Chapter Eighty-Five
Scars by Boy Epic
The world around Hermione moved in slow motion as Harry's hate filled words continued to spew at her though they had become muddled in her clouded head. She was distantly aware of her wand clattering to the ground as she wrapped her hands protectively around Nova. Closing her eyes against the sight of Harry's rage, she took a hasty step back bumping into Severus as she back peddled out of the living room. Turning around she darted out of the chaos that had bubbled over and made a break for the stairs. She quickly ascended the rounded staircase and picked a direction at random, not stopping till the venomous yells of her husband and best friend had completely faded from her ears.
Slowing her steps she took in the upper level of Glencoe with its dark paneled walls and rich burgundy runner covering the majority of the hardwood flooring. She reached out to the wall, feeling the smooth texture of the polished wood and the dips were the planks connected to one another as she walked. Counting each joint in the wall, she felt her panic begin to recede, making way for her overly analytical mind to come forward.
Continuing on her path, she worked to tuck each emotion she was feeling inside of the books within her mind. Hiding each fear and hair trigger reaction she had felt into the pages of her newest book, she slipped it into place on a shelf designated for Harry's secrets, and focused on blurring the spine to blend in with the rest of the books layered in for distraction. Fading the distinguishing marks of the new book, she examined her work objectively, relaxing further under the order she was bringing to her mind. As everything inside of her quieted down, she pushed into the next room she came across.
The room was dominated by a large metal, canopy, bed frame, its corners capped in gold. Yards of midnight blue silk cascaded from the rods at the top, pooling on the plush carpet around the four corners. The bed itself was made up of champagne colored linens, a mountain of pillows arranged on the top, beckoning her forward. Heaving her heavy body up onto the raised bed, Hermione adjusted herself to lay among the comforting luxury, her eyes turned up towards the ceiling that was covered in a series of small, twinkling lights. Examining the pattern of lights, she determined it reflected what the planetary sky would currently look like if it wasn't hidden behind a thick layer of snow clouds. Picking out the constellations, she pondered the possible ways to explain things to Harry and how best to get him to see reason now that he had crossed the threshold into furious betrayal.
Things had rapidly spiraled out of control before she had even uttered a single word to him. She hadn't even planned on telling him so soon after her return about Severus, but being able to ease him into the knowledge of who her husband was and when exactly their relationship started, had been the sacrifice she needed to make for everything else to fall into place. The reveal of her pregnancy though was something she had planned to withhold from him for as long as possible either way, knowing how difficult it would be for him to wrap his head around that when it came on the heels of finding out about her seemingly loyal Death Eater husband. Never mind the fact that Harry would most probably still harbor mistrust in regards to Severus, finding his reasons for changing sides less than noble and therefore his character unreliable.
"Stay in there as long as you can, Nova. The world out here is a mess and relationships are far too delicate," she sighed, lacing her fingers over her belly.
"Isn't that the fucking truth," Theo mused from the doorway. "Mind if I join you?"
Hermione absently waved him over, scooting to one side to offer him a share of the pillows. Patting the spot next to her, she opened her arm out for him to get in beside her. His feet were silent as he crossed the room, the black robes and cloak he wore, gently floating on the disturbed air. Watching him walk over, she was struck again by the similarities between Theo and Severus, a knot forming in her stomach at seeing him dressed like a Death Eater. Sitting up, she crossed her legs and pinned him with a disapproving look, her eyebrow cocking up in appraisal, as he sat on the mattress and unlaced his boots, allowing them to thump onto the ground.
"What's that look for?" He asked hesitantly, leaning back some to give her a mirroring look.
"Don't play thick with me Theodore Nott," she scolded. "You know very well what this look is for."
"For playing a prank on Saint Potter, before you got here?" He teasingly questioned.
Hermione scowled at him, her lips pursed in agitation.
"We'll get to that later, more importantly what the hell is all this?" She demanded, gesturing the robes and mask that belonged to Severus.
"We were just-"
"Ah!" She snapped, slicing a finger through the air to silence his words. "That was rhetorical. I talk, you listen and comprehend. Got it?"
His cerulean blue eyes went wide as he nodded his head and ever so slightly straightened up under her glare, ready to receive her chastisement.
"I couldn't save Severus from a life as a Death Eater and from working thanklessly as a spy for the Order. In fact, half the weight he bears I put upon his shoulders and I may never fully get over that and forgive myself for the hell he's been through because of me. But I will be damned, if you follow in his footsteps making the same mistakes he did. Do you understand me?
"Severus took you away from your abusive, worthless, prick of a father who saw you as a gift for the Dark Lord and nothing more. He has worked tirelessly on your behalf to keep you off of that man's radar as a potential recruit, more than ever since finding out about your gift and knowing how horribly you would be abused by either side if anyone found out.
"Now we all have to protect the knowledge of your reckless behavior, playing Death Eater Dress Up, and keep that under lock and key so no one thinks you may actually want to have the vile stain, maring your skin for the rest of your life. Or is that what you want? Do you want to throw your life away before it even begins? Go back to a life of abuse and being used as a pawn for someone else's gain? Is Severus's love for you so insignificant? Your life so disposable? Do you really have nothing to live for that you would risk everything, because Harry pissed you off and you wanted a little revenge?
"Because if that's the case, I have news for you, Theo. I will fight you every step of the way. I will be there pulling you back from it all every minute of every day. My husband saw something in you worth saving and that is more than enough for me to take up the cause of keeping you alive and protected. You're like a son to him and for me that makes you just as much my own as Nova is.
"Play these games Theo, and you will see first hand why those in Gryffindor are represented by a lion. I will fight everyone, including you, to keep you safe. Do you understand?"
Finishing her tirade, Hermione launched herself over the space between them and enveloped Theo in her arms. His body was stiff against hers, an unmoving rod of tension as she gripped him tighter and nuzzled her face against his shoulder.
"I'll need to work on this, I'm sorry," she mumbled, getting ready to ease back from the unwanted hug she forced upon him.
A hand slapped between her shoulder blades with a slight sting, as he awkwardly hugged her back. The smallest fraction of tension and unease left his body, barely enough of a change that she wouldn't have taken notice if she hadn't been paying close attention to his reactions.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," he whispered, before jerking back showing her just how out of practice he was at receiving and giving affection.
"I'm friends with Harry and Ron. Believe me, I'm well acquainted with the impulsive, bad decisions of teenage boys. Just know I won't let you destroy yourself so easily, in fact I'm kind of known for it," she chuckled. With a heavy sigh, she added, "We should probably get down there before things get any worse between those two, huh?"
"Yeah, that's probably for the best. Otherwise Severus may just go down in infamy for succeeding where the Dark Lord could not."
"He would not," Hermione said, bursting into laughter as she slid off the bed.
Theo gave her a serious look as he spoke, "If someone was saying the things Potter is about my wife, I sure as fuck would want to strangle them. And we both know when it comes to you, Sev's already short patience is nonexistent. No one insults his queen unless they want to pay for it with their life."
As though to punctuate his words, Severus and Harry's yelling grew in volume, their voices carrying to the upper end of the manor. Hermione let out an exasperated sigh and grabbed Theo's hand to drag him along with her. The sounds of their argument grew as they approached the staircase, Narcissa and Remus coming from the opposite end to investigate.
"Is that Harry?" Remus asked at the same time Narcissa said, "What in the name of Salazar is going on down there?"
"Yes and he may have just found out I'm married to Severus, as well as pregnant," she answered, nodding her at Theo. "This one and that godson of mine, decided to kidnap him from quidditch practice and tie him to your living room chair."
"They did what?" Cissy shrieked, turning her stunned ire onto Theo and below him in the foyer her son.
Rushing down the stairs, with Remus on her heels, Hermione added, "Oh, and Draco broke the mate to the vase Severus and I broke."
"Oye! Why are you going to throw me under the Night Bus like that?" Draco questioned. "Mum, it was a total accident. Potter was struggling in the chair and knocked into the table and-"
Narcissa gave her son the same slicing finger Hermione had used on Theo earlier, to silence him as she snapped, "I'll deal with you later."
"Remus you should stay here, the last thing Harry needs right now is to find out you've known all along. With the state he's in, he'll probably see that as a betrayal too."
"Or that he's been my mum's plaything for Merlin only knows how many years," Draco grumbled.
"Okay Harry needs to be dealt with first, but after that we are having a family meeting and dealing with this," Hermione declared, rounding the bottom of the stairs, her quick pace exacerbating the waddle she had developed.
"Oh lovely, here comes Satan's Mistress herself!" Harry snipped, when she entered the room.
Yanking on Severus's hand she made him draw up short as he went to take a menacing step towards her friend.
"Severus," she whispered, pulling on his arm to make him turn towards her. "Look at me."
Her husband turned around to do as she asked, his eyes burning with a cold fury that softened upon seeing her. Reaching up, she cupped his face in her palms to help hold his gaze and block out anything that could catch his peripheral vision. Rocking forward on her toes, she placed a soft kiss to the hard set of his lips, taking a second and a third till he began to relax his tense muscles. On the fifth peck to his mouth, he reciprocated the affection allowing her to lower her heels back to standing flat.
"I'm sorry for disappearing on you, but remember what you said about words in anger? That applied as much to me as Harry in the moment." she murmured. "We will need to work together and things cannot be as hostile between you and him as they were with his father and Sirius. He's still my friend which is why even though what he said hurts, I'm going to forgive him and allow it to rest. I will handle Harry and explain everything. And if that doesn't work, we have a flea infested mutt lazing about somewhere that we can use to sway him with."
Severus turned his face and kissed her palm, nipping at the fleshy side as he did so.
Canting his head slightly to one side, to subtly nuzzle against her hand, he said, "You forgive much too easily, it is your greatest flaw. They treat you like this because they know you'll forgive them in the end and forget it ever happened. You forget I've spent the last five and a half years watching it happen. I couldn't do much about it then besides be there for you when the opportunity allowed me, but I damn well will be doing something about it now. Besides I have something up my sleeve that may help move things along for you."
Turning his head against her hand, he glared at Harry over his shoulder.
"She's done more for you than you're aware of Potter. So stop acting like a fucking shite and pull your head out of your arse. Otherwise Merlin save us all if you're our only hope against the Dark Lord," he said with quiet venom.
He turned back to Hermione and with a taunting smirk, threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her up to him.
"You're so bad," she whispered against his mouth before welcoming his kiss.
"Mhmm, you love it," he purred, placing a final peck to her before stepping out from between her and Harry.
Giving him a heartless glare, she warned, "Behave, or else..."
Or else what? He asked, his dark purr echoing in her head.
Or else, you'll be serving detention right along with me.
I thought the idea was to ensure my cooperation, not tempt me with what is sure to be a great time, he thought, his words dripping with sex that made her press her thighs together.
"Just... Hush..." she said flustered, trying to banish the thoughts from her head.
Severus's answering laugh only added to the increasingly warm problem between her legs, making her clench and silently curse the boys for making her coming conversation with Harry take infinitely longer.
Walking over to her stewing friend, she flicked her wand at his bindings to release him, choosing to ignore the way he jerked back in his chair upon seeing her wand trained on him. Taking the armchair beside him, she curled her feet up under her and adjusted herself to face him head on, a blanket floating over to her and dropping across her lap. Giving Severus a grateful smile, she took a deep breath to ready herself for defusing Harry's anger.
"Hermione, how could-"
She raised her hand between them, effectively cutting off his words so that he couldn't spin himself back up as he had been moments ago.
"I will answer any questions you have and explain everything to the best of my ability. However, you will talk to me and treat me with respect, Harry. I have always stood by your side and defended you against everyone, to include Ron when you two had falling outs in spite of not being given the same benefit from you in the past. Nothing has changed between Thursday and tonight with the exception that you now know who the Half Blood Prince is and that I'm pregnant. You were able to accept it then when you had no knowledge of who it was, so you cannot take that back now that you know it to be Severus. I have been remiss to excuse your behaviors in the past, but that ends here. Just as I didn't allow Ron to disparage me the other night, I will not allow you to do so either, to me, my husband, or our child. Are we in agreement?"
Harry looked properly chastised by her mention of his poor treatment of her in the past, his anger rapidly deflating as she brought him back down to size.
"Yes," he mumbled, unable to meet her eye as he nodded his head along for further agreement. "But it's Snape," he added, his eyes now tracking the man as he crossed the room and came to stand behind the chair she occupied.
"Professor Snape, Harry," she automatically replied before laughing. "I guess calling him professor is a little ridiculous given the situation, but Harry are you honestly that surprised?"
"Yes!" He shouted, dragging the armchair closer to her. "I mean I know you fancied the great git, but I always assumed it was some sort of bad boy thing that girls have, but you married him. You're having a baby with him, which brings into play a whole other aspect of your life that I never wanted to know about, especially with it evolving Snape, and then there's the whole..."
He looked at her nodding his head in a signal she didn't understand. Furrowing her brow at him she tried to figure out what his spastic movements meant.
Raising her hands in question, she shook her head as she mimicked him, "I don't know what this means."
"I believe Potter is trying to politely point out to you that I'm a Death Eater. As if you didn't already know that before I met you," Severus drawled.
"Well yeah but weren't you like a real Death Eater back then?" Harry asked. "I mean you called my mother a... well a… you know... I saw it. How can you be married to someone like that Hermione? He used to hate people like you."
Severus let out a short laugh that drew Hermione's attention to him, the face he wore making her worry for Harry.
"Severus..."
"Don't worry Hermione, I'm just going to set his mind right, like I said I had something to help move things along. He did see that event but only because he saw something else involving you first and I had to do damage control. Let's test your occlumency, shall we Potter. See if your shields are still as pathetic as they were, I'll even cast verbally so you can prepare yourself... Legilimens."
Hermione saw the moment Harry's mind gave way to Severus, his thoughts cracking wide open for him to read within seconds. After her own struggle to learn the skill, she wouldn't be as hard on him as she was before when she only had theory to go off, but seeing how vulnerable he was, renewed her drive to learn for herself without taping into Severus's ability so that she could help Harry learn another line of defense against Voldemort.
Seeing the initial anger that appeared on his face upon Severus's penetration give way to a comically horrifying look, followed by red cheek embarrassment, Hermione jumped on Severus's coattails to see for herself how Harry's last lesson actually played out.
Oh good you joined us. This will help hone your skills some since Theo says you have all the subtlety of a cleaver to the brain.
Hermione huffed inside of her head, or as it was inside of Harry's, as she scowled at her husband.
It was my first time, give me a break. It's not as easy as it is for me to slip into your mind.
Potter will provide you good practice. He's going to need to resume his lessons now that he knows everything and you need to work on being able to slip in and out undetected. Your untrained hand may just push him to actually try to avoid the pain.
Ha, ha, Hermione mocked, regretting her moment of voyeuristic weakness, as Severus teased her.
I'm still here, Harry thought with agitation. You know, seeing as it is my head you all are in.
Shut it Potter, I'm teaching, he commanded, with a phantom slap upside Harry's head. Now I've already released the implanted memory from his mind. When I wove it in there, I used actual events and only changed the bare minimum. It's how you throw other legilimens off the trail and keep the person from picking as it were at the falsehoods in their mind. Leaving enough of the truth behind makes them overlook the abnormalities and the haziness that can result from your work.
In Potter's case I simply replaced the memory he did see with one that would make my level of anger believable when he thought back on the events. This memory had the added bonus of making him question everything he thought he knew about his father and the mutt while also reinforcing his already preconceived ideas about myself.
Now what I hid away from him was the memory of when you tried to make me dinner after you moved into Spinner's End, he said with an amused chuckle.
Oh no... Hermione thought in horror. How much did he see?
More than enough, Harry loudly announced. My eyes are scared from seeing and hearing that. Can we please leave the other memory intact?
No Potter, because you made a realization viewing that memory that will better help you understand Hermione's choice. Not that she has to answer to you, he grumbled before pulling them both from Harry's head.
He couldn't meet Hermione's eye upon her ejection from his mind and after finding out what he had originally seen, it was more than okay with her as she couldn't look at him either. It was one thing for Cissy to have seen them after their first night together, especially now with everything she had seen since she became pregnant, but knowing her best friend who was like a brother to her had most probably seen her at least partially naked and heard her having sex with Severus filled her with a level of embarrassment that wasat the very leastequal to Harry's.
"You really do love her," Harry observed quietly. "You can see it in how you looked at her... like she's the sun..."
His comment had Hermione jerking her head up to look at her friend, shocked at how easily his understanding came once the memory was returned to him.
"How?" She asked Severus, turning around in the chair to get his undivided attention.
"Simple," he answered with a shrug. "His recollection of that night was filed away into fundamental storage. The memory he witnessed, along with the one I implanted, became foundational pieces in how he perceives me. There will be some lingering confusion due to the polarizing opinions associated with each memory but the core of him once again remembers how his thought process was shifted upon learning a monumental truth about me. Potter never trusted me because he, nor anyone else, knew what motivated me."
"I still don't understand it though," Harry said. "How did things happen between you two? I mean sure he isn't one now, but back then he was Hermione. He could have killed you, should have."
Hermione smiled at Harry before looking back to Severus as she said, "I took a risk on using my knowledge of his future. He had saved our lives countless times over the years, did everything he could to protect us, and I knew that man was somewhere within him and only needed to be brought out. And admittedly I was more than a little reckless following not just those thoughts but the overwhelming desire-"
"To talk about potion brewing, because that's all you two do," Harry interrupted making her laugh.
"Exactly, potion brewing," she agreed.
"Excellent," Cissy announced, walking in from where she had been listening in the foyer. Clapping her hands together she continued, "I'll have Tillie set an extra place at the table for you love, as it's just about dinner time. Then we can go over the finer details of the past with you and prepare you for what's coming tomorrow."
"What's happening tomorrow?" He asked, looking around at everyone.
"Rita Skeeter will be publishing the story of a lifetime and with it all the anger and hatred you felt earlier, will need to come out again to sell it," Hermione answered. "There are two more things you should also know about," she added. "Don't be mad at him because he was only doing what we all agreed upon which was to disturb the timeline going forward as little as possible."
"Hello Harry," Remus greeted quietly, coming in behind Cissy, and giving a sheepish wave.
"Did everyone go off and get themselves a token Slytherin friend?" Harry asked.
Severus scoffed as he said, "The wolf was Hermione's friend and an annoying puppy in need of constant attention in her absence over the years."
"Severus, it has been seventeen years. No one is buying your act any longer about us not being friends. Come on admit it, I'm your best mate," Remus teased mercilessly. "It's not that hard, repeat after me, 'Remus you are my best mate, I would be lost without you.'"
"Bite me, tail chaser."
"And then there's the other thing..." She said, ignoring her husband's antics and silently criticizing everyone in the room for tensing up.
For Godric's sake, I thought Slytherins were supposed to be good at hiding their emotions.
"We are but I'm still pissed at you and you two," Severus said, turning his glare to Cissy and Remus, "for this. He didn't deserve what you did for him."
"No, but Harry did," Hermione reminded quietly.
"The jury's still out on that one."
"What are you talking about?"
"I told you Potter she's done more for you than you know," Severus bit out.
"I couldn't save your parents but... With their help," she said, gesturing to Remus and Cissy, "I was able to keep Sirius from dying and he's been living here since the Department of Mysteries happened. We're working on getting his death certificate canceled and since he's already been exonerated after last year, he'll be free to be your godfather in all aspects soon enough. No more summers with the Dursleys, I'm just sorry it couldn't happen sooner for you, Harry."
As she had done to Theo earlier, Harry lunged at her, wrapping his arms around her in a fierce hug, as he repeatedly whispered his apologies and thanks into her ear.
AN:
I've been remiss in sharing it here but I have added a third story to my juggling act of WIPs. Soulful Surrender, is my third Snamione story which is a serious trope mashup of soulmates, Voldemort Wins AU, and Beauty and the Beast elements. With three stories now, each one will get updated as close to weekly as possible. The next SCTT chapter should be up, barring any wrenches thrown into my life, on May 31st.