Chapter Twenty Five
Hermione and Severus were holed up in Grimmauld Place, the wards around the building so strong and reinforced that Hermione doubted the injured would be able to get through the wards. She paced the lounge anxiously, unable to stay still. Severus sat on the couch, watching amusedly. Hermione abruptly stopped, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation.
"Why are we being forced to stay here? We should be helping!"
"We are helping." Severus responded calmly, picking up a copy of the Daily Prophet and flicking through it absent-mindedly.
"How?" Hermione hissed. "The others are risking their lives for us, and we are taking it easy here. Here! They won't even be able to get those that need help through to us!"
"Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place have been connected through Minerva. The magic that it required nearly knocked her unconscious, and Albus had to talk her through the spell step by step. You would have known that if you weren't so self-absorbed." He didn't look up from the newspaper once as he spoke, and Hermione saw red.
"SELF-ABSORBED? How in Merlin's name am I self-absorbed?" She shrieked, not even trying to regain some self-control.
"Let's see, you abandon your school friends, you almost drive away Mayfair, and you are using Armitage, and are so preoccupied in the pretence of a relationship that you haven't thought once of the preparations going on all day for battle."
He ticked off the list on his fingers casually, as if the topic under discussion was of no importance to him. Hermione had no idea of he was deliberately trying to provoke her, or whether he merely was unable to stop himself from taking things a step too far.
"My relationship is none of your business." She said, her voice low and dangerous. Severus shrugged his indifference.
"My apologies." He did not sound sorry at all, and Hermione could not correlate this new man to the one who had been offering up declarations of love just days previously.
"And it isn't a pretence of a relationship!" She added sharply, angry when Severus just looked bored. But what reaction had she really wanted from him after telling him to stay out of her life?
"I thought it was none of my business." He drawled.
"Don't you act all superior with me." Hermione growled. "It's your fault that this happened."
Severus arched an eyebrow delicately, straining to keep up his apathy, it nearly killing him having his beautiful, passionate witch in the room and pretending he didn't care. But this was what she had asked for; this was what she would get.
"The break-down of our relationship was my fault. What you are doing to yourself, to your friends, and to Armitage. That is your own fault. There is no one to blame but yourself."
Hermione blanched. It was so different hearing what Andrew had been telling her again and again, but this time from Severus.
"It's too late." She didn't know why she was opening up to him as she paced around the room, but if she was to confess her mistakes to anyone, no one knew her better than Severus.
"I let things get worse and worse, and was too stubborn to think that they were my fault until it was too late to fix all the friendships I had ruined. Too late to fix my life. But then, you were right before. I am self-absorbed. I was so fixated on what happened with Greyback, and all its consequences, that I never once thought that you also had problems."
Severus looked up at her sharply, words failing him, as he struggled to process her words. Was he reading too much into them? Or could that almost have been a confession of something close to forgiveness?
An unconscious body rushed out of the fireplace, and Severus cursed whoever had interrupted such a delicate moment, and then at once feeling terrible for thinking that. He and Hermione bent over the unconscious sixth year, their discussion and their disagreements forgotten as they got to work.
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Bodies; unconscious, moaning in pain, and dead, flooded Hermione and Severus as they worked tirelessly through the night, both of them desperate to know what was happening at Hogwarts as they worked to save their friends and the students.
It was a relief when Order members started to apparated into Grimmauld Place to help deal with the mounting injured.
"Hogwarts is safe." Minerva said sharply, barely able to remain standing, her face grey. Nevertheless, she bent over her students, anguish flitting across her face at the sight of the students under her care injured.
The dead were moved to another room, and Hermione cast a professional eye over the bodies, struggling not to react to so many familiar faces, now lifeless.
Professor Slughorn. Professor Sinistra. Madam Pince. Dedalus Diggle. Aberforth Dumbledore. And countless others whose faces she could not match to a name.
It was hours before the injured had been dispatched to St Mungo's, no longer critical, or had been sent home. Ron had been badly injured, hovering close to death at once point, and Severus had ordered Hermione to see to someone else at once while he and Harry worked long and hard on Ron until he was stable enough to be moved.
Most people apparated straight home from Grimmauld Place once the situation was under control; an Order meeting was out of the question, and Kingsley had the unfortunate task of returning to the Ministry with the surviving aurors for damage control. Hermione found Paul and told him she was going to stay in Grimmauld Place with Harry, and she was so preoccupied with Ron that she didn't even get a chance to see Andrew.
When everyone had gone, and the dead had been quietly removed by a St Mungo's official, Severus collapsed onto the couch, not quite unable to take in what had happened. The lack of notice, and not being at the battle had made the whole situation entirely surreal for both him and Hermione, existing almost on a dream plane – not quite in the real world.
Harry, dead on his feet, but wide awake still and jittery over Ron, sat down with Hermione and Severus to tell them everything about the battle.
The Deatheaters had come in through the Slytherin common room; one of the seventh years had rigged the fireplace to let in people from the outside, and it had been so obvious, so right-there-in-front-of-them that no one had thought of checking the floo until it was too late, and the castle was flooded with Deatheaters.
Everyone not of age, or anyone of age not wanting to fight were shepherded into the Room of Requirement and out of Hogwarts, in exactly the same manner that had been used the previous summer.
And then, using replicas of the enchanted coins used by Dumbledore's Army – Hermione smiled faintly at that – Kingsley and Minerva had given everyone instructions of where to go, and the Deatheaters had been attacked from all fronts.
Part of Hogwarts had been blown off, and there simply was no astronomy tower any more. But most of the students were safe, and Hogwarts was not in the hands of the Deatheaters. All in all, Hermione thought sadly, it was a happy ending with Hogwarts not falling into the hands of the Deatheaters. But it was a happy ending that should have finished the previous year. Would the war ever end?
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Harry stood up, and Hermione followed Hermione into the hall, as he fetched his cloak, wrapping it around himself tightly although it did not stop him shivering.
"You're not staying here tonight?" Hermione enquired of Harry, taking in his exhausted expression and almost grey features. "I hadn't thought you would return to Poland, being so tired. And Ron won't be going back for a while."
Harry rubbed his bleary eyes and grinned a tired smile.
"One of the advantages of Ginny being head girl is that she has her own quarters. McGonagall more or less said is absolutely shattered, and will turn a blind eye to any 'inappropriate goings on' tonight."
Hermione grinned. "You're shameless!" She scolded, laughing at him. Harry laughed with her.
"Not that shameless. She's a mess after what she saw tonight and seeing Ron like that, but she didn't want to go back to the Burrows, because Mrs Weasley is being a little – overprotective – because of nearly losing Ron." He chose his words carefully.
"Are you going back to Paul's now?" Hermione's eyes clouded over.
"Maybe not, I was thinking I would stay here with you, but maybe I will return to my place."
"You should stay here tonight, you're too tired to go back to your apartment, and I don't want you being on your own."
"Oh – who else is staying here then?" She knew the answer as soon as she had asked the question, and saw the shifty expression in Harry's eyes.
"Professor Snape is – but only because he also shouldn't be in his house with Deatheaters still on the loose. Don't shout at me!" He protested, as Hermione started to splutter her indignation.
"I've been locked in a room with him for hours!"
"And was it really that bad?" He asked with honest curiosity. Hermione smiled a secret little smile, which gave her away at once, although Harry pretended not to know what it meant.
"Hermione, I'm sorry, but I would feel much better if you stayed here tonight, where you are safe." Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but had nothing to protest about.
"No arguments!" Said Harry with a stern twinkle in his eye, and he disapparated without a further word.
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Hermione re-entered the lounge, where Severus was now standing up, his features bright and alert despite the hour.
"How are you?" He asked her awkwardly, as Hermione twisted the corners of her top between her fingers nervously.
The diamond that glinted on the ring finger of Hermione's left hand twinkled at Severus precociously; taunting him, and Hermione fidgeting with it, twisting it round her finger.
"We never got to finish our earlier discussion." Severus said, still looking at the ring. "So you're happy with Armitage?" He was abrupt, cold.
Hermione avoided Severus' eye, trying to formulate an answer that wouldn't give her away. The trouble was, Severus knew her too well for her to get away with lying.
"He makes me happy, he treats me well." She answered at last. Unlike you. Hermione did not say the words, but they both thought them. Severus eyed her with tentative curiosity.
"Did I not treat you well? Were you not happy with me?"
Hermione stared at him incredulously. "Oh yes, I loved having my entire world shattered in the space of a day; finding out that you lied to me and thought so little of my vision that you were prepared to have the world end as we know it, and me as Lucius' sex toy. I wouldn't define that as happy."
Severus winced, although he hadn't expected anything else from her.
"That's not what I meant, and you know it." He said slowly. "Does Armitage make you feel like I do? Can a single touch leave you breathless?" He raised his hand, his fingers almost touching her lips, but not closing the gap between them. Her lips quivered slightly, forcing herself not to lean forward into his touch, as his hand fell back to his side.
"Can one glance leave you speechless and weak at the knees?" She looked up into his intense gaze, and her breath caught in her throat at the rumble of his deep voice, and the look in his dark eyes.
His hand moved up to cup her face, and Hermione stilled, her head telling her to push him away, but something in her making her not dare to move.
"Tell me you're in love with him and I'll leave you alone once and for all." Human ears would have strained to catch his whisper, but Hermione caught every word.
"How can I love him, when I'm in love with someone else?" His dark eyes held her brown gaze, her eyes scared at what she had just revealed.
Cautiously, watching to check that his actions were alright, Severus brought his other hand up to cup her other cheek, and brought her face towards his tenderly. Hermione's breathing stilled, hardly daring to believe what was happening. And then his lips captured hers, and finally Hermione saw what she been missing with Paul, as she felt the sensation of completeness that only Severus could give her, the almost overwhelming atmosphere of enduring love that emanated from him.
Heart racing, Severus pulled back and looked at her; admiring her shining eyes and swollen lips and flushed cheeks, and wondering when the spell would break.
Hermione curled a hand around the back of neck and pulled him down to meet her lips in a kiss, fervent in their ardour. They kissed frantically, Severus' hands twisting in Hermione's hair, holding her body tightly against his so that he could feel her pressed up against him; so that he knew this was real. Hermione's hands ran down Severus' lean body, grasping at his clothes frantically, ripping through the white shirt he wore, buttons pinging off the walls.
One hand moved down Hermione's chest, grazing a hard nipple so that she moaned, arching her back so that she pressed her breast more firmly into Severus' hand, and Severus barely suppressed a low moan at the sensation of his Hermione in his arms once more. The other hand moved down around her hips, clutching her to him firmly, her body almost quivering as she felt his hard body moulding to hers.
Severus shrugged his torn shirt of his shoulders, and Hermione ran her soft hands over the newly exposed skin, pressing her lips to his chest, kissing along his collar bone and up his throat until she reached his lips again.
"You're entirely too overdressed." Severus growled, tugging at the bottom of her top until Hermione lifted her arms into the air, allowing him to remove it. His hands at once moved to her breasts, his thumbs rubbing her nipples through her bra. Hermione moaned aloud, unable to coordinate her own hands to do anything except clutch at Severus' chest blindly, her knees threatening to give way.
Severus chuckled against Hermione's lips, and held her more firmly, supporting most of her weight with one arm, the other going around her back to smoothly undo the clasp of her bra. Looking down at Hermione's hands on his chest, an odd expression clouded Severus' eyes as he took hold of Hermione's left hand, carefully sliding off the engagement ring. Hermione watched his actions silently, not reacting until the ring was out of her eye line.
Her hands moved to his belt, fumbling with the buckle until Severus laughed, that deep, glorious laugh she had missed so much, and gently pushed her hands away to unbuckle it himself.
"Severus-" She gasped, not knowing what she was saying, only that she was here in Severus' arms, and that it was real. This was really happening. Tears started to prick at her eyes.
"I love you so much, I've been such a fool." She gasped out the words, and Severus' grasp on her tightened, as if afraid if he let go he would lose her.
"No, I was the fool, and I almost lost you because of it. Forgive me." He murmured.
"Forever and always." The words caught in her throat as a single tear trickled down her cheek. Severus inclined his head, and kissed away the tear.
"Oh my darling," he said softly. "Darling, darling girl." He kissed away the tears from her wet lashes. "Don't cry, I'll never leave you, I'll never do anything to hurt you so long as I live. You're stuck with me forever."
Hermione smiled sweetly through her tears. "I was afraid of that!" She said with a dry chuckle, standing on tiptoes to kiss his lips again. She could feel his hardness pressing against her, and he knew she could feel him.
"It's about time these came off." He flipped open the button on her jeans, and she wriggled out of them until they were around her ankles, trapped by her boots. Severus laughed at the sight of Hermione in her underwear, with jeans caught around her ankles to complete the picture, Hermione laughed too, and would have fallen if it weren't for Severus' arm that still encircled her. He pushed her so that she was sitting on the couch, and pulled off her boots, tossing them to one side of the room carelessly. His hands ran up Hermione's legs slowly, sensually caressing her behind her knees and up the soft skin of her thighs before he slid them back down her legs to remove her jeans. Hermione shuddered at the sensation of his hands on her legs, and pulled him down to join her on the couch, kissing him with a sense of utmost urgency.
Severus laughed softly, and pulled away with reluctance.
"I think we would be much more comfortable upstairs than here on the couch." He scooped her up into his arms, ignoring her protestations and strode up the stairs easily, pushing open the door to his usual room in Grimmauld Place, and lay Hermione gently on the bed, acutely aware after having her in his arms of her jutting bones and her frailty.
"I'm not going to break." Hermione grumbled. "Now get down here and kiss me." Severus obeyed at once, joining her on the bed so that he was lying on his side next to her, watching her intently.
"You're so beautiful." He murmured, enjoying just looking at her. Hermione's eyes shone brightly, as she looked up at Severus with love. "Now where were we?" He rolled onto her, supporting his weight with his elbows, and kissed her fervently, enjoying her rapidly hastening breaths against his lips.
Hermione pushed one knee between his legs, gently against his crotch, causing Severus to jerk suddenly, clenching his legs around her own leg to still it. He trailed two long fingers down Hermione's stomach, until he reached the top of her knickers, and stroked her through the damp fabric. Hermione gasped loudly, clutching at Severus' hair. His touch stopped for a moment, and then his fingers hooked around her knickers, sliding them down her satin legs and discarding them on the floor.
His fingertips caressed her hips and inner thighs until Hermione was crying out, arching her back in her desire for him. A finger slipped inside her, then joined by a second, and Hermione cried out in pleasure as his thumb found her clitoris.
Severus bent his head, his lips taking her nipple in his mouth. He was vaguely aware of his boxer shorts being pulled down, but was entirely too caught up in his passion, and the sensations of finally being reunited with his witch.
Hermione shifted, uncomfortable in her pent up passion and desire, desperate for more, and Severus – finally – slid into her, groaning aloud at the sensation of completion. Hermione moaned, and groped blindly for his hand. His hand found hers, clutching it tightly, reassuringly. He didn't move for a moment, overwhelmed, never thinking he would have been with his Hermione again.
And then he began to move, and Hermione wrapped her legs around his waist, moaning with every thrust. Severus groaned, already dangerously close to climax, and reached one hand between their glistening bodies until he found her clitoris. Hermione cried out; Severus knew exactly what buttons to press where she was concerned, her body stiffening as her orgasm ripped through her body; her muscles clenching around Severus, swiftly bringing him to his climax also.
He lay collapsed on Hermione for a few minutes, the couple regaining their breath. Scared he was crushing her, Severus rolled off her to lie on his side, gazing down at her flushed cheeks, trailing his fingertips down her body, caressing her soft stomach.
"I love you." Hermione whispered. And then her gaze fell on her abandoned engagement ring, and she sat up abruptly, her hair falling over her bare breasts in a manner that was entirely enticing to Severus. That is, until he heard her next words.
"Oh God, Paul!" She scrambled from the bed, gathering up her clothing and then darting from the room into the en suite. Severus sat up in the bed, in shock, not sure what had just happened. Hermione returned, now fully dressed, her quick, nervous gaze darting around the room until she saw the ring. She picked it up, and turned to Severus.
"Severus, I'm so sorry to do this now, but I can't wait – anyway – I'll see you soon." She disappeared, and Severus stiffened, her words a kick in the teeth, his breathing halting for a minute until the pain in his chest made him realise what he was doing, and he exhaled loudly. He darted from the bed, still graceful even in his anger, and pulled on his clothes roughly, his hands trembling slightly in mingled fury and despair.
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When Hermione returned, white and visibly shaken, Severus had disappeared from Grimmauld Place. Confused, she apparated to his home, almost crashing into John the groom as she flew into the house.
"Is Severus here?" She asked one of the house elves, and the elf pointed her in the direction of the library. Hermione ran up the stairs, bursting into the library to see Severus staring at a bottle of whiskey, contemplating it.
"I thought you had sworn off drinking?" She asked quietly, and Severus' shoulders become rigid, although he did not turn around to look at her.
"Shouldn't you be with Armitage?" He asked cuttingly, and Hermione finally understood. She walked up to stand behind him, her hand gently massaging his tense shoulders. He shrugged off her touch almost viciously, and Hermione nearly lost her footing, grabbing hold of the top of the cold fireplace to steady herself.
"Severus – look at me." Unwillingly, he turned his eyes towards her, his emotions completely shut off. "Severus, I went to finish it. I'm sorry – I felt so terrible for doing what we did when I was still engaged to him, that I wasn't thinking straight – all I needed to do was see him and end it. I should have explained to you first, I didn't realise how my words sounded to you."
A flicker of hope entered his eyes now, and his eyes fell to her now bare ring finger for reassurance or her words.
"You mean it? You finished it? To – to be with me?" He stumbled over the last words, scared they might not be true. Hermione smiled up at him radiantly.
"Yes, to be with you. Forever and always."
"Forever and always." Severus echoed, taking her in his arms.
Her voice muffled against his chest, Hermione muttered, "I wasn't whole without you Severus, I didn't know how to go on living when we were apart."
She felt at once completely vulnerable for saying that; scared that she had said too much. Severus' arms held her tighter, his throat hoarse, and his words emotional.
"I am never going to lose you again."