Disclaimer: I own nothing, and only borrowed the characters for a little while.
Author's Note: This is set some years before another Hermione/Severus story of mine ("Death"), but you don't need to read that fic to make sense of this one.
It was over.
In the aftermath of Voldemort's defeat, there was a sense of complete and utter exhaustion.
Later there would be dancing. Later there would be celebration. And much later there would be a sense of peace long missing.
But now, there was a permeating sense of drained magic and energy.
Soon they would need to start cleaning up. Soon they would need to begin tending to the sick. And soon they would need to start the horrific task of counting their dead.
But just for now they embraced a moment of no fighting.
Each seemed to have fallen where they were when the Dark Lord fell at Harry's hand.
Harry sprawled across the altar... Ron propped against the leg... Ginny on the floor amongst debris...Minerva standing shakily beside a pillar... Remus at the door... and so the list went on.
As Molly Weasley cast an eye over her war-battled colleagues and friends, she was drawn to two people slumped in the shadows against a wall.
Later she would wonder, and soon they would move apart, but for now Hermione and Snape sat shoulder to shoulder, as close as they had fought back to back, their wands lax in their hands.
Molly smiled grimly. It was comforting that even in the midst of battle and war, friendship (dare she call it that?) could bloom.
The time was now.
