"I'll be back in a bit. I've got to wish Amelia luck and I'm going to say goodbye to Gina. She's moving to Cornwall, but I think she's headed to Argentina with Gringotts first," Hazel said, extracting herself from the train compartment she was sharing with Pandora, Xeno, Emmeline, and Marlene. They accepted it without question, telling her to be back before they reached London.
Truthfully, Hazel just wanted to go for a walk. None of them had shut up about the previous night's party in the Slytherin dungeons since they got on the train. It was very well - they'd all keep in touch, and they'd all pledged themselves to fight Voldemort's forces, so they would see each other regularly, at least after Hazel finished Auror training. But it was starting to get to her. She was tired of them asking what it was like "snogging Severus Snape. Really, I can't believe you!" So she went for a walk, waving to a few people in other compartments. It was only when she got to one near the back of the train that she stopped.
The dark-haired young man was sitting alone, buried in a book. He shrank back slightly as he registered the noise of the compartment door sliding open. As soon as he saw it was her, though, he set his book down. He'd reached for his wand, ready to curse Potter and his minions if need be. "Hi." She sat down across from him, or rather as across from him as she could with the book in the way. "Umm… I just wanted to say… Last night was nice."
"Yeah, it was," he sighed, glancing out the window and then back to her. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry it can't happen again, or sorry that it happened at all?"
He looked back to her dejectedly. "Sorry it can't happen again."
Hazel got up, coming to sit beside him. She took his hand, lacing their fingers together. He flinched a little, knowing that just below his left sleeve lay the filthy mark that had driven her away some months before. "Where are you going? After this, when we get to London?"
"Lucius and Narcissa are allowing me to stay with them for a little while. Then it's back to Cokeworth for a bit, and then I have a job lined up, if the Dark Lord -"
"Don't." She leaned her head on his shoulder, staring at the hand that she held. He was covered in the usual scrapes that came with potion making, something she was used to. "Aunt Violet and Uncle Sherlock have always liked you, you can stay with them while I'm going through Auror training, and then -"
"And then what? Run? I've sworn myself to the Dark Lord." He was careful to keep his voice low, even in the closed-off compartment. "He's shown me so much already, magic we could've only dreamed of. I can't run from him, and I can't run from that. I - there's so much to learn."
"You could if you wanted to. They would help. Uncle Sherlock - he defeated the worst Dark Wizard of his time. The worst one until Grindelwald. He could teach you… But you're not going to do that. No matter what I say, you're not going to listen. I've tried to convince you before. I know I can't. I… Sev…" She looked up at him, both of them slowly leaning in. It was a tear-filled kiss, tinged with the sadness of knowing that they would soon be going their separate ways, winding up on opposite sides of the war. "I'm sorry this has to be it."
"I don't want you to go," he whispered.
"You also don't want to give Voldemort up," she added, the two of them so close that their noses were nearly touching. "I don't want you to go either, but you can't… You can't have both. I can promise I won't go after you. I won't hurt you. Maybe if… things were different, this wouldn't be it. We wouldn't be having this conversation. You'd be with me and Pandora and Xeno and Marlene and Em. We could be happy."
"You're about to start the career you've always wanted. You have good people who care about you. Your aunt and uncle are going to pick you up and let you stay with them while you find a flat in London. You have every reason to be happy."
"I don't have you."
There was no way he could answer. Something had broken behind his eyes, the last remnant of his life before Voldemort dissolving in front of him. As the conductor announced that they'd be in London in ten minutes, he leaned in to kiss her again. "I'm sorry." She stood, heading for the door. Every atom in his body wanted to stop her, but the decision had been made long ago. "I'll see you soon."
"I'll see you soon."
Aunt Violet was the one to notice she'd been crying. Pandora had been crying too when she got back to their compartment, loudly proclaiming that she was going to miss all of them and that they were going to do great things in the world and that they needed to write or she would bombard them with owls. But Aunt Violet noticed it as soon as she'd stepped onto the platform and said hello, noticed the twinge of sadness that was more than just the usual 'seventh year going to miss their old life'. Before she could ask, Hazel looked down the platform, sighting Sev for one last time. Their eyes met briefly before he was swept away by the Malfoys. "I'm sorry," Aunt Violet offered, though she knew it would make no difference.
"Let's get out of here."
"You told me they would be safe."
"Severus -"
"You told me they would be safe! You said you would protect them!" He whirled around, nearly collapsing onto Dumbledore's desk. Fawkes looked at the newcomer curiously, shifting on his perch at the sudden noise.
When he looked up next, there were tears in his eyes. "If you couldn't keep them safe… if you refused to… There is one thing. I've sworn my life to you. There is only one thing I ask. One thing that's in your power to do. I've given you my soul. Do one thing for me."
"And what is that, Severus?" Dumbledore asked calmly, offering Fawkes part of a biscuit.
"There is one person left… one person who refused… refused to hurt me even when she had the chance, even when the Ministry told them to use the Unforgivables on us… She always told me I could be good, I could turn good, that there would always still be time." Overcome with grief, he struggled to speak but pressed onward. "She is the only thing… the only person I have left outside of the Death Eaters. The only person who could possibly… Protect her. Keep her safe. I will never see her again. Everything I touch gets broken, everyone I care about ends up dead, so it's better if I never see her again… She's going to keep hunting them down. All of the Aurors will. With the Dark Lord gone… they're going to get worse, lashing out like a dying animal. Protect her. Please."
"Severus -"
"If I must beg, I will beg." The once proud man leaned on the wall for support, looking back at Dumbledore like his soul had been knocked out of him. "Please keep her safe. I will never write, I will never try to find her… I will stay out of her life. Just keep her safe. She always tried to keep me safe. I have nothing left. Please."
He would return to the dungeons that night to pore over the photos he'd collected while they were at Hogwarts together, all of the (at least somewhat) happier times they'd lived together. He would eventually collapse into bed after downing a Sleeping Draught, the only way he could sleep anymore, and drift off with the ghost of the last kiss they'd shared still hovering on his lips.
"Are you the same young man who came to me begging to send Lily Potter somewhere safe?"
"Sir?" Snape turned to look at Dumbledore, who had the same quixotic expression on his face that he always did when he already knew the answer but still had to ask the question.
"You've changed, Severus. I want to be sure you are still as devoted to the cause as ever."
"Of course I am," he scoffed, turning away again. "You're right. I'm not the same man who found you that night. But I will stay. As long as the Dark Lord is still alive, she's in danger." He thought of the woman dozing off in his bed at that very moment, who, no matter how tired she was when he got back, would surely kiss him goodnight. He would pull her close and hold onto her until morning, when inevitably neither of them would want to move. He certainly wasn't the same broken man who had pleaded with Dumbledore to hide the Potters. "She'll say she's fine, she's an Auror, she can protect herself, but I worry that it might not be enough."
Dumbledore's next question somehow struck him even more. "Do you love her?"
Again, he already knew the answer. But he forced him to say it out loud, to confront what he'd been turning over in his mind for months now. "I love her... because no one has invented a better word. No one has come up with a word for how I feel about her. I don't think they ever will." He consistently avoided Dumbledore's eye, instead making the confession to Fawkes, who listened curiously. "Sometimes... when I'm with her, I'm so happy that I think I'm going to be sick, because the moment I acknowledge it, the moment I allow it, I know something's going to happen to take it away. It's not how I felt about Lily. It's different. It's something… more. I don't know how to put it into words. I don't think I can. And it terrifies me." Dumbledore was silent for long enough that Snape was forced to look at him. "Look," he said, clearly frustrated. He waved his wand, a silver doe galloping around the office before fading into the air.
Dumbledore frowned. "I see nothing wrong with your Patronus, Severus. It looks as corporeal as ever."
"It's not the Patronus, it's the memory. Before... it was always one of Lily. Always," he stressed. "But it... the last time I tried conjuring one from one of my memories of her, it hardly looked like anything."
"What are you using now, if I may ask?" Dumbledore sat back in his chair, surveying him carefully.
"The first time Hazel and I ever kissed properly, right after our dance at the Yule Ball," he confessed, pacing around the office. He hated talking about things like this. Emotions. All complicated and disgusting. Vile things that he would never admit to because admitting them meant admitting he had a weakness. Hazel would say it isn't a weakness. She would know what to say. "Or when I showed up on her doorstep and she stopped a curse from killing me, without asking questions. Or the time we spent in Diagon Alley during the war, the few months when she thought... when she thought I wasn't a monster. Or walking around the lake with her, or just waking up next to her, they all work. No matter what I pick, even some of the simplest things..."
"You love her, Severus. Yes, you care about Lily and want to honor her memory, but this... Would you die for her?"
This answer too was something Dumbledore had already ascertained. And something Snape answered in a heartbeat. "Without question."
In comparison to Snape's grave answer, Dumbledore's response was incredibly light. "Well, I'm happy for you. I wouldn't worry on it too much. People usually come to terms with these things in time," he promised. "Now go. It's getting late. I'm sure she's waiting."
Hazel had fallen asleep by the time he got back, but she rolled over as she felt him lay down. "How's Dumbledore?" she yawned, instinctively reaching out for him.
"Fine. I'll tell you all about it in the morning."
"Okay. 'Night, Sev." She kissed him before going right back to sleep.
Sev stayed up for a while, marveling at how lucky he was, how petrified of losing this he felt, and how he had to gather the courage to tell her soon.
Hazel woke up with a smile toying at her lips. The Slytherin dungeons were usually slightly cold, but she was perfectly warm with Sev's arms wrapped around her. It was a Saturday and they could sleep in as late as they wanted. Most of their students would be in Hogsmeade all day. They weren't on the list to chaperone this time, so they had the day entirely to themselves. "Sev," she whispered, rolling over so she could kiss him good morning.
"Five more minutes," he yawned, slowly opening his eyes. "Or forever. I don't think I ever want to get out of bed. In a good way," he assured her.
"We can have the House Elves bring something down when we get hungry, then."
"Good." He closed his eyes again, pulling her close.
As she fell back to sleep, Sev's eyes flicked open. He smiled to himself, noticing how her hair curled behind her ears, the steady rise and fall of her breath, the curve of her hand reaching out for his, even in sleep. She'd painted her nails green while they sat on the sofa together the night before, at least until he was called away to a meeting at Malfoy Manor, and then to meet with Dumbledore. She smelled like lavender, the perfume that had been stuck in his mind since their seventh year. A tiny scar below her ear betrayed where his rogue spell had hit her, a small spot Madam Pomfrey hadn't been able to heal. It was hardly noticeable, except when he was this close. He envied the blank canvas of her left arm, wishing that he could peel off the Dark Mark that scarred his own. It was a constant, ugly reminder of what he had once been. Of what he still had to do. Would she still care about him after he helped Draco Malfoy with his task? After he stepped in to do it himself? Or would she refuse to believe him, coming to hate him instead, like the rest of the world inevitably would? At the rate Malfoy was going, it seemed more and more likely that he would have to be the one to do it. Besides, Dumbledore wanted it to be him. It had to be him. But he would wait as long as possible, because he would lose her again. He just knew it.
It weighed on him constantly, the ticking clock inside his mind telling him that he only had so much time before she would again see him as the disgusting, irredeemable Death Eater who had abandoned her in the spring of their seventh year and abandoned her again when she thought he'd run from Voldemort. Before he would lose the one good thing in his life, the one person he could count on to be there, even if she couldn't always take away the pain and make him smile. He would catch himself thinking about the impending doom of his situation in the moments that should've been purely happy, like this one.
When she finally rolled over, propping herself up on her elbow, he'd been awake for a while, thinking far too much for what was supposed to be a lazy Saturday morning. "'Morning."
"May I tell you something?" he asked, having turned it over in his mind since he'd first woken up. Well, since Dumbledore had asked the previous night. Actually, for much longer than that. He'd been thinking about it for a while but pushed the thought to the back of his mind until Dumbledore forced him to confront what he'd known was true for a very long time now.
She was suddenly serious, bracing herself for whatever was coming. "Of course. Anything. What's up?"
He took a deep breath, the words taking a while to come out. "I've thought about it for a while. I even - I talked to Minerva about it ages ago. Well, she confronted me about it. And Dumbledore brought it up last night, and I couldn't… I didn't want to understand. I didn't want to deal with it, because if I did... If I did, it would have made everything real, and if it was real, I could lose it or mess it up again or -"
"What's wrong, Sev? What are you talking about?" Her eyes full of concern, she reached out, putting a hand to his face. "Is there… Is there something going on that you haven't told me? Has Dumbledore or Voldemort put you up to something else?"
"No, it's... I love you." The words spilled out, jarring both of them.
Her trepidation faded into a smile as she leaned in to kiss him. "I love you too. Say it again."
"I love you," he whispered, pulling her even closer as all doubt in his mind was erased. "I love you, I love you, I love you. It does feel good to say."
"Thank you. I know it's not easy for you to say, and I know… You don't have to say it a lot because... it is a lot. So you don't have to say it. I can see it. I see it in all of the little notes I find in my classroom, I see it in you reaching out for me wherever we are, hell, I see it in the fact that you let me steal your sweatshirts. I know you waited until you knew, until beyond when you knew, for good reason. And I love you too, Sev. So much."
"I had to wait until I knew you did. Until I knew you were sure you would say it back," he confessed. "Deep down I knew. You'd almost said it a couple of times, but you were waiting for the right time, I suppose. But a few days ago you said it in your sleep. So I really knew."