TWENTY-EIGHT

Severus was Summoned on Christmas morning. He assured her, as he left, that it was probably just a gathering at Malfoy Manor to eat and make derogative comments about Dumbledore, but he'd held himself so carefully she couldn't help but worry.

She cleaned. Through the morning and into the afternoon, she cleaned. At first she used magic, but then she needed to keep her hands busy and she put her wand in her pocket in favor of the rags she found under the sink.

Severus returned at dusk. He stumbled across the threshold and vomited all over the rug the moment the door was shut behind him.

"Severus?"

He was paler than usual and she could see his hands shaking from across the room, but he didn't look injured. There was no blood, anyway.

"What happened?"

He stood up and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then pressed his back against the wall. His eyes were closed, and his hands were still shaking.

"I need you to say something, Severus."

"I'm alright," he croaked, waving his hand at the mess on the rug. It disappeared, but the stench of it lingered, cutting through the smell of the bleach she'd been using all afternoon.

"You look like hell."

He nodded, leaning his head back against the wall for a moment before collecting himself, standing up straight.

"Draco was punished for trying to cast that particular spell on me," he said. "It was the grand finale to… a very long day."

"Happy Christmas," she said weakly, but it didn't even provoke a smile. She set about undoing the buttons on the old brewing gloves she'd been wearing while she cleaned.

"I didn't get you anything," he told her.

"I didn't get you anything, either," she said. She left the gloves on the chair and went to him, avoiding the spot where he'd vomited. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on. He held her so tightly to him that she thought her ribs might crack.

"I need…" he said, then had to pause to collect himself. "I need to do a few things. I need you to do some things."

"Alright. What do you need me to do?" She pulled back only far enough to be able to see his face.

"I need to teach you how to Apparate. And I need to teach you how to fight."

"I know how to fight."

"You are dangerous, I know. I need to make you deadly."

"Severus…"

"No, Hermione. I need to know that you can hold your own."

"I can hold my own." Some childish part of her wanted to stamp her foot, cross her arms, and flounce out of the room. She knew he wasn't belittling her, but it sounded like he was. She pursed her lips and held her temper. For the moment.

"You need to be able to Apparate because I don't think you'll be at Hogwarts long enough to sit the classes for it. You need to be deadly because they are going to try to kill you the moment you leave Hogwarts. You need to hold your own, entirely on your own, because I am not going to be able to help you."

"What happened today?" Hermione asked. He squeezed her arm where he held her, comforting. She wanted to shake him off but she didn't.

"We had Christmas dinner," he said. "All they talked about was how everything was falling into place. There were Muggles in the basement—the dungeon—for sport, if any were so inclined. The Dark Lord went around the table and congratulated us each on the part we've played, tortured a few over pudding for the little failings. As I said, Draco was the finale—not only has he failed to kill the headmaster as of yet, he stepped out of line when he tried to curse me."

"He didn't try to curse you," Hermione pointed out. "He did."

"He doesn't know that, and neither does the Dark Lord. Do you think I'd be alive if he knew you and I…"

She sighed and stepped back into the circle of his arms. "Right."

\\

Apparation wasn't as difficult as she'd thought it would be. Severus had years of memories to share with her, from when he was learning himself to the lessons he and the other Heads of House supervised each year. He could share the memory of Apparating, the feel of it.

Severus took her to the park around the corner from Spinner's End. It was a run-down thing, just a graffiti-covered slide and a pair of decrepit swings. A few Notice-Me-Not and anti-Muggle charms kept everybody away, and he coached her through practical practice. After an awkward sort of spin and a few stumbling pirouettes, Severus brought her through it Side-Along.

"'The three D's' is an idiotic idea, but it does actually help until you get the feel of it," Severus said.

She splinched herself twice.

\\

While the Apparating was looking up, the "deadly" part wasn't going so well. He taught her spells and she did awful things to the local rat population with them, but he bested her every time in duels. They faced off again and again in the empty room Wormtail had slept in.

"You aren't even trying," he said after the fifth time she ended up on her arse.

"I am," she shot back. She wanted to hit him more in that moment than she had all afternoon. When he flicked a curse at her again, she blocked it and shot a volley of spells at him that would've downed anybody else she'd ever dueled.

"You do more damage to Ron Weasley when I set you to practicing nonverbals," he hissed.

"Well I don't—!" She cut herself off. She wasn't ready to tell him she loved him, but she did. And she couldn't really attack him, since magic all fell back to intent. She didn't intend to hurt him.

She kissed him. She went up on her toes, clenched her fists in his tee shirt, and kissed him for all she was worth. She could feel him reacting, feel the spell bouncing between them, feel her own arousal feeding off of his and into his. She toed off her shoes and reached for the button of his jeans only to fall back against the wall, hands finding his shoulders and squeezing tight. He curled his fingers into her, pushing deeper, finding the spot that made her moan.

"Thank God it was you," Severus said. He kissed her neck, her jaw, pressing her into the wall. "Imagine if it had been anybody else." He sounded almost like he was talking to himself

"I would be miserable right now," she said, trying not to imagine it. If Severus had touched anybody else after Draco had cast the spell, if she hadn't gone after him.

"You?" he asked, skeptical.

"It always circles back to this inappropriate relationship of ours," she said, sliding her hands down his chest to his wrist, holding his hand inside of her. His fingers had stopped moving, but they rested just there… It was delicious torture, holding his hand still. "Would you even have told me? I'm just—"

"I would have told you," he said, leaning in, kissing her.

"Why? You don't owe it to me."

"I do. I did before and I do now."

Her heart beat faster to hear it.

"I'm not... I brew and you used to let me patch you up. I'm just—"

"You haven't been just anything for months now," he said, and kissed her again.

"Severus," she murmured against his lips. In a quick move, he withdrew his hand from her and laced his fingers with hers, pinning her hands above her head, kissing her, grinding his hips into hers.

"Thank God it was you," he repeated.


Severus trailed his fingertips from the nape of her neck to the cleft of her ass and back. It was a perfect, beautiful curve. She hummed and shifted, smiling sleepily at him.

She'd said she would be miserable if he'd been trapped in the spell with anybody else, if he'd been sleeping with another woman. She'd asked if he would have told her, said he didn't owe her, but… He would have told her. He probably would have run to her right after it happened, as soon as he'd been able to get enough blood out of his cock to have a proper thought in his head. He'd always been a fool like that.

Hermione Granger was magnificent. She'd taken over his damned life, and he really didn't mind.

She was right, though, too. Theirs was an inappropriate relationship. In a matter of days, she would be sitting in his classroom again. Whatever guilt he'd felt about that was quiescent.

"We have to go back to the castle," he said, continuing to trace the lines of her back lazily. "The Room of Requirement can produce training dummies for you to practice on, I'm sure. And I can begin to brew the modified potion."

"I'll miss this," she said, and he wasn't sure if she meant the part where nobody would interrupt them at Spinner's End, or if she'd miss the arousal that was tingling along their skins, the scent of sex lingering on them even as his cock had begun to grow hard again. He'd miss both of those aspects.

"Thank God it was you," he repeated, and kissed her shoulder blade.


A/N: Taxes, check. Other shit, not so check. So updates will still be slow... Sorry.

In other news, I'm participating in the SSHG Prompt Fest over on livejournal and I need a beta for it. I've never worked with a beta in my life (as you probably already knew, since... mistakes), so this is kind of an open call (plea) for interested parties. It's just over 1,000 words, it's SS/HG, it's funny-ish. If you have the time and interest, please PM me! Thanks in advance.