A/N: Since we apparently have slipped into a terrible, alternate timeline, we deserve a little fun in our lives. Please enjoy the new chapter of Damage Done.

Not mine. I just play with the puppets.


Snape lay in bed and thought about Ms. Barde's blush. He thought about that flush of pink that slipped up her long neck, and he thought about his conversation with Hermione and where they stood.

His heart was engaged. It would be futile to deny it. But would he spend more years pining for someone who couldn't or wouldn't be with him? He'd spent the last four years trying to move away from his masochistic tendencies, and being alone was painful to him.

He could ask Ms. Barde to have tea with him. It was a small thing. If it went well, he'd have a bit of companionship. If not, well, the job at the library was only a temporary thing, and he had hopes that his poor financial condition would experience a reversal soon.

He'd started drafting plans to get his account out of impound status. After his talk with Hermione, he realized how badly he'd allowed himself to drift. Partly through his own inaction, he'd sabotaged the possibility of a relationship with the curly-haired Gryffindor. Everything he'd done, from throwing all his hopes of salvation on the narrow shoulders of Harry Potter, to refusing to leave his house, to allowing Hermione to support him just smacked of a man who was too passive to engage in a love affair.

And here Snape had been thinking that being free of his former masters meant that he was no longer a victim. What a fool he'd been. He'd been victimizing himself.

Yes, he would start putting his life in order starting tomorrow. He would ask Ms. Barde if she'd like to go out for tea with him, and he'd contact Draco about blackmailing the pants off of Fudge.

He rolled onto his belly and punched his pillow into a more supportive shape. He was going to ask Ms. Barde if he could court her, but he wanted Hermione. He thought about that electric moment in her kitchen where she nearly kissed him, when her skin dragged across his and the edges of her mouth, moist from her tongue, had touched the edges of his own.

He groaned and felt hot, his skin taut. He wished he could have a good wank to relieve some of the emotional and physical pressure he felt, but between his unhealthy heart and all of the potions he had to take, the last time he'd managed to get himself off was months ago. Flexing his hips against the mattress, he sighed in frustration.

Giving it up as a hopeless cause, he forced himself to relax and coasted toward sleep. He'd just broken the surface of it, when a shout pulled him out of the darkness.

"HERMIONE!" Anguish colored the voice. As did a Bulgarian accent. "HERMY!" Snape winced at the dreadful nickname. There was a massive racket as Krum pounded on the door across the yard. "PLEASE OPEN UP."

A dog started barking across the street, and Snape resigned himself to getting out of bed. She wasn't home tonight, and Gods only knew how long Krum would cry into his cornflakes outside his house. Hermione was having a 'girls' night' with Millicent Bullstrode, with whom she'd inexplicably become friends after the war.

"Heeermy!" the drunken-sounding bugger howled. The neighbor's dog howled back.

Snape threw his feet over the side of the bed and scrubbed his face. He grabbed the cotton tee from the bed post where he'd thrown it earlier and pulled it over his bare chest. He left his pajama shorts alone. He figured Krum could deal with seeing a skinny, middle-aged wizard in his sleep bottoms, unappetizing as his hairy, pale legs were.

He tromped down the narrow staircase in his slippers, grabbed a cloak, and scuffed over to the door. He opened it just in time to watch the Quidditch player start crying and slide down to sit on Hermione's welcome mat.

"Krum, she's not home. Go away!" he hissed.

"I cannot. I vill not go until I haff told my Ninny I am sorry for vhat I did." Gravity seemed too much for the Quidditch player, and he slumped sideways onto an elbow. Surprise crossed his face. "I think the door moved. Maybe she is home?"

"No, you're just sotted," he said, attempting to be kind.

Krum nodded slowly as if afraid his head would topple off. "I am. I became sotted vhen I became sad."

"Which was when exactly?"

"Several veeks ago."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't suppose you're capable of Apparition, Mr. Krum?"

He nodded his head yes and slouched further toward the ground, before finally shaking his head no. "Definitely not."

"I'm not capable of carrying you, Mr. Krum, and you know I have no magic. You'll have to move under your own power, although I'll try to help." He saw the younger man blink up at him. His eyes blinked separately. "Mr. Krum, are you capable of walking back to my cottage?"

"Yesh, Perfesher." Gamely, Hermione's ex-boyfriend grasped at low-hanging branches on a nearby bush outside of her front door. Denuding the plant vigorously, he scrabbled to his knees before tangling himself in higher branches and pulling himself to his feet.

He was a swaying, scraggly mess.

Snape picked up the man's left arm and tucked his shoulder into Krum's armpit. "Now, walk."

It started relatively well, actually. The younger man could support his own weight and just needed a bit of guidance as to direction. However, the closer they got to the door, the more of the athlete's fifteen stone weighed on Snape.

He started to pant. When that was insufficient, he started to sweat. When his heart began pounding, he considered dropping Krum. If only the fucking idiot were lighter. Snape wheezed, nauseated. If he were just lighter...

And then it happened again. Something popped in his rib cage, and the leaden idiot was lighter. Much lighter. And Snape felt better. Much better.

He stood straight and took a deep breath to calm his heart, and then yelped and grabbed at the edges of Krum's robes as the Bulgarian started floating lazily up towards the top of the hedgerow Hermione had planted around the edge of her property for privacy. Dragging him inside his little cottage, Snape let go and watched Krum bump around his ceiling like a giggling balloon that had escaped a child's hand at the zoo.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" Snape asked.


He heard them before he saw them, Hermione and Millicent. They were walking up the garden path to her back door, arms thrown around each other's shoulders.

"I absolutely needed this evening, Millie. Thank you for cheering me up. You've been such a friend to me these last few years."

The other girl smiled and rolled her eyes, tucking a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. "Viktor's a dummy. We don't waste time on dummies any longer, right?"

Snape stepped from the shadows of his doorway. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to waste just a few moments more of your time as that dummy is currently sloshing around my house, and I would prefer if he were not." He turned to Millicent and sketched a small bow. "Ms. Bulstrode, you are looking well. Congratulations on passing your Mediwitch practicum."

"Thank you, sir. You are looking, uh…" He watched her take in his sleep shorts and his skinny, hairy legs. "comfortable." She spread her hands helplessly and looked uncomfortable at seeing her former professor shucked out of his woolen armor. Millicent opened and closed her mouth several times. "I'm… I'm sorry. Did you say that Viktor is in your house?"

"Yes, and if he isn't out of it posthaste, I'm going to start clipping little bits off him to use in potions." Snape cocked his head. "Bastard's toenail, skin of fink, mash them up in the kitchen sink." He smiled blandly.

"Millicent, why don't you go, and I'll help Mr. Snape harvest Viktor's bits and bobs," Hermione said, aware that her friend felt as comfortable entering Severus's house as he felt having her there. "Really, it's no problem. I'm still angry at him, but I've already moved on, believe me!" Her eyes slid over to meet Snape's, and she blushed.

"If you're sure you don't mind. I do have an early day tomorrow at the Janus Thickey Ward."

"Of course! I'll see you soon." With that Hermione shooed her friend down the path and turned to face Snape. "Let's take care of the dummy."

He carefully slid his hand beneath her elbow as he ushered her into his house, trying not to notice the soft texture of her sweater, or how warm her body was. "There's something you should know, first…"

She stopped dead. "Why is Viktor swimming laps around your ceiling?"


They sat at his kitchen table, hands wrapped around steaming mugs of tea. "So, you think you've been doing wandless magic for a week now?"

Snape nodded and sipped his tea. "During moments of high emotion or stress."

Hermione thought for a moment, nibbling her bottom lip. "The fire on my cooktop." Her eyes met his, and her cheeks reddened.

"I'm just a man," he said, peacefully. Yes, just a man finally. "And then tonight, when Krum started to crush me with his weight, I wished he were lighter." He gestured to the man now snoring with his nose pressed to the ceiling.

"Have you tried to end the spell yet?" she asked.

"Have I…" He stopped and looked surprised. "I've been without magic long enough that I have to confess that it didn't even occur to me to try." He pulled his wand out of his sleeve. It was habit—and a small comfort—to carry his ebony wand with him even now. It had been a steadfast friend during the dark, empty days, and he felt it hadn't abandoned him still, even though he hadn't been able to use it in years. "Finite," he whispered.

Krum dropped eight feet to the floor, landing in the middle of Snape's thick rug with a fleshy thunk.

"Oh shite," Hermione said, scrambling to her feet. She stood over him, casting diagnostic charms to ensure he hadn't concussed himself. The last thing that boy needed was to lose even a single digit of IQ. "He's okay, but he's going to have a nasty bruise on the back of his head tomorrow." She turned to him with an enormous smile on her face. "Severus, I'll make an appointment for you tomorrow with Lofgren, and we can find out what's happening." Hermione walked over to him and ran her hands from his shoulders, down his arms, to his hands.

He allowed it, clasping her fingers gently. "You'll do no such thing," he said. "Can I use your floo tomorrow? I am going to make an appointment to consult with the Malfoy family healer, Glenburn." He let go of one hand, and ran his knuckles down her cheek. "By myself."


A/N: Reviews feed the muse. Thanks to everyone who has left me a comment. I apologize sincerely for being an awful human who is bad at responding.