A/N: This was written for the Snape Bang 2020! Big thanks to the modmins at Snape Bang for hosting this fest! This would not be a fic if I hadn't had lots of help. First of all Vino Amore gave me the plot bunny for this one, thank you, my dear! Ravenpufflove, UrsulaHood, and Silver Lioness all spent some time beta'ing this story. Thank you lovelies!

This was originally posted to AO3 and I'm just now getting around to cross-posting it here. Also, I know there is a plot hole about Severus's parents... whoops. Sorry about that.

LunaP999 created a gorgeous piece of artwork to go along with this. Find it on her Tumblr lunap999!

If you liked this (or hated it) let me know about it in a review! You can find me on Tumblr at crochetawayhpff or Facebook at Shan Crochetaway. Enjoy!


Chapter 5: Severus Searches the Library


28 November 1998

Severus sprinted away from Granger.

He didn't want to hear what she was saying. He didn't want to acknowledge whatever it was that was between them; because if he did then he might have to accept that he did the ritual correctly. If he accepted that, then he'd have to accept that Lily wasn't his heart's desire and that… that was a thought he wasn't sure he was ready to accept. He needed to find that book. That damned book that had led to all of this.

He was panting by the time he made it to the library. Barely giving a nod to Madam Pince—she was so old looking! Everyone looked so old to him—he hurried toward the ritual section where he'd found the book originally. It was small, smaller than it had been in his time, he was almost positive. But he knew he had to find it. The book had to be here, there was no reason for it to not be here.

Over the last month, he hadn't even bothered searching for the book, but after the confrontation with Granger it was urgent. He had to find it. That ritual had not only done something to him, but it had done something to Granger too. He didn't want to believe it, but she had seemed sincerely and truthfully worried as she snapped at him.

He hurried toward where he knew he had found it twenty years ago, sliding to his knees as he searched the bookshelf at the bottom. He knew in his bones, in his very marrow that this was where he had found Magic of the Heart. But now it wasn't there. It was gone. He searched every shelf in the section and then did it all over again, finally coming to a rest on the cold library floor, his back against the shelves, and his head in his hands.

How could it be gone? What would have happened to it? He should have asked Granger what she meant earlier. But if he did, did that mean he was acknowledging that she was right? That something had gone wrong? Why would a spell designed to bring him to his heart's desire bring him to a random witch he had never met before? It didn't make any sense and Severus's head hurt with the frustration of trying to make sense of it all.

It wasn't just this strange connection with Granger either. It was Lily. Sweet, beautiful Lily who was his heart's desire, he knew she was, and yet here he was, stuck twenty years in the future and she was dead. Dead and buried and had married Potter. The idea alone brought bile to the back of his throat. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he felt hot and itchy all over at the idea of Potter and Lily, his Lily, having a child. It was too much, it was all too much.

Severus lurched to his feet and ran out of the library to the nearest lavatory. Throwing open the door, he skidded to a stop on his knees just before the closest toilet and retched up everything in his stomach. Everything was wrong, nothing was right, and his very soul hurt with the knowledge that whatever he had done, he would never get to see Lily again. She was gone, never to return.

Now he was stuck.

He leaned his head against the side of the cubicle feeling absolutely miserable. When he closed his eyes, he didn't see Lily's green eyes, red hair, and lithe form. Instead, he saw dark, curly hair, honey-brown eyes, and more curves than he could count.

He should be seeing Lily, he wanted to be seeing Lily, to be thinking about Lily and while part of him was mourning her loss, he still couldn't get Hermione out of his head. She haunted him: when he was alone, when he was asleep, hell, she even haunted him by joining him in the library almost every single evening. He couldn't get away from her.

Severus sighed heavily, a wave of sadness and grief falling over him as thoughts of Lily's death plagued him once more. He needed to find that bloody book, but it was clearly not in the library anymore. Where else could it be?

"Oh, I'm a bloody fool," he groaned to himself and stood up. The Restricted Section was where he had found that damned book. How quickly he had forgotten. He just needed a pass to it and knew just the professor to help him. He hurried to a sink and rinsed his mouth out with water from the tap, splashing some onto his face as well. A glance in the mirror told him he at least didn't have vomit on his chin, but he looked like hell: sallow, pale, sunken eyes. He scowled and turned away.

He didn't care what he looked like.

The library was on the fourth floor and it felt like it took bloody ages for him to get down to the dungeons and Regulus's office. It was still strange to see Regulus at the front of the potions laboratory instead of Professor Slughorn. Though, Regulus was a far better teacher than Slughorn had ever been. Severus knocked on the office door, realizing it was something he had never done before. He'd only once sought out Professor Slughorn and part of him felt strange to be seeking out Regulus's now, but he also knew that Regulus was his only hope. Even if he didn't have the book, perhaps he could help him track it down. Severus didn't have any means to do so on his own behalf. He shoved that thought down as it chafed badly. He didn't have the small potions side-hustle he had back in the 70s, which meant he had no pocket money.

"Come in," Regulus called.

Severus entered the office and shut the door behind him.

"Severus," Regulus's voice was warm as he invited him to sit. "What can I do for you?"

"I need help finding the book I used for the ritual," Severus said. "I think something went wrong."

Regulus chuckled, "I thought we had concluded that when you showed up twenty years into the future."

Severus winced and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Right. Still. I need the book. Do you think you could write me a pass to the Restricted Section?"

Regulus pursed his lips in thought for a moment. "I think that should be fine. You'll just be looking for this book, correct? I don't have to worry about you finding less savory materials?" He fixed Severus with a stern look.

"Of course." Severus nodded quickly. He certainly didn't want Regulus, of all people, thinking he would be looking up the sorts of things they used to be interested in. "I'll give you an oath if you require it, but I need to find that book. I need to reread the ritual again."

Regulus gave him a long look and nodded. He pulled open his drawer and wrote a quick note out for Severus. "This will give you access to the Restricted Section for a week. I trust you'll be able to find it in that amount of time?"

Severus nodded and snatched the piece of parchment from his hand. "Thank you, Professor, truly."

"It's Regulus when we're alone, Severus," Regulus reminded him with a smile. "Why do you feel like you need the book so badly?"

Severus glared at him. He wasn't really asking that was he? "Don't you think it's odd I showed up twenty years into the future in a Gryffindor girls dormitory?"

Regulus shrugged. "Magic is funny like that sometimes. If it's meant to be, it'll be, Severus."

Severus shook his head. "There's more to it than that. I know there is." He knew it in his very soul and he was determined to find out exactly what that was.


1 December 1998

It took Severus a couple of days before he felt like he was ready to go to the Restricted Section and look for that bloody book. The last thing he wanted was another breakdown about Lily and Granger. So, he was careful with himself, burying his feelings, and working on his stoic exterior once more.

It was after dinner when he slipped into the library. Madam Pince was manning the desk as usual and handed her the pass Regulus had given him for the Restricted Section. She eyed it and him suspiciously before giving him a short nod. She picked up her wand and gave it a little wave.

"Sign in to the book in the back and the gate will unlock for you," she told him quietly. Severus nodded and wound his way through the stacks to the Restricted Section, which was at the very back of the library.

Before he got there, he heard a giggle. A giggle that tugged at his ears and made his heart skip a beat in his chest. It sounded like Hermione, though he hadn't had much cause to ever hear her laugh. There was a quiet murmuring and then another short burst of laughter. He stiffened, remembering all the times he had been laughed at before, in his old life, before he came to this strange new future. Was it possible she was laughing at him? He shook his head. She certainly didn't seem the type, but he couldn't quite shake the feeling that he needed to see exactly what it was that was making Hermione laugh.

Taking a detour, he turned left, just before the gate that guarded the Restricted Section, and peeked around a tall bookcase. He almost couldn't make sense of what he was seeing through the pain that exploded in his chest. Hermione and Malfoy were sitting next to each other at a library table. But they were much closer than two students normally sat.

Almost on each other's laps.

Malfoy had his arm draped across the back of Hermione's chair and leaned close to whisper something into her ear. That had been the quiet muttering Severus had heard. Whatever Malfoy had said made Hermione tip her head back, joy lighting her face as her quiet laughter spilled from her lips.

Circe, she looked so pretty when she laughed. Carefree and light and Severus's heart stuttered to a stop. He was instantly so damned jealous of Malfoy that his hands curled into fists, and he had to physically stop himself from pulling out his wand.

He wasn't going to curse his roommate. He just wasn't.

It took everything in him to turn away from the canoodling duo and head back to the Restricted Section. He had no claim on Hermione, no matter what his heart was telling him. He took deep breaths to calm himself as he signed into the book near the gate. It clicked open and he entered the Restricted Section proper. The bookcases were labeled by section and Severus ran through them all until he found ritual magic near the back.

The ritual section took up three entire aisles. He deflated a little, knowing it was going to take him a while to search them all. He knew what the book looked like at least, and it wasn't likely that Hogwarts would have got another edition in. He could narrow it down based on that, and the fact that it was written in Russian. There could only be so many books written in Russian.

The book he was looking for may have last been used twenty years ago, but for Severus, it was only a month or so since he had seen it. But he searched the aisles, pulling down every book covered in a dull, burgundy leather, but none of them matched. None showed the Cyrillic letters of the Russian alphabet. He frowned. Perhaps he'd forgotten the colour? It didn't seem likely, but maybe he should be looking for all of the books written in Russian first. Or… he grimaced at this possibility, maybe it wasn't here because it had been taken by someone else? What happened to books that were stolen from the library? Did they ever get replaced?

He had taken the book out, what would have happened when he disappeared? His assumption was that the book would have been found to be a Hogwarts library book, the crest plainly stamped on the inside front cover. But if that didn't happen, would Madam Pince have replaced it? He didn't know for sure, and he didn't feel like he could ask her, it wasn't likely she would remember anyway. She was brand new when he disappeared all those years ago. Perhaps in the shift from the old librarian to her, the book never got replaced?

He let out a frustrated snort and glared at the books around him. Speculation wasn't going to get him anywhere. He needed to find that blasted book. Since none of the burgundy coloured tomes were it, he went and looked for anything written in Cyrillic script. There were even less of those and none of them translated to Magic of the Heart with his, admittedly, not great translation spell. He was starting to feel panicky. The wave of anxiety he had pushed down by knowing he just needed to find the book, by having even that small plan in place, threatened to overwhelm him again. He took deep breaths. What else could have happened to it?

Misfiled he looked around at the huge Restricted Section, almost half the size of the regular library; it would take him ages to go through all of these books. A bell sounded, the warning bell for curfew and he cursed his luck. He'd just have to come back every night this week to look through the rest of the Restricted Section. He wasn't going to give up, not yet. There was still hope he would find it and figure out whatever the hell it was that was going on between him and Granger.

Severus took a few deep breaths: willing his heart to slow in his chest, willing the ache that had formed there to ease, but it didn't help much. Still feeling on the verge of panic, he eased himself out of the Restricted Section and found himself face-to-face with Hermione and Malfoy. Again.

He should turn away, it was none of his business what they get up to. Isn't it though? A quiet voice whispered at the back of his head, and suddenly, Severus found that he couldn't look away from them. They were so close, their bodies touching, their faces almost touching. Malfoy's hand lightly traced Hermione's jawline and Severus's breath caught in his throat at the way she tilted her head to look up at the blond. There was a quirk of Malfoy's lips, and suddenly, they were pressed against Hermione's.

Something felt like it was breaking in Severus's chest. A choked noise came from his throat and he was moving before he could even comprehend it. His long legs broke into a run before he reached the library doors and he pushed them open with such force they bounced off of the wall. Madam Pince squawked behind him, but he ignored her as he ran. He ignored everything, especially the anguished cry of his name by Granger. He couldn't think, couldn't feel. If he allowed himself to feel, then he was going to feel all the hurt and pain of watching Granger kiss Malfoy. He closed his eyes tightly as that image flared in the front of his mind again. It shouldn't hurt like this, it shouldn't feel as though his chest had been cleaved into two. Granger wasn't anything to him. And yet. Yet, this pain was almost worse than the pain he felt upon learning of Lily's death.

That had hurt, and the fact that she had married Potter hurt, too, but he had seen the way things were going before he left 1977. He'd seen the way Lily looked at that pompous arse, in his heart of hearts, he knew that Lily wasn't ever going to be his. He may not have wanted to truly acknowledge that until he'd come forward in time, but he knew it.

But Granger… Hermione...

He shook his head, and pushed off from the stairway as it made it's connection down to the Entrance Hall. He hurried down the dungeon stairs, heading straight for Regulus's office. He couldn't think about Granger, he couldn't think about Malfoy, and he absolutely couldn't face Malfoy alone in his dormitory. Not when it felt like his chest had been crushed. His throat burned with unshed tears and his vision blurred as he hammered on Regulus's office door, begging to be let inside.


The moment Draco's lips met hers, Hermione knew it was wrong. The flirting and teasing she and Draco had been doing for the last few days had been fun, but there was still an edge to it that didn't feel just quite right to her. She hadn't even been able to name it, really. There was just a jitteriness in her limbs that betrayed that she wasn't quite as comfortable with the situation as she let on. She let the kiss continue for a heartbeat, but when she heard a gasp, she pushed back from Draco, her eyes going toward that sound. She didn't know how she'd known it was him, but there was Severus. He had seen them kissing and she only got the briefest look at his pale face before he was dashing off.

"Severus!" Hermione shouted, not caring that Draco was staring at her with hurt eyes, not caring that they were in the library, her most sacred of sacred places. She only cared about the fact that the dark-haired boy she couldn't stop dreaming about had just caught her kissing another. Something in her chest cracked at the thought, and she dashed after him, but he was much quicker than she.

"Severus!" she shouted again just as he pushed open the library doors. The resounded with a loud crack, banging closed and making her flinch.

"Miss Granger!" Madam Pince shouted, shaking in fury as she stood from behind her desk to scold Hermione. Hermione skidded to a stop, her heart beating wildly at what had just occurred.

"Sorry, Madam Pince," Hermione muttered, feeling faint. "It won't happen again." She turned to go back to her table to gather her things, and found Draco standing behind her, her bag slung over his shoulder with his own.

"Come on, I'll walk you," Draco murmured, nodding at Madam Pince and leading Hermione out of the library. Hermione felt like she couldn't breathe. What had she done? What had this foolishness with Draco been?

Once they were out of the library and in the corridor, Draco slowed. "So that's the way it is?" he asked, his chin jutting out.

Hermione scrubbed her face with her hands, surprised to find they came away wet. She didn't know when she had started crying. "I don't know," she shook her head, trying to make sense of what her heart was trying to tell her. "I don't know what's happening to me! My heart hurts just thinking about him, but you've seen him. He won't even give me the time of day? Why is it like this? Why shouldn't it be you?"

She turned to face him, he was so tall, almost as tall as Severus as he gazed down at her with grey eyes full of pain. Her heart hurt at the sight. It wasn't just Severus and herself she had hurt with her foolish actions, but Draco too.

He shrugged, biting the corner of his lip. "The heart wants what the heart wants," he said. Then he gestured for them to keep walking. "I can at least walk you back to the tower."

Hermione shook her head. "No, you don't have to do that Draco. It's almost curfew. You'll break your probation."

He snorted and grabbed her arm, tucking it into his elbow and tugging her along. "I'm not about to leave a crying witch alone in the corridor. If the Wizengamot wants to punish me for that, then fine. Besides," he smirked at her just as they arrived at the first set of stairs, "cousin Reggie is my guardian this year. And it's not like he'll turn me in. Especially after I explain."

Hermione nodded, taking a shaky breath, trying to calm her tears. There was nothing she could do about Severus right now. He clearly didn't want anything to do with her, judging by the way he fled the library. She was grateful for Draco's company as they made their way to the seventh floor. They were quiet as they climbed the stairs, each lost in their own thoughts.

By the time they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, the curfew bell had just rung. "You need to go," Hermione said, worried all over again that Draco was going to get into trouble.

He smiled down at her softly and unslung her bag, handing it to her. Then he leaned in and placed a soft kiss on her cheek. "For the record, I wish it could have been me too," he whispered against her ear.

Hermione shivered at his words as a fresh wave of tears threatened to spill over. He gave her one last nod and hurried back down the stairs for the dungeons.

Even during the Horcrux hunt, even at her most vulnerable in Malfoy Manor under Bellatrix's wand, Hermione had never felt as emotionally wrung out as she did now. Her heart ached in her chest, her throat was tight with tears and her eyes stung. She knew she looked a proper mess, but ignored the questioning looks as she made her way through the Gryffindor common room. She had never felt so dejected, confused, or lonely.


Regulus opened his office door, struggling to put on his outer robes when he spotted Severus.

"Severus? What is it?"

Severus's lip trembled and he blinked away the tears that were suddenly in his eyes, and Regulus pulled him into the office by his arm. The door shut with a loud thud behind him as Regulus led him through a small tapestry in the corner of his office that Severus wouldn't have noticed if Regulus hadn't pointed it out. It opened into a sitting room. Regulus pushed him to sit on a worn-in looking leather sofa.

For a moment, the emotional anguish he was feeling was pushed to the back burner as he took in his surroundings. Every wall was covered in bookshelves. And those bookshelves were piled with books. They went from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. There wasn't a spot to spare, no open shelves for more books to fit. The rest of the room was kitted out in similar furniture to the sofa: warm, brown leather, mahogany end tables, and lamps emitting a soft glow.

Regulus bustled in a small kitchen area for a few minutes as Severus tried to get a hold of his emotions. He brought a tea tray and settled it on the table between the sofa and an armchair that Regulus then sat in. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the heavenly scent of the tea Regulus had poured for them but popped them open again when his mind brought up the image of Granger kissing Malfoy. His entire chest ached at the sight and his throat closed up all over again. What on earth was happening to him?

For his part, Regulus didn't say anything for several moments. Severus sipped his tea, trying, but failing, to get the image of Granger and Malfoy kissing out of his head.

"What do you need?" Regulus finally asked once Severus had finished his tea.

"I need that blasted book," Severus grunted. "I can't find it anywhere, and without it…" he trailed off shaking his head. "I…" he stopped, unable to explain to Regulus just how badly he feared he had messed things up.

"You need to tell me what's wrong," Regulus said with a sigh. "I can't help you if I don't know."

Severus gulped, his throat suddenly dry. "The ritual was to find my heart's desire," he whispered. "I thought it would bring me to Lily, but it didn't. It brought me here." He couldn't meet Regulus's eyes. It felt so strange to be confiding in someone after all these years. He used to confide in Lily, but it had been years since he had last done that. As much as he hated to have to rely on someone else, Regulus at least seemed to truly want to help him.

"So you think you messed up the spell?" Regulus asked.

Severus nodded. "I had to have. What I'm feeling now… it's more than my heart's desire. It feels, like, like it's my bloody soul that's hurting. I had to have done something wrong."

Regulus frowned at him for a moment. "Was the book among your things when you left?"

Severus nodded. "I had checked it out of the library. It wasn't a reference book, but it was from the Restricted Section collection, I'm sure of that."

"Describe it," Regulus said. He stood and went over to his bookshelves as Severus described the dull, burgundy cover, and that it was written in Cryillic letters, that Severus had assumed it was written in Russian, but wasn't quite sure because he used a translation spell for Romantic and German languages.

"You did what?" Regulus asked at hearing that bit, turning around to look at Severus incredulously.

Severus hung his head. "I know, bloody stupid of me, but I was desperate, and it was the only translation spell I could find in the library."

"And you didn't think to ask someone?" Regulus asked, shaking his head. "No wonder something went wrong with your little ritual." He turned back to his shelves. "Title?"

"I think it translated to Magic of the Heart," Severus muttered, embarrassed at having been caught reading a book like that, let alone using a spell from it. Regulus looked through his collection, then looked again. He paused and whipped out a book, sucking in a breath through his teeth.

A few short strides and he was standing in front of Severus. "Was this it?"

Severus's heart sped up in his chest at the sight of the book. It's the exact same book, actually. He recognized the shape of the water spot on the front. "Yes! This is it! Why do you have it? Why wasn't it in the library?"

Regulus shook his head. "I took all your things. I think? It's hard to remember exactly what happened back then, it's been so long. But we looked for you and when we couldn't find you, Dumbledore didn't know what to do with your things, so I took them. I kept them for years and years, before finally throwing out everything that wasn't a book." He shrugged, "I'm sorry about that. I'll replace anything you need."

He didn't hand the book to Severus, instead he flipped through it, about halfway in, he stopped and Severus knew that page. "It was this one, right?" he asked, pointing to the page and flipping the book around for Severus to be able to read it.

"Yes, that one," Severus said. "The heart's desire spell."

Regulus shook his head, huffing a breath through his nose. "You idiot. That's not the heart's desire, that's a soul fire spell. It brings you to your bloody soulmate. That's why it brought you forward through time. Your heart's desire would not have been that strong, only soul magic can move through time like that."

Severus leaned back into the couch, utterly gobsmacked. He knew he had done something wrong, but soulmates? He and Granger were soulmates? "We can't be," he shook his head, not believing it, "she was just kissing Malfoy! She doesn't want me. It wasn't worth this. All of this." He dropped his head into his hands, fisting his hands into his hair "Now I'm here. Alone. With nobody and nothing and I have to watch my soulmate love someone else."

If before it felt as if his soul was tearing in two, now it absolutely was being torn into two pieces. Everything ached, his entire body, his brain, his fucking soul.

How could he have fucked up so badly? What had he done in life to deserve this?

"You have me," Regulus said, sitting next to him on the sofa and laying a hand on his shoulder.

Severus hated himself for it, but he couldn't help the fact that he started crying. Great, ugly sobs that hurt his chest and his throat and made his nose block up with mucus. He had never felt so alone in all his life.