A/N: Title is from the song "Fall Into Me" by Alev Lenz.
The Triwizard Tournament was the beginning of the end. Jasmine was forced to spend an entire week in the Hospital Wing under the care of Madam Pomfrey. All her external wounds were stitched up and healed within the first 48 hours; Jasmine knew that the only reason the Mediwitch still fussed over her was to make sure her sanity was intact.
Professor Snape visited frequently to bring her updates from Dumbledore, always in the dead of night. Jasmine assumed that it was because he didn't want students assuming that his soul wasn't as black as they thought it was, but it wasn't until the week was up that she found out the truth.
"A double agent, I believe, is the term you're looking for, Miss King," said Snape, sneering all the while. "I was such during the Dark Lord's first rise to power and remain so to this day. Should anyone but the Headmaster come to presume that I continue to care for you despite your betrayal of the Death Eaters, my position within the Dark Lord's ranks would be compromised."
Jasmine struggled to understand his words, fighting against the effects of the Essence of Rue that Pomfrey had made her drink just a few minutes before. "They – the Death Eaters, I mean… they don't know that you helped me through the Tournament?"
"It's common knowledge that I was your mentor. Think, girl." He growled in impatience. "They know I aided you during the Tournament, but for them to find out that I am still doing so, even with the Hogwarts Mediwitch at your disposal, would be another matter entirely. It would imply genuine… concern."
Jasmine blinked. "Why are you telling me this?"
His blurred form slowly came into focus until she was able to see clearly the frown of unease that marred his face. "I was summoned by him today. He is furious at your treachery, although unfortunately not enough for him to be making rash decisions any time soon."
Jasmine felt a cold stone settle in the pit of her stomach. If it wasn't for the Essence of Rue, she was sure she'd be vomiting her dinner by then.
"In other news," Snape continued, "the Aurors finished replaying the events recorded by your monitoring device from the maze just yesterday. The Minister plans on forming an army, and he wants you and Potter on the front lines."
"Me?" She suddenly felt like burrowing under the blankets and never coming out. "Why me?"
"It seems they've dubbed you the dark horse of the war. The daughter of a Death Eater, fighting for the side of the Light." He sneered. "You and Potter will be on the front page of the Prophet for weeks if Fudge has any say about it."
"I don't want to be on the Prophet." Jasmine shook her head. "My life has been a living hell ever since I got my name picked from that thrice damned goblet. I just want it to end."
"It will, Miss King." Snape leaned back and regarded her grimly. "This war will end one way or another. If the Dark Lord is still alive by the end of it, pray that you're dead before he finds you."
.
.
Meetings were scheduled. Plans were made – but the Ministry, for all their talk of wanting to include their two youngest, newest heroes in the fight, never bothered to invite Harry or Jasmine to any of the assemblies. The both of them would have been left completely in the dark if Dumbledore didn't relay everything of import to Snape who, in turn, relayed everything to Jasmine.
Molly Weasley thought Harry was entirely too young to be fighting in a war. Jasmine didn't care much for her judgment; she told Harry everything he needed to know and then some, whenever the two of them were left alone in Grimmauld. That was how she learned about his nightmares.
"It's always the same, more or less," Harry said. "There's a long hallway. It's dark. And then I see… flashes of things."
"What things?"
"A mask." He shuddered and Jasmine knew what he was pertaining to: a Death Eater's mask. "A snake. And an orb, sort of like the crystal balls we use for Divination, but whole rows of it. They just… sit there."
"You can't possibly be dreaming about the Department of Mysteries."
"The people who work there – the Unspeakables – they do research about time and death and stuff, don't they?"
Jasmine nodded.
"And prophecies, too?"
"… What are you getting at, Harry?"
"Snape mentioned that Voldemort was looking for something. A weapon. Something he didn't have before that might help him win now. I think…" Harry took a shaky breath. "I think it's at the Department of Mysteries. And I think it has something to do with me."
He wouldn't meet her eyes and Jasmine frowned. Harry didn't seem like a vain person. In the four years that she'd known him, he'd never once given her the impression that he enjoyed his fame. His parents had been killed to gain him such a reputation, after all. So why was he betting so much on his nightmares?
It hit her like a knife in the gut.
"It's Voldemort, isn't it?" she muttered. "You think he's causing your nightmares."
Harry nodded grimly; his lips were almost as ashen as his skin and he looked as though he was going to topple over any second. "Ever since that night at the graveyard when he touched my scar, I've felt as though he's never left, you know? Like he's beside me or looking over my shoulder or… or inside me. Inside my veins."
"Pettigrew used your blood to complete the ritual. That may be why you feel connected to Voldemort somehow."
"Do you think I'm right? About the dreams. About what he wants."
Jasmine pursed her lips. "The Department of Mysteries is one of the most heavily guarded chambers in the Ministry. If Voldemort wants something from there, he won't just be able to walk in and take it. He'll need a plan of attack, and planning takes time. All we can do now is wait and trust Snape to tell us when Voldemort plans to infiltrate the Ministry."
"What if the dreams get worse?"
"Tell Dumbledore."
"No!"
Jasmine reared back, startled at the sudden look of panic on his face.
"I just mean that—" Harry stared pleadingly at her. "He'll have to tell the Minister, and then they'll think I'm some kind of spy, and then…"
"You tell me then. We'll…" Jasmine sighed. "We'll work it out."
"Swear you won't tell anyone."
"I swear."
.
.
Jasmine was asleep when the Department of Mysteries was raided. She only found out about it in the morning. Remus Lupin sat in the kitchen, his head in his hands and a bottle of whiskey on the table. Hermione Granger lay sprawled on the couch in the living room, naked save for jeans and the bandages wrapped around her midsection.
And in a wingback chair in the corner sat Severus Snape. It looked as though he hadn't slept a wink.
"Sirius Black is dead."
Jasmine didn't have to tell him anything. She knew that he knew about Harry's dreams – he'd found out the same time Dumbledore did when Harry told them that Mr. Weasley was being attacked by a giant snake at the Ministry of Magic. She knew that Snape had been giving Harry Occlumency lessons, but it hadn't prepared them for this.
They were at war and Jasmine was in the middle of everything, alongside Harry Potter. The crushing weight of such a realization left her sagging against the nearest wall.
"You didn't like Sirius," she muttered. "I know you didn't."
Snape gazed at her from across the room, impassive, and said nothing.
"Harry. Where is he?"
"At Hogwarts with the Headmaster."
That was good. That meant his friends were with him and they wouldn't allow him to drown in guilt and self-pity. The same couldn't be said for Jasmine. She had nothing to do around the house and she couldn't leave without being accompanied by at least one member of the Order, which was rare because every one of them had jobs to do. Except for Sirius, because he'd been wanted by the Ministry, but now…
"Harry told me about the DA," she blurted out, "about teaching others how to fight. I need that too."
Snape raised an eyebrow. "As I recall, you scored exceptionally high in your Defense NEWTs."
"No, I mean dueling. Real dueling. I want to be as good as you." She forced herself to meet his eyes. "I want you to teach me."
He did not answer immediately. For a long time, he just stared at her. Jasmine thought he was going to laugh at the request and deny her outright, but then he sneered.
"In the break," he said. "For now, Lupin will have to suffice."
Jasmine didn't argue. She knew Snape merely planned on using her to distract Lupin from his grief, but as the werewolf's soft sobbing drifted in from the next room over, she couldn't bring herself to mind. They'd already lost one important member of the Order; they couldn't afford to lose another.
.
.
Both Dumbledore and Snape had warned her numerous times that many witches and wizards were still devoted to the Dark Lord, even after so many years, and not all of them were Death Eaters.
"Voldemort's loyalists," the Headmaster had said, "can be any one of the people walking down the street. Man, woman, or child."
Jasmine had scoffed at him then, thinking his advice was merely the ramblings of an old man.
That was why, as she was walking down Diagon Alley in the dark of the night, her hands full with bags of new clothes for herself, she thought nothing of the couple strolling down the road towards her. Jasmine's gaze lingered for a moment on their hands, fingers entwined, before she politely looked away. Her mother had taught her manners, after all.
It wasn't until the couple had walked past her that she fully sensed danger: the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and her nose registered the scent that had been all but seared into her brain by Snape's rigorous tutoring.
Polyjuice Potion.
Jasmine dropped her bags and dove to the side a split second before the green light of a Killing Curse illuminated the alleyway. It missed her by inches. She whipped her wand out and Snape's voice reverberated in her skull: "Wordless, Miss King, or not at all."
She spun, silently releasing a rapid fire of Curses in the direction of her attackers. She could see that she'd caught them by surprise. But it wouldn't be long before they gathered their wits and remembered she was easy prey.
With blood rushing in her ears, Jasmine aimed her wand at the ground before their feet and yelled, "Confringo!"
A sound not unlike the firing of a cannon rang across the street. Dirt and cobblestone burst into the air and Jasmine hastily conjured Grimmauld Place into mind. Red light shot out from behind the cloud of dust just as she Disapparated from the scene.
She knew something was wrong the moment her feet touched the pavement in front of 12 Grimmauld. Her shoulder was burning, as though a flat iron was being pressed down on the skin there. Her legs gave way and she was soon writhing in pain, scraping her knees in her desperation to crawl towards the entrance. If she could only get to the front door, to the doorbell—
A fresh wave of agony seared her from within, impossibly stronger. She muffled her scream against the inside of her elbow.
There was the distinct crack of Apparition. Jasmine squeezed her wand and made to turn, though she had no idea how she was going to survive a duel. Not with hellfire bearing down on her neck, her shoulder, her arm—
Hands grabbed her around the waist and hauled her to her feet, all but dragged her to the sidewalk and up the front porch.
"You fool," Snape hissed once they were past Walburga Black's portrait, steadily making their way to the kitchen. "You could have been killed!"
Jasmine opened her mouth to defend herself, but the words got caught in her throat as more fire seeped into her veins. She did scream, then, and old Walburga began screeching from the front hallway. Scowling, Snape slashed his wand across the air. The door behind them slammed shut, effectively muffling the cries of the Black portrait.
Some other unknown emotion flashed across his face before he collected himself, setting her down gently on the tattered grey sofa in the living room and crouching low beside her.
"Your shirt must be removed, Miss King."
She gritted her teeth. "I c-can't…"
He tapped his wand on the neckline of her blouse and Jasmine suddenly felt very cold. It contrasted painfully with the heat in her right shoulder. She watched through bleary eyes as Snape leaned forward, gazing with intense scrutiny at the bared skin of her shoulder and arm. He muttered something under his breath. Jasmine groaned as she felt the skin on the inside of her elbow being cut open. Snape placed his wand there and whispered unintelligibly.
It was slow, agonizing work, but by the end of it, Jasmine felt blissfully cool and at the same time, indescribably tired. She imagined she didn't look too different from the man crouched beside her.
"Thank you," she said, grimacing once she felt the damage she'd done to her throat. "How… How did you find me?"
He turned and slipped his legs out from underneath him, sitting on the floor and placing his weight against the front of the sofa, just by her stomach. "Protego vigilate," he said. "A particularly useful spell which, once placed on someone, can alert the caster of deadly spells being cast in the immediate vicinity of whom which the Protego was placed on."
Jasmine sagged into the cushions. "Oh."
"Indeed." He sneered. "Dumbledore had me cast it on you as he did for Potter the night of your induction into the Order. A good thing, as I understand that the two of you seem to be incapable of staying out of trouble."
She winced at the acid in his voice. "Sorry, Professor Snape. I only wanted to—"
"Severus, Miss King." He grunted, running his hand across his face. "I've seen you without a shirt on, you might as well call me Severus."
"Severus… I used the money you gave me to buy clothes. I dropped them when I was attacked. They're probably soaked in mud by now." She pursed her lips. "Sorry."
The corners of his mouth curled slightly, though not enough to be considered a smile. "Impertinent girl." He said it with a hint of affection that made her chest hurt – a comfortable hurt, so different from the curse that had been swimming in her veins just moments ago.
She could see in his eyes that she was in for a world of hell once she was back on her feet, but before that, she would take any rare morsel of warmth that he was willing to give.
.
.
"This is rubbish," Snape grumbled. "We should be talking about battle strategies, not partying like a bunch of randy fourth years."
"Oh loosen up, Severus!" Kingsley handed him a glass of firewhiskey. "We've planned and planned and planned. I think it's enough, don't you?"
"It's never enough in my experience."
"The Death Eaters know nothing and Voldemort is none the wiser. And Harry…" They spied the dark-haired boy mingling with his friends, his hand wrapped around Ginny Weasley's. A new development, if Molly's glassy eyes were anything to go by. Kingsley softly cleared his throat. "Harry knows what needs to happen. He's ready."
Ginny threw her head back and laughed at something Fred had said. Harry stood back, looked at her with such love and adoration. Jasmine felt her throat closing up with emotion as she watched them and she knew that they had to bring Harry back. At all costs. He deserved to be happy.
She downed the remaining firewhiskey in her glass and grimaced at the burn. Damned if I don't deserve to be happy either.
"I do hope you plan on slowing down, Miss King," Snape drawled. "Unless you want to fight Death Eaters while sporting a hangover?"
"That's why we have enough potions for an entire city, Severus." Jasmine poured herself another glass. "Remember when you had to give me a Calming Draught before the third task? Well, this certainly beats that. Tastes better."
"Works a hell of a lot quicker, too."
She smirked.
Before the night was through, they had managed to empty the cellar of anything Sirius could have hidden there, and made what was thoroughly a mess in the living room. A Silencing Charm had been thrown over Walburga Black sometime during the evening and Fred and George were having a field day with the portrait. Jasmine, somehow, had ended up with her head pillowed on Severus' lap. Everyone was just as surprised as she was that Snape hadn't hexed her yet.
The couples, meanwhile, had cleared out before midnight. Remus and Tonks retreated to their room in the fourth floor while Ron and Hermione all but disappeared. When Jasmine blearily inquired where they'd run off, Mad-Eye, evidently the only Order member apart from Snape who was still sober, glared down his nose at her and shook his head.
"Chances are half of us'll die tomorrow," he grumbled. "Leave them be."
He retired for the night not long after. Jasmine waited for his rhythmic, thumping footsteps to fade as he got farther up the staircase before she risked a glance at Snape. Without thinking, she stretched her arm out and pressed her thumb between his eyebrows. He whipped his head back.
"What in Merlin's name—"
"You think too much! You're always like…" She jumped into a sitting position and immediately felt bile rise up her throat. Snape moved to guide her head away from the carpet. "No! Look, look. I've been working on it and – and you're always like – like this…"
She scrunched up her face, gathering her sleeves around her and crossing her arms like he used to whenever he walked up and down the room during Potions class. She tried to scowl, but the impossibility of it sent her into a fit of giggles. Snape pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I think you've had quite enough, Miss King. You should retire."
"Alright." She pouted. "Help me to my room?"
He hissed out a weary breath but otherwise helped her to her feet. With his arm around her waist, he supported her up the stairs to the third floor and past the door before promptly throwing her onto the bed. Jasmine bounced for a few moments and Snape placed a vial of red liquid onto the night stand. He watched her try to get her bearings; she watched him watch her.
He knelt onto the mattress beside her and began unlacing her shoes.
It was when he was pulling off her socks that she spoke.
"I'm not that drunk, you know," she said, more to the ceiling than to him. "I'm just pretending that I am so I have an excuse to act stupid. I can never act stupid. Not even when I was child."
Even in near complete darkness, Jasmine still somehow managed to see Snape's imperiously raised eyebrow. "The fact that you're telling me that, in and of itself, proves that you are very much drunk."
"Do I have to be drunk to be honest with you?"
"I certainly hope not. Otherwise your liver would be long gone and you'd never be able to string up coherent sentences."
She sighed. Loudly. "Do you have to be drunk to be honest with me then?"
"No." He tossed her socks into the laundry basket in the corner of the room before regarding her with wary eyes. "I try to be honest with you as much as I can, considering my delicate position in this war."
"But you have lied to me before."
"I have, although more often than not it's by omission and I never truly considered that to be lying."
"Why?"
"Why don't I consider it to be lying?"
"Why do you keep things from me?"
"To protect you."
"I can take care of myself."
He shook his head, a wry smile tugging at his lips. "Things spoken are more difficult to hide."
"Is that why you never call me Jasmine?" she said, and his hands stilled from where they'd been about to draw the covers over her body. Jasmine raised her chin. "Are you scared, Snape?"
"No."
"Say it then."
His nostrils flared. For a moment, Jasmine thought he was going to throw her more of his acerbic words and slam the door. But then something shifted in him. His head drooped and he sat, almost wilted onto the bed – sideways, so Jasmine could see that he was staring at her.
"Jasmine." It was more breath than voice, truly. With his shoulders hunched and his hair covering most of his face, Jasmine thought he'd never looked more tired, more vulnerable.
She searched for his arm amidst the blankets, gently guiding him by the wrist until his fingers grazed her neck. She rested her head on his hand, her cheek pressed firmly into his palm.
His mouth parted; he looked so lost. And he did what she'd expected him to. He pulled his hand away and made for the door.
Panic seized her chest. "Wait!"
He paused, though only just. One foot was already in the hall outside.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed. Stay – please." One step was all he needed to leave her in the dark, so she spoke quickly. "I won't make you do anything. I won't touch you, if you don't want me to. But please stay. I just… don't want to be alone."
And it was the truth. Perhaps that was why he didn't leave.
He closed the door behind him, shrouding them in darkness once more. Slowly he unbuttoned his frock coat, removed his boots and his socks, until he was left in nothing but a white dress shirt and trousers. Jasmine watched him approach. He crawled onto the bed, lying sideways above the sheets. He left a good few inches of space between them.
"Tomorrow, I'll have to fight for him," he said, his voice strangely hoarse. "You know that."
"I know."
"I'll be gone by the time you wake up."
"I know."
He grew quiet and she just watched him. It was rare for Snape to have all his walls down at once, and to be in his presence during such an event… It was more than a privilege; it was a gift.
When Jasmine fell asleep, Snape was holding her hand, playing with her fingers, tracing the lines on her palm. Later, when she was shoved back into wakefulness by a particularly horrid dream, Snape was holding her. He was so close she could feel his heartbeat through his chest, a steady thumping against her spine.
Smiling, Jasmine grasped his arm that was curled just beneath her breasts and allowed his breathing to lull her back into sleep.
He was gone by the time Kingsley came in to wake her up.
.
.
The fighting lasted well past midnight the next day. As soon as Harry got to his feet, even after having been hit by Voldemort's Killing Curse, the Death Eaters lost all their heart. They began retreating; the ones who didn't were quickly dealt with by McGonagall and most of the staff. In the noise that ensued, Harry led Voldemort to the courtyard where he dealt the killing blow for all to see.
Things got quiet.
The dead and the injured were carted off to the Great Hall. Jasmine followed behind the throng of weary fighters – students, most of whom she recognized from before she graduated. They were so young.
Jasmine walked past the giant brass doors to see more fallen than there were survivors. Dozens of McGonagall's recruits and more than a quarter of the Order had been killed during the battle. More than half of number they'd started with. Mad-Eye had been right.
Jasmine helped as much as she could. Closing wounds and mending broken bones, but Madam Pomfrey made sure that Jasmine focused on dealing with the people that had been cursed with Dark Magic.
"Severus taught you, after all," Pomfrey had said.
The work kept Jasmine grounded, kept her from assuming the worst. But as soon as the Potion Master's name left Pomfrey's lips, Jasmine felt as though the walls were closing in around her.
Snape had been with the Death Eaters during the battle. Everything had been so dark and spells were flying in from every which direction. To those who weren't part of the Order, anyone who didn't know better – it would have been all too easy to curse him from behind, when he wasn't looking. He would've been defenseless. And anyone could have finished the job.
With her fraying nerves, it took her a while to notice the murmurs that had started up in the Hall. Order members had lined up at the entrance with Kingsley at the head; he seemed to be keeping the students at bay, talking them down from… something. Jasmine was about to walk over there and ask what all the commotion was about, when suddenly a great dark figure swept past Kingsley and through the crowd of gawking students.
His robes were dirty and torn severely at places and there was a bloody gash above his brow, but he was alive. It was as though her thinking of him had summoned him back from the fields of hell.
He stopped right in front of her. Jasmine felt her eyes burning.
"We need to go somewhere more private," she muttered, "or else I'm going to lose it right here in front of everyone and I don't think you'd appreciate that."
Severus surprised her by placing his arm around her shoulders. His cloak was long and wide enough to cover the both of them as he led her out of the Hall and into an abandoned second floor corridor, at which point, he gave her sleeve a firm tug and she could do nothing else but fall into his arms.
Her sob came out muffled and broken against his chest. "Thank god you're alive."
"God had nothing to do with it."
He placed his hand against the back of her head, holding her against him even as her tears soaked through his coat. She felt him trembling and she reared back in surprise, immediately running her eyes across his weathered form.
"What's wrong?" she demanded. "Are you hurt?"
The chuckle that escaped him was rough and quiet. "No worse than you, I imagine."
They tended to each other's wounds. Jasmine ran her fingers along each new patch of skin that was healed by her wand. It was a simple kind of intimacy, and the only one they could afford at the moment. She leaned her head on his shoulder and felt the fatigue wash over her all at once as he played with the fabric of her collar.
"I saw my father tonight," she murmured. In her exhausted state, she felt like he needed to know what she'd done. "He was beating down on one of Professor McGonagall's. I had to kill him."
"You did what you had to. We all did."
Jasmine sighed and curled inwards, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. She felt him shift slightly, and then his lips touched the top of her head. "We're alive," she whispered.
Severus released a long breath, ruffling her hair. "We are."
If he sounded unhappier than she'd thought he would, she said nothing of it.
.
.
Kingsley took the remaining members of the Order and a select few from the DA and stormed the Ministry; a few days later, Scrimgeour, along with any Death Eater who'd thought they could escape custody, had been captured and sent immediately to Azkaban to await trial, and Kingsley was standing as the interim Minister for Magic.
Rebuilding was difficult.
Kingsley sent his best Aurors to hunt down the Death Eaters still on the run. He did not allow Harry Potter to accompany them. Instead, he ordered Harry and the DA to help with the repairing of the castle, where help was indeed sorely needed.
Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Tower were far too damaged to safely house any of the students. Professor Sprout was all too willing to open up the Hufflepuff dormitory. Snape, however, took some convincing and terse words from McGonagall before he allowed anyone other than a Slytherin into the dungeons.
Jasmine thought that sleeping in her own bed would be good for her. It had been her refuge for seven years, after all.
She was wrong.
The nightmares came, as they had even during her time at Grimmauld. Garish scenes of that night at the graveyard with Voldemort looming above her, Harry screaming, green and red lights flashing and the constant fear of impending death. Her mind brought forth what it would have been like if Snape had been there. In her nightmares he was the one to cast the Cruciatus – really him, and not some hallucination. He sneered at her and in the end, Voldemort made her watch as he made Harry squirm.
She'd wake up before Voldemort's Killing Curse could ever reach her, always drenched in sweat and breathing as though she'd run a mile.
It didn't take long for Severus to notice that she wasn't getting any sleep. She knew it wasn't just because of the dark rings under her eyes or the way she walked about the castle like she'd been Imperio'd. Her magic was suffering too; she could barely levitate a stone block for more than a few minutes without feeling nauseated afterwards.
It was less than a week before McGonagall banned her from helping any further with the reconstruction. She sent Jasmine to Madam Pomfrey, who told her what she already knew: "You need to sleep." She was then confined to the Hospital Wing and given Dreamless Sleep during her first three nights there. It helped – immensely – but Pomfrey refused to give her more because of the potion's addictive nature.
The nightmares got worse.
One night she awoke to find Severus leaning over her. His face was all hard edges and shadows, and it was easy for Jasmine to remember the graveyard; to think that, hidden by the sleeve of his voluminous robes, Snape was holding a Death Eater's mask.
She would have screamed, but he had anticipated it and he clamped his hand over her mouth.
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, trailing down the side of her face and eventually onto his fingertips.
He scowled.
"Poppy shouldn't have kept you here," he said. "She shouldn't have gotten you started on Dreamless Sleep either."
Wide-eyed she stared at him, not knowing what to say.
"Come."
Jasmine followed him because she remembered him saying the same thing the night before the Third Task; after dinner, she'd roamed and roamed and eventually found herself in the dungeons, where Snape came across her.
It all seemed like a lifetime ago.
Severus led her to an unfamiliar corridor in the dungeons. Jasmine was just wondering where he was taking her when he abruptly stopped.
Facing a completely ordinary stretch of wall, he said under his breath, "Nascentes morimur," and she knew that she only heard him because he allowed her to. The wall slid open to reveal a hidden passageway. Jasmine followed him inside and saw that it expanded into a chamber. There was a desk, a lounging area, a fireplace and rows and rows of books. Severus led her to a door at the far end of the room, opening it to reveal a four-poster bed.
"Lie down," he said.
"But…"
He grabbed her hand and all but dragged her to the bed. He began turning down the covers, glaring at her from under his eyelashes. Sighing, Jasmine crawled onto the mattress and laid her head down. Severus turned away.
She was about to call him back when she realized that he was merely setting his wards back up. It didn't take him two minutes, at which time he promptly removed his coat and boots and slid in next to her. He was warm. His arm shifted on the pillow as he reached for her fingers, about to start playing with them no doubt.
Jasmine quickly grabbed his hand and held it between both of hers. The corners of her lips ticked upwards once she saw the look on his face. She had shocked him.
She closed her eyes before he could rebuke her, and he relaxed again eventually. And they slept.
.
.
"You said you wouldn't do this," Jasmine sobbed. "You said you would never betray me."
"I'm not betraying you, you foolish girl! This is for your own good!"
It'd been one of the rare occasions that Severus fell asleep before she did. Jasmine had opted to stay awake for at least an hour more, basking in the stillness and admiring his features in the moonlight. When he'd begun to whimper and thrash, she'd reached for his face and smoothed her hand over his cheek. His eyes had flown open and his wand was in hand before she could blink, pressed painfully against her jugular.
Once the shock at what he'd done settled over him, Jasmine again tried to reach for him, to comfort him as he'd done many times for her. But he'd pulled away and began pacing.
"I'm not some trembling first year you can scream at and order around, Severus," she muttered, the beginnings of anger stirring in her chest. "I can bloody well take care of myself and I'm old enough to bloody well know what's good for me."
"I'm making you worse."
"No, you're helping me. I…" She pushed back the lump in her throat. "I need you."
"Don't say that," he snapped.
"It's the truth. And I'm saying it out loud because I want you to know how much you mean to me and – why won't you look at me?"
His back was turned to her, his heavy breathing evident in the way his shoulders rose and fell at a rapid pace. He clenched his fists beside him, tensing, and for a moment Jasmine thought he was going to punch the wall. She understood then.
"It's okay, Severus," she said quietly. "The war… it fucked me up. But you've been through two and I can't begin to imagine what you must be feeling. I know that first it was Voldemort, and then Dumbledore…" She trailed off, taking a shaky breath to quell the sob rising in her throat. "I will understand if you don't want to shackle yourself to me."
He said nothing.
The silence stretched on for so long, Jasmine thought he would just allow her to leave without another word spoken between them.
Then, she heard him heave a great sigh, and he looked at her over his shoulder.
"You misunderstand me," he said, sounding oddly choked up. "I have no desire to abandon you. Our time together has brought me closer to happiness than I ever thought possible. You must know that."
He paused.
"I just cannot bring myself to believe that any of this is real." He turned then, and Jasmine saw the utter anguish in his eyes. The panic. The confusion. "I fear that one moment you will simply be gone, that you will be taken away from me like Lily was. Surely bliss such as the kind you've brought could never be granted to someone like me."
Jasmine approached him – slowly, as she would an injured doe, and made sure to stop at a respectable distance.
"So many of us are gone now, Severus," she said. "People we knew. But you survived and you did so much. Don't you think you're owed at least some semblance of happiness?"
He still did not turn fully but she saw his finger twitch. She carefully slipped her hand into his and laid her head between his shoulders. Felt him breathing. Heard his heartbeat.
"I made you promise me," she whispered.
His entire frame trembled as he shuddered. "It's what I want, Jasmine. I will never betray you. I swear it."
"Just as I will never leave you, Severus Snape." She placed a kiss on his clothed shoulder. "For as long as you'll have me."
He finally turned, and the emotion in his gaze carried the weight of which she had never seen before. It was almost staggering.
"Forever," he said.
She had never been able to deny him anything. She knew she never would.
She grinned. "Forever, then."
.
.
The nightmares would come and go for a few years – for the both of them – but he was always there to hold and soothe her when she began thrashing about, as she was for him.
There was no sunrise that saw them apart.
"Nascentes morimur."
Latin
Translation: "We are born but to die."