A/N: Everything recognisable belongs to JKR
Hermione popped into being just on the outskirts of Warwick and meandered into the town in search of accomodation. As a child, she had visited with her parents on school holidays and they had stayed at a pub near the castle. She crossed her fingers in the hope that it was still operating, trying to ignore the quickening beat of her heart at the shaking beginning in her limbs. She rounded a corner and was pleased to see a familiar sign swinging from the side of the timber building. As she entered and arranged for a room for herself, she found it difficult to suppress her smile and her fidgeting. She was one of only a handful of people in the world who knew that Severus Snape was alive - and that he was reasonably well. She wanted to turn to everyone enjoying their dinner and drinks and shout the glorious news - how could they carry on with their lives so easily when he was alive? They should be joyous, they should be celebrating - the man who helped save the wizarding world, who gave Harry the knowledge he needed to defeat Voldemort was alive! Didn't they realize? They owed their lives to him!
She found it difficult to sleep that night, and spent a majority of it pacing up and down the uneven wooden flooring of her room, trying to dispel her nervous energy. Her mind kept going over and over her day with him. Every word, every look, every touch that they shared. She felt slightly embarrassed that she had forced such close contact upon him, having him seat himself next to her and relaxing into him. While such close proximity was normal only a few days ago for her, it had been twenty years for him, and she felt slightly embarrassed over some of her actions now. She resolved to do her best to leave her relationship with him behind - it didn't have a place here, now, and it would be unfair to expect anything of him. She would gain what comfort she could from the few touches she had received, from memories of their last night together, from the knowledge that he had saved her over and over again, but she would never ask anything like that from him again. She would do her best to help him re-adjust to life - to living without the fear or stress that his dual role must have brought him over the last few years.
Hermione didn't know what time she finally gave herself over to sleep, but it was past midday before she woke and apparated to Cokeworth again. She made her way to Spinner's End differently this time, detouring next to the factory onto a small high street, passing a ramshackle charity shop and a betting shop before spotting what she was looking for.
She hoped he didn't think she had abandoned him - she didn't know what he would think, really. If she were back in the past, she knew he would be anxious over her delay. Who knew what Severus Snape thought now, after putting him through all the shenanigans she did while at school? However, when she finally approached his house, she found that the front door yielded to her touch once again.
"Snape?" she called.
"In here," replied an unfamiliar voice from behind the bookcases. Hermione made her way through the parlor and squeezed through the small gap into the kitchen where she was greeted with the sight of a shirtless Snape and a stout Healer Potts, her hair bearing streaks of white now and a few more lines in her face. Snape was fuming at Healer Potts' invitation for Hermione to join them and Hermione did her best to avert her eyes. She set down a greasy bag from the local chippy on the countertop and set about making tea in an effort to give herself something to do.
"Granger! Severus didn't say anything about you visiting today - or, ever. In fact, he quite gave me the impression that your association ended quite some time ago." Healer Potts glanced sideways at her while she manipulated Severus' right arm, eliciting a groan from him. Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but Healer Potts' attention was already back on her patient. "How are you finding the pain there?"
"Tolerable," he responded, and Hermione heard him sucking in a deep breath through clenched teeth.
"The muscles are still adjusting themselves, but they should get along fine if you keep doing your exercises - and don't hesitate to take a potion if you do experience pain, which I know you are." Hermione could see Healer Potts out of the corner of her eye as she dropped his arm back to his side. Quick movements next to her told her that Severus wasted no time in pulling a shirt back over himself.
"Yes, well, I couldn't find time yesterday," he admitted sharply.
Healer Potts tutted him. "Do I need to start making daily visits again?"
"That's my fault, I'm afraid," Hermione interrupted, turning back to the pair and offering Healer Potts a cup of tea. "I haven't seen Severus in quite some time and I dropped in unexpectedly."
"Well, I'm happy to know there's someone other than a portrait looking after him," Healer Potts said, accepting the cup. She took a sip and set it down before she began to pack up dressings and supplies into a black medical bag. "Make sure he stays on schedule, will you? I'll be back in a week." She looked Hermione full in the face now. "Merlin, your skin is glorious. You look like you haven't aged a day."
Hermione blushed and averted her eyes. "Good genes," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything - I didn't know -"
"No worries. I need to get back. I look forward to speaking to you soon, Granger. I'll let myself out."
Despite her statement, Hermione followed her to the door. "Thank you for helping him - Severus. Especially after…" she trailed off, looking for the best way to phrase everything that would have happened over the last year. "He said you helped save him when he was bitten."
Healer Potts paused on the doorstep and turned back toward her. "Severus is a good egg. He's spent years helping me. He wouldn't have done everything he has without a reason for it. It's not been my place to question him."
Hermione nodded at her. "Thank you."
Healer Potts nodded at her and, after a quick survey of the area, disappeared with a turn and a pop.
When she returned to the kitchen, Severus was still seated in the chair. His hand was gripping the table, and his lips were curled downward in a frown. He stared at her intensely as she picked up Healer Pott's discarded tea and poured it down the sink. Hermione was very aware that a tension was rising. "I'm sorry, I'll try not to push myself on you - I only just realised last night how uncomfortable you were - but look! I brought food, and I remember you said you thought it was the best." She retrieved a greasy box from the bag and held it out towards him.
He didn't say a word to her, and she suddenly felt very self-conscious about her rambling. He grimaced as he lifted his arm and accepted the box, but opened it and tucked in eagerly.
They ate in silence at the tiny table in the kitchen. Hermione was tempted to speak again but, after the reception to her last ramble, did her best to remain quiet. She could feel that same nervous energy she was filled with the night before returning.
"I think surviving has been the hardest part, so far," he admitted suddenly after he popped the last of his chips into his mouth. "Towards the end, I cared not whether I lived or died. I just wanted it to be over."
It was such a raw statement. She was completely taken back by it - by the honesty of it, by how casually he said it. She was surprised by how much his feelings reflected her own when it got down to those last few months, especially after they escaped from Malfoy Manor. She suppressed a shudder as the memory of Bellatrix's blade against her skin rose to the front of her mind.
He didn't meet her eyes throughout the whole of his confession, but she stared at him desperately, taking in the lines of his face and the deep set of his eyes, darker than she had seen them in ages. "Do you care now?" she asked.
"I don't know," he replied.
Hermione's heart broke with his answer, but she understood it. He was still trying to grasp his place in this new world, just like she was after it all. She wanted to reach out to grab his hand, to reassure him, but she clasped her own firmly together in her lap to stop herself.
"That's how I felt after - I didn't know what to do with myself. It was like you said yesterday - it was bliss for a while, and then I would be reminded of things…"
Snape had cast his tray aside now and was tracing the wood grain of the tiny kitchen table. She watched him and noticed the small tremors in his right hand as he did so.
"Have you thought about what you might like to do now that it's all over?" she asked. "Let's pretend there are no Aurors or anything to worry about. What would you do?"
"I'm making-do with my retirement for the moment, if I'm honest. I'm wading my way through books that I always told myself I would get to but never did."
"Retirement at thirty-eight?" she asked. Though she never saw Severus as a workaholic, it did seem like he liked to stay busy.
"My first retirement, then," he sighed. "What would I do? I think I would quite like to open that potions shop. I'm tired of inferior products flooding the shelves, and my little grove at Hogwarts could only supply so much. Not that I have access to it anymore," he muttered.
Hermione smirked at his response and rose to throw their rubbish in the bin.
"Have you given any thought to your future plans?" he asked. "You've not only saved the Wizarding World, but you've travelled through time - illegally, I might add - and you've saved my life. You've accomplished everything you've ever wanted." He turned in his chair to follow her movement around the kitchen, from the bin to the sink to grab a tea towel, to the countertops as she wiped them down, desperate for something to do.
"I quite think I'd like to enjoy some sort of retirement myself, if I'm honest," she replied, scrubbing at a spot on the countertop that wasn't there.
"I'll be needing an employee," he offered.
She ceased her scrubbing and turned to him with an eyebrow raised. She definitely did not expect him to say that, or the implications of it.
"You've been part of the plan since the beginning. I thought it should be fair to offer it to you first."
"Oh, Severus…," she slipped, and his face darkened despite the ease of their exchange.
"Now, Granger, you had the opportunity to question me yesterday. I believe it's only fair that I have the chance to do so today."
Hermione nodded. "That's fair. Though, I suggest you take a potion for pain. It'll be hours before I'm through."
She settled herself on the couch in the parlor and watched as Snape swung a bookcase aside, ascending stairs hidden within. It was only a few moments before he returned and settled himself into his chair.
"Now, what happened to you?" he asked, steepling his fingers in front of him.
"After you… after you left, or just when we started moving around?"
"Let's start with after I left, as you put it so nicely."
She told him everything she could remember, from the moment he abandoned Hogwarts to how she stole books from Dumbledore's office and prepared for their hunting Horcruxes. She told him about casting the memory charm on her parents, the wedding at the Weasley's, and their time back at Grimmauld Place.
"You taking that portrait of Phineas Nigellus was a greater help to me than I could have ever anticipated," he interrupted her.
"Yes, annoying as he was… Well, you must know all about what happened at the Ministry," she continued.
"Yes," he nodded. "That was a bit foolish, but you achieved your end."
Hermione ignored his criticism and continued on. "Ron left us then -" she was startled by the ferocity of Snape's movement at that admission, how quickly his hands clenched into fists and his nostrils flared in anger. His lips curled in what she knew would be a stream of vicious words, but she cut him off before they could escape. "But he came back - that's when you left the sword for Harry."
She waited for him to say something about this, but he just gestured for her to continue.
"And after that, we got caught by Snatchers and taken to the Malfoy's - and Bellatrix..." she trailed off as her hand moved to the sleeve of her robes, running over where the scar lay beneath.
"Yes, she had boasted of what she had done. After the Dark Lord finished punishing them, of course."
"Mrs. Weasley got her."
"I'm pleased," he answered, though he did not look it.
"And then we broke into Gringott's and escaped by dragon," Hermione added nonchalantly, hoping he would remark about how she had let that information slip to him beforehand.
But he did not. "I expect it will be a lifetime before you're allowed to show your face there again," was his response.
"Oh yes - it's a good thing I never had a vault there in the first place. Harry has had to appeal to Kingsley to have his funds released."
Snape let out a snort at this.
"And then we made it to Hogwarts," she finished, making it to the point that she did not wish to relive again. She hoped that he would leave the rest of the story to be, but he pressed further.
"Where I tried to track you down."
"Yes - and then Harry - the Shrieking Shack -" she felt her chest start to heave with the memories, the images of his throat torn, his gasping and drowning in his own blood and memories before her, flooding her mind - the intensity of thinking that she had witnessed his last moments.
"I'm so, so sorry, Severus - I don't know what I was thinking - I could have helped," she gasped out between sobs. "I had all the skills - I should have -" She buried her face in her hands and they were soaked within moments.
She felt his hands on her forearms, pulling them away and he pushed a handkerchief into her hands. She could see through her tears that he was kneeling before her. "Stop crying, you silly girl. There's nothing further you could have done."
She scrubbed at her face with the cloth, doing her best to calm herself. "But we left you - I left you!"
"Gryffindors are insufferable martyrs," he said, waving away her guilt with a flick of his hand. "I am here before you now. Though I wish I could say there was no harm done, there was nothing further you could have done."
He waited until she had composed herself before taking his seat in his chair once more.
"I forgot to tell you - Dumbledore and McGonagall send their regards and apologies. They hope to see you soon," she said.
He nodded silently, his hand on his chin now in thought. He seemed tired, now, and rather than risk a repeat of yesterday, Hermione felt as though she should make a move to leave before he asked her to.
"Shall I come back tomorrow?" she asked.
"Do what you wish," he replied, waving his hand in dismissal.
She returned to the little pub in Warwick again, and returned the next day, and the day after that. He never looked exactly pleased to see her, but the door always sprung open when she approached, and he never turned her away. He found small things for her to do and found ways of requesting her to do them without outright asking. She could tell when his pain became too much for him because he would disappear upstairs, leaving her alone on the ground floor.
It was almost as though he had some sort of mood disorder. He would be almost pleasant with her one moment, almost affectionate at times, and then moody the next. She reminded him of herself before she had gone back in time, right after the war was over when she didn't know what to do with herself. He occasionally wandered through the house like a ghost, staring through the front window silently before suddenly sweeping off upstairs where she heard a lot of banging. She wasn't sure if she should be there but he didn't remark on her presence or the lack of it, and he never outright asked her to leave.
After a week of this, she was getting better at reading his moods. There began to be days where she didn't see him at all but could hear him moving around upstairs. She would usually make him something and leave it out for him, and some days he would return to find it eaten, other days it would remain untouched.
Some days he would keep her company downstairs and they would read in silence - she was absolutely stunned by his library. If she had access to this - she was sure she would have solved her parents memory problems within a month. Other days, he would come across as positively chatty for his standards. They would discuss the latest in the Daily Prophet. She would let him know the latest that the ministry were up to that didn't get reported (and he would offer his advice) and they would talk about everything from dinner the night before to the muggle news and anything else that he deemed acceptable until his voice began to tire.
Snape, for the most part, treated her with courtesy and respect, and there were times where he was downright approachable and she saw hints of him as she imagined he would be had his life gone differently - if he had gone on to have his shop and worked peacefully developing potions and having a life of his own. She spoke to him easily on the research and development he had done over the last twenty years.
And she spoke to him - she chattered away at him almost constantly some days - she told him everything she had previously promised him about. Some days he prodded her with a question that she would eagerly answer and other days she didn't need prompting at all - she would just speak.
She spoke to him about growing up, about her parents, about Professor Sprout visiting and everything about magic and being a witch making sense - about her first time in Diagon Alley and later getting Crookshanks.
She told him about everything, now that she wasn't bound by the wand oath - about Harry suspecting him in their first year, setting his robes alight (which drew a heavy sigh from him) to solving his logic riddle and even about Dumbledore's encouragement to save Sirius in their third year - though this caused an argument. His face had gone white - he was livid.
"I knew it," he hissed. She fully expected him to leave the room in anger and the bangings to resume upstairs, but he did not - his fingers dug deep into the arms of his chair.
"What does it matter now?" she asked. "He's dead - and Peter Pettigrew -"
"My honor," he hissed, cutting her off.
"Well, I think you got enough revenge - telling the school that Lupin was a werewolf and goading Sirius -"
"You didn't have to hear his insinuations," he interrupted her, venom in his voice. "His tauntings, his disgusting accusations. Do you remember when they found my lab? The things they said to you? Every time I came to report at the Headquarters, that dog would insinuate I was a paedophile -"
Hermione scoffed in disgust at this revelation. "Yes - it makes sense now. I'm sorry. No one else ever-"
"They wouldn't have. Dumbledore swore us all to secrecy."
She felt guilt over her trip to the past now - she never anticipated it would cause so many problems for him later. She hoped that all of the professors they had shared as students didn't make the connection between the sudden appearance of a bushy-haired sixth year and a little precocious first year who made an appearance a number of years after. No wonder Dumbledore had impressed upon her the importance to not stand out. She wanted to ask, but thought that they had tread that territory enough for one day.
"Is Mr. Potter going to learn about your foray into the past?" he asked her. She was surprised. Other than the initial questioning of their last year, he always neglected to bring Harry up, and she followed suit and never mentioned him.
She shook her head. "No."
"I agree that it's best not to as well."
Hermione checked the clock on the wall. It was beginning to get dark. "Shall I come back tomorrow?" she asked.
"Do as you wish," he replied.
They had been carrying on like this for nearly two weeks now. The time that passed was starting to press on Hermione. She would need to make her way back to Grimmauld Place soon, and she hadn't even started on the problem of resolving her parents memories now that she had returned. She wasn't the only one feeling the length of her stay - the owner of the pub in Warwick began to give her a questoning look whenever she returned and made her way upstairs every evening.
She arrived at Severus' the next day with the intention of bringing this up with him. The door yielded to her touch as usual, but there was a series of blasts and thumps coming from upstairs and she could no longer contain her curiosity. She neglected to announce her arrival and located the hidden staircase, swinging it aside with ease. She hesitantly made her way up the stairs,feeling like she was sneaking around school again, fully expecting Severus to appear at any moment and assign her detention.
She reached the landing, a small area with three doorways, two to her left and one to her right. The noises were coming from the doorway on the right. Severus had not yet made an appearance or given any indication that he knew she was present in the house. She opened the door cautiously.
Severus standing in the middle of the room. It appeared as though some sort of demolition was going on. Parts of the walls were exposed down to the bricks and the flooring was in various states of disrepair. The ceiling was collapsing in. There was a trunk full of clothing shoved in a corner that Severus was currently pointing his wand at and it appeared that he was setting off some sort of small controlled explosions. His face was white, his eyes narrow, and he was shaking.
"Severus?" she asked hesitantly, waiting for him to pause between spells.
"Get out," he hissed through clenched teeth.
She retreated downstairs and waited for him to make an appearance. When hours had passed without a sound from upstairs or sight of him, she decided it was time to return to Grimmauld Place and face Harry and Ron.
A/N:
What a freaking week it has been, eh? Apologies for not getting this posted on my last days off, but I spent them obsessively refreshing the news to see what was going on and wondering what would happen to my job (I'm sure everyone else has been doing the same, so it's not really an excuse). I'm now "working from home", so I've spent a few days navigating what that means with my manager. Anyway, what I've gone about in a long-ish way of saying is that I'm not going to obsessively edit the last few chapters (I haven't done this one), and I'm going to get them posted ASAP. If my little story has brought you some happiness, I want it to continue to do so in these times, and I want you to have that happiness ASAP. If there is anything absolutely glaring or confusing, please let me know and I will edit it.
Thank you so much, everyone, for reading. Stay safe.
