Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, and various other publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Nor do I own any of Jane Austen's novels from which I took quotes.

Severus snatched the bottle from where it sat and entered his bedroom. He saw Hermione lying on his bed and thought back to last night. They had been sitting on his bed, laughing about the mishaps which had happened in yesterday's potions lessons, and how stupid the new batch of 'dunderheads' seemed to be. He had also been telling her about a potion symposium that had been planning to take her to, but now he didn't know if she would survive the night.

"Severus." Her eyes were closed but faint words passed her lips. It gave him hope.

The Eternus Dormio that he had created for the Dark Lord drained a person's magical energy and then it would eventually erase the mind. The pain from the potion was meant to be excruciating, he knew this as he had seen the damage done to the test subjects. But, as he was one of the best Potions Masters of the era, he had created a loophole. Eternus Dormio had a ten-minute delay in which the antidote could be given, but the ten minutes were almost up.

Like all good conundrums, there was a catch, because the Dark Lord was who he was – a paranoid megalomaniac with masochistic tendencies - there was only one way for it to be administered, and that way was to be administered by a kiss. But, it was not just any kiss; it was The Kiss of the Soul.

The Kiss of the Soul was a kiss that bonded two people together, for life and for death. The Dark Lord had some insane idea that if he ever did accidentally ingest the potion, then the boy-who-lives-to-be-a-pain-in-the-neck would administer it. Severus didn't believe it for a second, but the Dark Lord was adamant that if that day ever happened, Potter would administer it.

The Kiss, once initiated, could not be stopped and he knew that he didn't have a choice; it was either The Kiss, or death for Hermione, and the second option wasn't a choice.

He glanced at her hand and had to look once again to make sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on them; her hand was fading. He knew that the potion worked fast, but he made it and he knew this wasn't supposed to happen. It was made to drain the magical energy first, and then the physical energy – the body. This was happening in reverse order, it wasn't right!

"Severus ... help."

Her voice was getting weaker and he mentally berated himself for just standing there. Severus crossed the distance that separated them and lifted her mouth up to meet his; they were inches apart when he remembered to uncork the potion bottle. He poured half of it into her mouth and half in to his, and kissed her.

Hermione

She looked down at her hand again but this time, she saw no hand. She brought the other hand up and saw that it was starting to fade and started to panic. The light was nearly out, and the darkness was starting to consume her.

Pain shot through every nerve in her body; it was worse than Cruciatus.

Hermione thought she heard a voice call out to her, but she shook her head, ridding herself of the silly notion, and regretted the decision straight after, as pain shot through her every fibre of her being.

"Hermione."

The voice was real, or as real as it could get with it being inside of her mind, her consciousness. As the pain started to fade away, she heard the voice again and looked up.

Severus was dresses in white, and he was floating down towards her. He reminded her of an angle. Angel Severus; it was all quite ridiculous really she mused.

"Hermione, take my hand."

She couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all; it was extremely corny, like something shown at a muggle cinema. She started to lift the hand that wasn't hadn't vanished, but as she did pain tore through her body, making her cry at the shear intensity of it.

Hermione felt a hand move towards the back of her head, and felt another caress her cheek, brushing her tears away. She smiled as she saw Severus; everything was going to be okay.

"Hermione, I need to kiss you." he mumbled, feeling the urge to complete the bond he had instigated. Though he was already kissing her, it was the kiss inside the mind that sealed The Kiss of The Soul.

When he had entered her mind, he saw her floating in the middle of a darkening room, and he could only guess that the light fading around her was her physical energy. He peered past the darkening light and saw a door; Severus guessed that through that door he would find her magical energy, thankfully the edges around the door still shone brightly.

A nod of her head signalled her response. His lips sealed around hers and he felt the bound taking hold of them both. He didn't know how long they kissed for, and it felt like an eternity before he felt a tug at his navel pulling him back to the present.

~.~

Hermione's eyes fluttered open to see Severus looming above her, his mouth inches from hers. She felt a tingling in her hand and peered past his body to look at it; her hand was back to normal.

"Hermione, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

To say she was shocked was an understatement; she looked up at him, puzzled by his reaction.

"Severus, what have you got to be sorry for?" she asked, not quite sure why he was apologising.

"The only way for me to save you ... was to perform The Kiss of the Soul."

He looked away from her and he was about to move away when he felt a small hand wrap itself around his own.

"It's okay Severus. When are you going to get over the fact that I love you and that I do want to spend the rest of my life with you?"

Severus looked down at the amazing young witch before him. He smiled. It was a rare sight, but this occasion called for it.

"Never."

He their lips met in a frantic struggle for dominance, before eventually coming up for air.

Hermione looked at his face and saw the usual changes start to take place: his face hardened and he wore the expression that he always wore before telling her that they could not be together. She had enough experience with him to know what was coming.

"Don't. Please, just don't."

She tried to get up, but fell back against the bed, too weak to move.

"Hermione-"

But, he was cut off by an angry tirade of words coming from her mouth.

"What are you going to tell me now? That I'm too young, or that you're my teacher? For Christ's sake Severus, were engaged to be married! We have their consent and they already knew before we even told them! And before you say anything else did you forget about the fact that I love you, and I'm sure I have told you that before, and more than once if I remember rightly."

She paused to take a breath, and Severus took the chance to say, "I wasn't going to say that, I was going to say, if you had given me a chance, is that I need to find out who did this to you, no that's wrong, to us."

"Oh Severus, I'm sorry, I thought..." she trailed off, abashed at her rash behaviour.

"I know what you thought you had every right to say those things. I have always tried to persuade you that I wasn't good enough for you Hermione. You deserve someone who is better me, but of course you never listened to me, and I guess all that is left for me to say, you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love ... I love ... I love you."

Hermione was crying again, but this time she was crying because she was happy. Severus had never told her that before, not even when he had proposed to her. He had made such a mess of the proposal that he even blushed, but she had said that it was more romantic that he messed it, because she knew that for Severus Snape to mess something up, it had to be sincere.

"Hermione, I never meant to make you cry."

"I'm not crying because I'm sad, I'm crying because I'm happy, very happy," she said as tears ran down her face.

"I still managed to mess it up though, like the engagement...," he trailed off, remembering how embarrassed he had felt, his ego still bruised from that day.

Hermione came down to his chambers after her last lesson of the day, and meekly knocked on the door to his private chambers.

"Albus, I swear to god that I am not going to get anymore roses and I also won't tell you-"

He stopped mid-sentence when he saw who was at the door.

"Hermione."

The shock was evident in her voice and he prayed to some deity above that she hadn't heard what he had said. But, by the look on her face, she had.

"Hermione," he said again, his voice was filled with uncertainty.

"Severus."

She pushed past him, interested to know what he had been on about, only to be met by the smell of twelve dozen roses.

"What is this?" she asked.

Severus shifted uncomfortably on the spot.

"For you," he said, pointing at the roses in the vase.

Hermione had to stifle a laugh, he looked so uneasy!

"Not funny," he mumbled.

"Oh Severus, why don't you use words with more than two syllables and tell me what's going on?"

He grumbled slightly at her patronising tone, and she smiled in response.

"It's for you. All of it is."

Hermione took a moment to look around the rest of the room. Severus Snape was not a romantic man by any stretch of the imagination, but the room in front of her screamed to the contrary.

The fireplace had been lit, the embers crackled, and the flames danced to a silenced rhythm. A table for two had been set up; candles decorating the short distance between the wooden chairs and on one of the two plates lay a white rose.

"Severus, what's all this?"

He took three, small, uncertain steps towards her. "Hermione Granger, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

She stood rooted to the spot, her mouth opening, and closing before she eventually found her voice.

"Yes."

It was his turn to be shocked. Severus looked into her eyes and saw the tears fall from her eyes which reflected the glow from the fireplace.

"Yes."

From his pocket, Severus took a small velvet box, the same box he had carried around with him for weeks before finally summoning the courage to put his plan into action. Inside the box nestled a 9ct white gold eternity ring with five small diamonds woven into the band.

After he had slipped the ring onto her finger, he brought her palm up to his hand and placed a gentle, lingering kiss onto it. Just as he was about to kiss her wrist he felt her other hand lift his face up to her own, he briefly saw the joy glistening in her eyes before they sealed their engagement with a kiss.

Severus was snapped back to reality by Hermione pulling out the chain that the necklace was hung on for him to see. She undid the clasp that held the necklace and took the ring off the chain; she then opened his palm and placed the ring on it.

The ring he had given her had to be kept on a chain because if she wore it on display it would have caused too many questions. He had once suggested that the ring could be disillusioned on her finger and the spell removed when she had graduated. But that idea was quickly abolished when he spent the night alone. He had grovelled for days for her forgiveness and she finally agreed. She thought that he was ashamed of their engagement, but he wasn't, he was just being cautious.

"Hermione," his voice held a warning she had rarely heard before, but she ignored it, she only smiled and held out her left hand.

"Severus, I know you and I know that ever since the day you proposed to me, your ego has been bruised and you don't look back on that day with happiness, only embarrassment. So, ask me again. It's the perfect time; you've just rescued my soul by sacrificing yours, and I'm yours if you will have me. It's one of those perfect, cliché, romantic moment if you think about it."

There was a moment's pause as he fiddled with the engagement ring which had up until now lived on a necklace around her neck, she was right, though when was she never? This was the perfect, clichéd moment.

"Hermione Granger, will you marry me?"

She smiled.

"Yes."