a place to call home. He stood amongst the bones of those that he grew up with, those that knew him at his best and at his worst. Bowing his head to say a prayer for the departed, he felt himself sinking back into the accent of his childhood. The Manchester accent that he worked so hard to dispel himself of before he left for Hogwarts for the first time was the one thing that his mother deigned to teach him, how to speak correctly, elegantly, commandingly. The elegance fell away in the moments that he stood there staring at their headstones reading and rereading the names carved upon them.
"I'm sorry Black, yeh me sayin I'm sorry. I woulda saved you if I could have, but you know that bastard would've found some other way to get rid of ye. It seems to have been his goal to get rid of all of us. He missed one though did'n he." He chuckled with a mirthless laugh. "At least Mus was with you when you went through the drapes eh."
"Potter, Lily, I really tried to watch over your boy, at least as much as he an the old bastard allowed me too." With this he removed a bottle from one of the many pockets of his coat and took a deep drink of whiskey before continuing.
"Bloody hell, that boy made it difficult for seven years, an I swear to you, If'n I had known that the fuckin bastard had dropped him off with Tuney like a freakin pup, I would've kill'd him sooner."
Taking another long pull from the bottle of whiskey, he slowly fell to his knees, holding onto the bottle with both hands like a lifeline.
"I'm sorry I got ya killed, you shoulda been here to raise your boy."
Turning to the last stone in the line of four and staring at the carved representation of a wolf, he finally let the tears fall.
"Mus, fuck you damn wolfman, why did you go? Why did you come to the school and fight you arse. You were supposed to be safe, you were supposed to stay with the pup and keep him and Tonks safe, kept yourself safe. You both came to the castle and died. You fucking died on me and left me here alone."
The pain in his voice would have broken the hardest of hearts. The whisper of grief, the tears from his eyes as he desperately clung to the bottle in his hands, wanting to hurl the bottle at the carved stones in front of him.
Lying down on the crisp leaves that covered the grounds of the cemetery he curled on top of where he imagined Remus' body lay and placed his hand flat to the ground.
"Why did you all leave me here alone? Why did you get to die and I am stuck here without you all. I am alone and loathed and scared and I just want to come home to you." He sobbed as he turned to stare up at the night sky. He spotted Sirius and cried out. "Black, why didn't you finish me off all of those years ago, why didn't you stick around and keep Remus safe, why did you fucking fall through the drapes and leave us here alone? You were the first after Potter and Lily and you left, you were just gone. Gods, why won't you fucking let me die?
Throwing his arms up, he let them fall across his eyes, blocking the stars, the night sky and the stones of those that left him behind.
He passed out, not realizing that across the grounds, two people had stood up and started towards him as he lay down upon the plots of their loved ones and friends and cried out the unfairness of the world.
Both Hermione and Harry approached the distraught man carefully, not knowing who he was, but knowing that he was in pain and hearing his impassioned speech broke their already fragile hearts. Hearing his soft snores caused them to pause and stare unbelievingly at the figure in front of them. There wearing distressed denims and grey sweater that hung from his already gaunt frame and a black navy style pea coat. A green and silver scarf was wrapped around his neck hiding the damage left behind from Naigini.
"Oh my gods," gasped a thoroughly surprised Hermione, staring at the man that she believed to be as dead as those that lay in the plots before them. Though a body had never been retrieved, the last minutes of Severus Snape's life that she believed ended over 5 years ago replayed often in her mind, along with her wish that she had been able to save him and that he was in a better place, enjoying the afterlife as he had been unable to do in the land of the living. To see him here and to witness his utter sorrow over living instead of dying killed her to witness the strong man that she remembered from her youth brought this low.
"Bloody Hell, that's Snape…"
Unable to resist with a sob, Hermione stated "Obviously"
Looking a bit crossly at his fiancé and her macabre humor at this moment, he replied with." We can't just leave him here, but he is liable to hex us if we try to move him."
"Honestly Harry, I think that he is too far gone to even wake to hex us. I fear he has been hitting that bottle for a long time. We can't leave him here, it is getting cold and no one should wake in a cemetery in his condition."
"Well I wouldn't have just left him at any rate. The man deserves far better than this. Should we take him back to Grimmauld?"
"I don't think we should travel that far with him in this state and truthfully love, I don't think that I am up to traveling that distance tonight."
Concerned by the tiredness he could detect in her voice he slid closer to her and pressed his lips to her forehead, feeling for the start of a fever that usually indicated a surge was imminent.
Appreciative of the attention, but still tired and feeling a strange buzz against her magic that she was not accustomed to, she reached her arms up and slid them around Harry's neck, leaning into him slightly. "Let's take him home to the cottage love. It is within walking distance and there is room there to take care of him." Sliding her fingers through his unruly hair she pulled him close and kissed the tip of his nose and offered a soft kiss to his lips before pulling back from his embrace.
Sliding her wand from the sheath on her arm into her hand, she cautiously approached the prone man lying on the grave of her once mentor and friend Remus Lupin. She realized she might not have known the man she called friend as much as she believed she did. She had not had an inkling of the feelings that Severus Snape had for the werewolf or what he might have felt for the cantankerous potions master. She had no idea that Snape had been anything other than antagonists given the harsh words and fights that they seemed embroiled in every time they were in close proximately of each other with Sirius Black, but he had seem aggrieved by the death of the marauder if his words to the man had been deciphered correctly. She didn't like being blindsided or left in the dark, but truly she had been a child the last time that she had interacted with any of these people and really she, Harry and Ron had been left floundering in the dark about certain things for the entirety of the war.
About to step closer to the man before her, she felt Harry grab her hand from behind and pull her back a few steps when Professor Snape seemed to stir for a moment, before letting out a louder snore, followed by a soft sigh.
Stepping forward and slightly ahead of Hermione, Harry held his wand in his hand knowing that he would not be able to lift the much taller and heavier professor, though from the looks of him, not much heavier than himself and cast a slight lightening charm upon the professor. Slowly he knelt beside him, before reaching for the man that he loathed growing ups hand and pulling him to a seated position. He noticed that Hermione had gotten into position to aid in lifting the man, but paused for a moment to push the hair from his face to get a proper look at him before signaling to Harry that she was ready to lift him up.
It took much longer than they believed it would have to, but they slowly frog march Severus Snape back to the cottage that they had restored to its former glory after the war had ended. They lifted him carefully into the bed placed on the left side of the room and proceeded to remove his dragon hide boots as well as his jacket and scarf, leaving him in just his jeans and sweater. Realizing that the odor of the whiskey that he had been drinking seemed to be seeping from his pores, Hermione cast a freshening charm on the sleeping man, still worried about him waking and hexing the hell out of them. Covering him up with a quilt they slowly backed up from the room and stood in the doorway to watch him sleep.
Leaning into Harry behind her, Hermione took the first deep breath that she could since leaving the cemetery. Closing her eyes and feeling Harry's magic rubbing along her own, as well as the strange buzz that she had felt since stumbling upon Snape at the graveyard, she grabbed onto Harry's arms and pulled them around her tightly.
"I don't like the thought of leaving him alone in here tonight especially with how much he has apparently drunk. We also don't know if he has any other injuries. I would perform the charms, but I don't think I have the energy for it at the moment. "
Turning her quickly in his arms, he looked down into her eyes and flicked his gaze to her hair, feeling the tips of her fingers for any sign that she maybe experiencing another surge. This was the way their lives worked for now, for the last five years and any way, anytime there seemed to be a change in Hermione's magic.
"Love, it's not another surge. I just don't seem to have the energy at the moment."
"Maybe we should head to St. Mungo's, you aren't usually this low."
"I'll be fine darling, I just need a kip. How about you transfigure a cot for us and we can keep our guest company."
Blushing slightly Harry stuttered out "I can't lay next to you with Snape in bed."
Laughing lightly with a small grin "It's not like I suggested we crawl into bed with him."
Noting the tiredness in her eyes, Harry decided that joking aside, Hermione needed the nap she mentioned, so he turned his wand to the small settee in the corner of the room across from the bed and expanded it to a longer length and wider width before focusing on the texture and softness of it, determined to make it comfortable for her.
"It's perfect Harry, I'm just going to go to our room to change and grab your night clothes before heading off to dreamland for a couple of hours."
"Ok love, we will be here waiting for you." replied Harry with a slight grin.
Giggling as she left the room, she missed the worried looks on the faces of the wizards that she left behind.
Harry sat heavily in the chair next to the bed and let his head fall into his hands, tugging his hair softly as he tried to control his breathing and the shaking of his hands. He missed the slight opening of Snape's eyes watching him in his fear.
Hermione came back into the room as Harry was rising, staring down at Snape in confusion but with a touch of wistfulness in his gaze. Sliding her arms around him from behind him, holding his pajama pants in one hand and holding his hip in the other hand she leaned forward until her head lay against his shoulder. She dropped a quick kiss to the side of his neck, where she knew it would make him shiver and once he grabbed his pants, she pulled her hand back and smacked him on the rear.
"Ok Potter, get to the loo and get changed while I keep an eye on our guest. Then you can come back and tuck me in." she finished with a smirk and a twinkle in her eyes.
Rubbing the spot where she smacked him and blushing at the kiss behind his ear, he retreated from the room to complete his evening ablutions. As he was brushing his teeth, he realized that in the excitement of the evening with the surge as well as the discovery of Snape being amongst the living that he hadn't actually stopped to speak to his parents and honorary uncles. He had been excited at the beginning of the evening to share the news of his engagement with his loved ones, but knowing the type of people they were, he knew that they were probably by his side when he popped the question to Hermione a month ago and that they would understand his need to take care of Hermione and Snape this evening of all evenings.
When Harry returned to the room, he found Hermione sitting on the bed beside Snape washing his face and brushing the hair back from his forehead and cheeks. The look on her face was sad, but not pitying. Her body seemed to slump a bit more as she stood and pulled the quilt up closer to his face.
Turning towards the transfigured settee she spotted Harry in the doorway watching her carefully.
Sitting down she called him over to her and he came to her side motioning for her to lie down on the pillow and the sheet that he had spread to make her more comfortable. He knelt beside her after pulling up the blanket to her shoulders and pushed a couple of curls from her face where they had escaped the plait she had pulled her hair into when getting ready for bed. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, her nose and finally her lips while leaning his forehead against her and breathing her in again.
Feeling so very tired, but knowing that she needed to tell him the important discovery that she had made, she stared into Harry's eyes and whispered. "I think that he is the one my love, I know that he will never agree to it, but I think that he may be the one we've been looking for.."
Green eyes widened but did not look surprised at this statement but he had to ask.
"Are you certain?"
"I can feel it in my magic Harry."
Resigned but still slightly hopeful Harry smiled at her. "We'll talk more on it tomorrow my love; he may wake up in the morning, take one look at me and disappear. Let's not get our hopes up yet. We have time."
Closing her eyes, Hermione felt the wave of sleep upon her and let herself go. She knew that Harry would always keep her safe.
Feeling Hermione fall asleep so quickly would have been a cause for concern, but with all that had happened that evening it really had been only a matter of time. He just wished that he could lie down with her and hold her close until he joined her in dreamland.
"I know that you are awake sir and that you have been several times throughout the night." remarked Harry with his eyes closed against the moonlight shining through the window. He could hear the soft breaths that Hermione made behind him, but the distinctive lack of snores gave the former spy's game away.
"It seems Potter that your observational skills have improved over the years then." Replied Severus in a soft voice.
"A bit." Answered Harry in an equally soft voice, loath to wake Hermione. "Would you like a drink?"
"Yes, please."
Before reaching for the pitcher of water that Hermione had left on the nightstand, he threw a muffliato around the two of them, so that they would not disturb the sleeping woman behind them.
A glare later from a not amused Severus and the two of them were sitting and staring at each other in the moonlight.
"I probably should have realized that you would be in Godric's Hollow this evening. I guess that I thought with how late it was, that you would have been there and gone before I showed up and provided you with that disgusting display of emotional rubbish." Snarked Snape looking down at the glass in his hands.
"Honestly sir, we only caught the tail end of your outburst. We were trying to give you your privacy as we didn't know who you were. We didn't believe who you were when we first approached you."
"Yes, well rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I guess that I have you to thank for my post humus pardon and my Order of Merlin?"
"We just wanted to do what was right sir. We honestly could not have won against Voldemort without your help."
"There probably wouldn't have been a war without my help."
"Sir, I hope that you know that, that isn't true. Neither I nor Hermione believe that. It actually took very little to realize how much of what occurred during the war was directly Dumbledore's fault as well as Tom Riddle's, along with the Pureblood mentality that allowed the first war as well as the second war to flourish and for so many lives to be lost."
His hair came down to shelter his face from prying eyes, he didn't know if he could truly believe the words coming from the one child that probably had the most reason to hate him in the world. What else had changed in his absence from the wizarding world that he had left behind.
Looking past Harry to the lone female of the Golden Trio, he found himself contemplating his next question, but Potter beat him to it.
"She was cursed during the final battle. I had just defeated Tom and turned to see her and Ron running towards me. Just before she reached me a curse shot out from Yaxley and hit her right in the back. We believe it is a curse of his own design."
"I am familiar with the curse Mr. Potter. It was designed by Yaxley and Bellatrix jointly."
"I know that you are familiar with it Sir. I could feel it coming off of you the moment that we approached. I am assuming that if you are still affected by it, that there is not a counter curse."
"Obviously… I have only found ways to counteract the curse for short periods of time."
"As have we, we having been seeking a third in order to bond with them in hopes that it will control, if not stop the surges completely."
"And you have had no luck?"
"Obviously" replied Harry looking intently at Snape, looking at him. "We were considering traveling to the states to see if there is a compatible witch or wizard that we can both bond with."
"Mr. and Ms. Weasley were not compatible with either of you?"
"No, I knew that they would not be, before we even left school for the hunt. "
"Yet you dated Ms Weasley and Ms. Granger pined after Mr. Weasley for a bit."
"We were children, both looking for our first relationships, just learning about the love of a mate, rather than the love of a best friend. We both realized pretty quickly that our magic did not rub along well with either sibling and that was before the curse affected her."
"And after?"
"They did not take to the news that Hermione and I were a couple once the war ended and things were starting to get back to normal. Not to say that we aren't friendly at events that we are forced to attend, but we aren't as close as we once were."
"Mr. Longbottom and ?"
"Both just very good friends that have truly supported us through this these last five years."
"She believes that you have found your third." Said Severus staring intently at Harry.
"She does."
"But you do not?"
"I don't want to get her hopes up Sir."
"That is not what I asked Mr. Potter."
Looking down at the woman beside him, her hair curling across her cheek and his ring sparkling on her finger he knew that he would do anything for her.
"Her magic feels that you are the one meant to be our third."
"And you?"
"I believe that you could be, but that you will not allow yourself to be."
"You will not order me for insuring my freedom if I were to ever return to the wizarding world?"
"I will not order you sir; I will not bind you against your will to save the love of my life."
Looking deep into the eyes of the son of his once upon a time enemy and childhood best friend, he knew that they meant to find a third to form a true Triad, to save his best childhood friend and love of his adult life.
"Will you ask then or will you ask me to leave?"
Staring back at the man before him, the one that he suspected of evil deeds in his childhood, who had saved him and Hermione and Ron on numerous occasions he said the only thing that he knew he could.
"I will beg you if I have to Severus. If it saves her, I will beg you to stay."
He was humbled by the love that was in this young man's eyes, even though he knew it was not directed at him, it may one day be if the gods shined down on them and if they could truly put the past behind them. Their history was not a good one, was a very long one but would hopefully be learned from. His magic had started singing again when surrounded by the two of them in the cemetery and when she had sat beside him and he took a deep breath, he recognized the scents of his Amortentia. She smelled of orange blossoms, of new parchment and old books that the potion had changed to around their sixth year. Harry's scent was wound around her in the smell of broomstick polish, spearmint tooth paste and sunshine.
For as much as he had loved and needed Remus Lupin, his magic had felt the closest to home that he could find. It controlled the surges and the magic shared between him, Remus and Tonks was the closest he had ever come to heaven. Now he knew the difference. Now he believed that the two of them might stop the surges completely.
Knowing that he couldn't back out after making this decision he slowly shook his head yes and saw the joyous grin of the young man's youth return to his face even with tears of happiness in his eyes. He was not ready for him to grab his hand and squeeze it tightly.
"Thank you for saving my life, for saving hers. We are no longer alone, we will be a family. We deserve to have a family of our own. The three of us deserve this."
Overcome with shame over his outburst earlier and the shock of Potter's easy acceptance of him, he felt the need to be snarky.
"She may not thank you for inviting me into your lives Pot.. Harry."
"She may jump for joy Severus, she had a bit of a crush on you while we were in school. She loved your voice."
"Well, since we have figured out the issue with the surges and your binding…"
"Our Bonding."
Feeling unsettled but somehow delirious and the same time Severus continued.
"Maybe we should call it a night, I am sure that Ms. Granger.."
"Hermione" Harry interrupted with.
"Yes, Hermione will have a multitude of questions for us tomorrow, or rather later this morning if she is still anything like I remember."
"She is better than you remember. She is the best."
Lying down in the comfortable bed and watching as Harry removed his slippers and slid in behind Hermione on the settee, He stared across the expanse of darkness enthralled with how the moonlight filtered in and made Harry's eyes shine like jewels. He saw his father in his expressions, but he did not look just like James, his eyes were the color of his mother's but not the same shape. His recklessness screamed of Sirius Black, but his devotion to his friends and loved ones was all Remus Lupin. He was made up of the best of the people that he should have grown up surrounded by, but was only influenced by for a short time.
He had grown into a young man that they all would have been proud of and now Severus would be the one that got to grow old with him, along with the beautiful witch lying in his arms. Maybe the gods knew what they were doing when they allowed him to live. Maybe they knew that this witch and this wizard would need him, long after everyone else was gone. He was no longer alone. His magic had found its home.