Chapter 36
Hermione wakes not in the hotel bed in Manchester, but in their bed in their own quarters, as she did the day before. As then, she's naked, Severus spooned up behind her, his arm lying across her waist.
Their bed. That's how she's come to think of it, she realizes. It's been only a couple of weeks since she stopped sleeping in her room, but already she's thinking of this as their room, their bed. Would Severus mind that she does? He doesn't seem to mind her sleeping here every night. On the contrary, he seems happy to have her here.
And last night—or rather, the night of the first today—he called her love. She wonders whether he even remembers, whether it registered, amidst all the stress and adrenaline. He said it without thinking, reassuring her in that Manchester hotel. She was mortified, tried to stop crying, but after that terrifying broomless flight across the castle grounds and the rest of it, she was on her last nerve.
There, in a room warded like it was Azkaban, he continued holding her and murmuring comforting platitudes under the crisp hotel sheets, stroking her hair and occasionally kissing her forehead until she finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
Now, she feels him stir, and his arm tightens around her. She presses back against him, feeling his morning erection. She turns in his arms to face him, and he brushes a lock of hair from her face.
"Better this morning?" he asks.
She nods. "I'm sorry I was such a ninny."
"You weren't. It was a stressful evening."
She lifts her hand to the side of his face, feeling the rough stubble along his jaw, then moves her hand to the back of his head, pulling him toward her. Her lips part as his mouth covers hers, and they kiss, slow and languorous. One of his legs slips between hers and his arms move around her waist, slide down to cup her arse and pull her against him.
It is all right, now that they're here, back home. He's got her, and she's all right. He won't let anything happen to her. The rational part of her brain knows they're both in a great deal of danger still. Knows that Harry is a Horcrux and the Dark Lord is immortal, and the Headmaster is in some ways perhaps as big a megalomaniac as the Dark Lord. She knows Severus is only a man, and he may not be able to protect her. He may be killed himself. But she feels safe here in his arms, and wants to shut out that voice of reason and let herself bask in the warmth of his protection.
In like manner, she refuses to think about what will happen if they do succeed in killing the Dark Lord, when they will be not only safe but free. Only now, free feels the opposite of safe. The day they entered into this marriage for the sake of her safety, Severus said that he never expected to survive this war, and when he was dead she could have her pick of the unmarried Weasley brothers. At the time, marrying Ron Weasley seemed an ideal future. Now, she no longer wants Ron or any other hypothetical husband of her choice. She wants the husband she has, can't remember what it's like to want anyone but him. As she feels the rasp of his stubble against the sensitive skin of her thigh she lets out a strangled cry of longing—for him to touch her the way he is now, yes, but also for him to survive this war, and to want her the way she wants him.
Later, sprawled wantonly across him as their sweat-slicked bodies cool in the dungeon air, she wonders, does this mean she loves him? Is that what love is, this feeling of wanting him, only him, to kiss her and touch her and fuck her till she screams, the way he just did, but also to hold her when she's afraid, to put his arms around her and tell her, you're all right, love, I've got you, to plot with her against their shared enemies, and to laugh with her in those rare moments of respite from the life-or-death struggle in which they're engaged?
Then again, isn't that struggle what's causing these feelings? Without a Dark Lord to fight, there would be no fear and thus no need for comfort, no danger and thus no adrenaline. Certainly, there would be no marriage. Without the Dark Lord, she would be sitting in the Potions classroom while Severus—whom she would still think of as Professor Snape—sneered at her and took House points while she mooned over Ron Weasley and envied Lavender Brown.
It doesn't matter, she supposes. One or both of them may die. Or, if they both live, Severus may wish her well and move on with his life, which doesn't include a witch forced on him by Albus Dumbledore. If he does, she will accept it with good grace, and not make a fool of herself.
Severus wakes when a piece of parchment flutters onto his bare shoulder. He opens his eyes, disorientated after falling back asleep after morning sex.
"You need to show me what you saw in the Headmaster's mind," Hermione says. She's sitting up in bed beside him, dressed in an oversized t-shirt, ink-stained fingers flying across the pages of a notebook. "Also, we need to do more research on the Horcrux that's in Harry. Lucius needs to bring everything in his library that has to do with Soul Magic."
"He already brought all the books on Horcruxes."
"But there's other Soul Magic besides Horcruxes, and something in one of those books might help us figure out if the Horcrux can be removed from Harry."
Severus sits up and leans against the headboard. "Why? We know now that Potter doesn't have to die."
She looks at him the way she does Potter or Weasley or Longbottom when they say something stupid. "As long as it's in him, there has to be a confrontation between the two. It might end up being a full-blown battle. God knows how many people could be killed. And we have to time everything just so, getting the cup from Gringott's and killing the snake and orchestrating the confrontation with Harry, et cetera, et cetera. There are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. If we could get the Horcrux out of Harry, the rest of it could be done easy peasy."
"Well, perhaps not exactly easy peasy, since we are talking about killing a Dark Lord," Severus says, but in truth there's something to her line of reasoning. It would be a lot easier to orchestrate everything without some big dog and pony show between the Dark Lord and Potter.
"Floo Lucius."
"Would you mind if I have a cup of coffee before you start barking orders at me?"
She grins, puts the quill and notebook on the nightstand, and thows a leg over him so she's straddling his thighs. "Pretty please?" She kisses him. "Is that better?"
"In case you're hard of hearing, I said coffee, not sex."
"You're hateful!" she laughs and starts to move off him, but he grabs her hips and holds her where she is.
"No, you don't," he says, sliding his hand under her shirt to caress her breast. "You start something, you need to finish it."
"I thought you wanted coffee?"
He withdraws his hand. "If you promise you won't be insulted, I do, actually."
She climbs off. "I'm not insulted. The sooner you have your coffee, the sooner I get my hands on Lucius's books."
"I think perhaps I should be insulted."
"Extraordinary," Lucius says, looking at Hermione amid a sea of open books and scribbled notes, one quill in her hand and another stuck in her hair.
"She's like a research machine," Severus agrees.
"What is extraordinary is how she looks exactly like you used to when we were in school and you'd go into one of your Potions-development trances."
"I can hear you, actually," Hermione says, though her hand doesn't stop moving across the page.
"Have you come up with anything?" Lucius asks.
She doesn't look up. "I might if you'd stop talking for five minutes at a stretch."
"As I said. Exactly like you were," Lucius says, then ducks as Hermione wandlessly sends a balled up piece of parchment flying at him. "Well, my dear, between you and the noseless madman, it's a close call, but I believe I'll head back to the Manor and take my chances with the Dark Lord."
When he's gone, Hermione holds out a book to Severus. "Here."
"You're not going to make color-coded study schedules for me, I hope?" he asks, taking it from her.
She narrows her eyes. "Only if I have to."
He opens the book and starts reading.