Azkaban. The name itself was horrifically frightening, hardly needing to rely on its dark and sinister reputation to instill fear in the hearts of those doomed to its depths. Azkaban, the wizard prison, fully restored after playing host to one of the minor, distracting battles against the Dark Lord. Azkaban. Hermione tried the word out on her tongue.
"Azkaban," she whispered, and promptly pulled a face. The name even tasted vile, and she shuddered as she looked through her new glasses at the foreboding gates. After a moment of allowing the fear to run through her body, she fiercely admonished herself to stand up straighter, toss her now-manageable short hair, and take a step forward into the place she never thought she'd have to go.
A rattle of keys in the cell's door roused the gaunt, haggard man from his sleep. He wasn't particularly angry about it; he rarely slept well at all anymore, not with the nightmares pouring in from all sides. But he would not let his apathy show, instead replacing it with the snide, cool, snobbery he had used through all his years at Hogwarts.
Hogwarts.
Since the banishment of the dementors by the newest Minister of Magic, he had been free to keep what happy thoughts and memories he had left to himself. Usually they consisted of a better time, prior to eleven years old, when his family was all he knew, not the terrific war between good and evil or the prejudice of the fearful. But this thought was different, neither happy nor sad, this nor that, here nor there. He realized with a start he had been content while teaching at Hogwarts, despite the lack of bright students and the surprising ratio of students to melted cauldrons (upped considerably by the Longbottom boy). Dumbledore had allowed him his privacy, all the ingredients he needed to experiment to his heart's content, and only asked of him that he remain a bloody spy for his bleeding Order. His demeanor quickly changed with the unbidden thought of Dumbledore. Bloody foking spy for a bloody foking Order of a bloody foking Phoenix, he thought. The man scowled, hook nose seeming all the more unattractive mixed with his sneer and piercing glare, thoroughly open to revisiting the old man's unfortunate death in gory, painful detail – but his thoughts were interrupted as the door to his rotten cell actually swung open.
"There's someone here to collect you," a flat voice said, and the man blinked twice in amazement. He had known he would be released; the owl the Minister sent him had assured him of it. But Arthur Weasley had failed to mention someone would be collecting him. He had assumed he would walk out on his own, never to be thought of again. He had assumed that after securing his release, Weasley would be glad to be rid of him. Severus's eyes narrowed at the pale semblance of a man standing outside his door, though he knew he would get no reaction. He shifted his torn black robes over his malnourished form (not from lack of meals being served, but lack of meals being eaten), limping painfully out of the cell he had known for three years and heading in the direction he knew the gates to be.
He didn't even have the chance to relish the feeling of being free again before he was stopped short in disbelief, realizing detachedly it was the second time the damn Minister had been able to derail him. He looked at the young woman in front of him, running his eyes carefully over her body, trying to figure out where he had seen her before and why for the life of her she would want to collect him.
She looked at him just as appraisingly as he did her, bright, unnaturally blue eyes scanning him not for recognition but for understanding. She needed to know exactly how hurt he was, and how much of her attention he would need to recover. She supposed it was a plus he didn't recognize her, though she could imagine his reaction if he knew. She stepped closer to him.
"Who are you?" His inquiry was raspy, adding a throat scan to Hermione's rapidly growing 'care list'.
"I'm here to take you home," she said, avoiding his initial question. "Hopefully you'll recognize me later." She took his hand firmly and shot a glare towards the emotionless guards; she needed a place to shoot the vengeance that comes with seeing a loved one wrongfully imprisoned. Then, feeling only slightly vindicated, she strode forward forcefully, waiting to get past the 'No Apparition Zone' before concentrating on their destination.
It had been days since his release from that detestable prison and he still didn't know the name of his caretaker, but he couldn't shake the feeling that she was incredibly too familiar for comfort. The curve of her hips, the way she walked on the balls of her feet…everything was so reminiscent of one he thought he'd lost. No...one he thought they had lost; there is no individual in war, he admonished himself.
He'd taken to calling her "Miss," not knowing for sure whether or not it was her title. As it was, he hardly ever had to use it; she came to him whenever the barest thought of needing her crossed his mind, though he was fairly sure she was not a Legilimens. As she arrived again, worming her way through the door while trying to hold a full cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, she smiled winningly at him, only serving to remind him of how bright her eyes really were. Even through the black-rimmed glasses, they shone, piercing him just as his own obsidian eyes pierced first years. They, too, were familiar, but he felt as if they had been cut-and-pasted rather than part of the original form. He sipped his tea.
Moody.
He choked, spilling the tea on his blanket. She hastily took the cup away, whispering a cleaning charm and rendering it good as new. She didn't expect to see him looking up at her with such surprise, but figured he had finally placed her face.
"Moody," he whispered, and her heart sank.
"No, Severus. Not Moody. I'm definitely not Moody."
"No…your eyes. They're like Moody's one eye." She looked at him incredulously, wondering fleetingly how he'd managed to figure it out (realizing quickly she was underestimating his mind; he did not lose his intelligence by losing a leg), then set her jaw, knowing she would have had to say the words sooner or later. Telling him seemed to be an almost amenable way of releasing the memory.
"In the war," she began reluctantly, "when I was captured by Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy, their first joint task was to burn out my eyes simultaneously. After they had been captured, I was fit for new ones, but requested them to be downgraded to seem less…well, out of place." She rolled them upwards sardonically, eyelashes fluttering. "Unfortunately, they couldn't keep the exquisite sight or three hundred sixty degree turn radius…but I rather like the tradeoff. The glasses are actually quite sharp, I think."
"They used to be brown, didn't they?" Unused to his questions, Hermione blushed faintly.
"Yes," she mumbled, memories of looking into a mirror for the first time with her new eyes flashing in her brain. She almost missed his smile.
"Hermione." It wasn't a question.
Black met blue in a stare neither one of them had expected, and, prompted by those tanzanite eyes, he looked at her for the first time. He saw what he had missed the first, second, and eighteenth times over – the slightly crooked grin, the pearl-drop earlobes, the shallow pittance of a scar he knew to have been caused by hot, flying, Longbottom-induced cauldron just by her eyebrow. She was imperfect, and it was perfect.
She was in his arms then, his face in her hair and her tears on his bed jacket. He was whispering things, no doubt "I thought I'd lost you" and other such endearments, but all that mattered was she was holding him, and he was holding her, and they were together.
They were finally together.