Chapter 49. Penance

His face felt hot as Severus blinked awake. The sun beamed directly into his eyes, adding a headache to the list of afflictions he was experiencing as he came to. He groaned, the waves of aches and stabbing pain assaulted his senses, radiating from his neck and chest. His eyes started to throb and he began to regret waking up at all.

Finally, his vision adjusted and he could take in his surroundings. At the foot of his double bed was a writing desk with minimal clutter underneath a large window. A crochet blanket laid over his feet and a stack of decorative pillows sat on an overstuffed chair in the corner. There was a small bookshelf on the other side of the room packed with tomes. The room was familiar, but as if he were viewing it from the wrong angle to remember exactly. The world beyond the glass was bright. The sky was clear blue, scattered with white fluffy clouds. There was a small forest that he could barely see; only the tops of the trees from his vantage point.

Severus attempted to sit himself up, but a pain shot up his arm in doing so. Laying back down, he noted that he was not wearing his usual teaching robes, but was instead in a papery sort of dress with a light blue floral pattern that made him scowl. However, in his examinations, he also noticed one detail that made his stomach flip. His forearm was bare. Where there was once a hideous black mark, nothing but battered flesh. It had only faded before when Voldemort had first disappeared. When he...

His brain began to swirl with theories of what that could possibly mean. What it meant for him, for wizarding kind, for... Hermione. All the pain that had held him back seemed to dissipate and he forced himself up. "Accio trousers," Severus hissed, sending a pair of his slacks flying at his hand. They were torn, but he threw them on anyway and transfigured the dress into a palatable black shirt.

Throwing open the door, he stumbled out and stopped in his tracks as he saw Muriel standing before him. "What are you doing out of bed?" The witch barked, holding a cup of tea in her hands. Severus stood, staring down in shock at the woman in his path. "Well? You nearly died, you need your rest." With a flick of her wand, Severus turned around and strode back to the bed and got in.

"I nearly died and you cast the Imperius curse on me?" Severus huffed.

"No my dear, dark magic isn't my style, just a small tweak on the Locomotion charm." There was a smile in her voice, something comforting yet cheeky that reminded him of Minerva. Once he settled back in, the pain started to come back, his neck stiff and his throat burned with every breath. "Hermione will be wanting to see you, now that you're up. I can send an owl-"

His heart leapt into his throat at her name. She was alive. "No. Not yet," Severus commanded, his voice breaking on the words. "I want to- I have things I need to take care of." His eyes flicked to the quill on the desk under the window.

"Of course, dear. Tea?"

Muriel returned shortly with a tray of goodies: a large teapot, two dainty teacups, and a plate of biscuits. She sat on the edge of the bed and mindlessly grabbed a cookie and looked out the window. "It feels like it's been far too long since I allowed myself to relax. There was always something. Whether or not Voldemort would return, the war, secrets, you..." she listed, flicking her gaze over to Severus briefly.

"And now?" Severus hummed pouring himself a cup and sipping on it gingerly. The warm liquid burned as it went down his throat but immediately began to soothed it. He reasoned the tea was medicated in some way, or that his cup had been laced with a healing salve.

"Perpetually tense I suppose. When you get so used to worrying, it's hard to move on," she said with a defeated sigh. The older witch turned back to face him and poured herself some tea as well, washing down the biscuit. "From what I hear, this new world might take some adjusting for you as well."

"It'll be a relief," he groaned with a roll of his eyes.

"You say that now, but you have not been sitting with the truth of this post-war reality as long as I have. You've only just woken up." Muriel took a sip of her beverage and looked at him over the rim of the cup. "You're a father now, I'd imagine there are some things you'd like to let go of before assuming that role full-time?"

A pang hit Severus in the stomach as he longed to see his daughter. He'd never met her. He wasn't there when she was born, he didn't get to hold her, speak to her, as any father would have. Would she even like him? Would she even recognize her father? How could he have let Hermione do it all by herself only to rush off into battle and leave her daughter behind? The agony she must have gone through being away from her child...

"I suppose," he muttered.

"I hear from Minerva you can be quite cold." Severus stiffened at the comment.

"To put it nicely," he conceded through clenched teeth. Muriel pursed her lips before taking a small sip of her tea and placing the cup back down on the saucer, eyeing him.

"Why do you think that is?" Severus wanted to bark back at her to mind her own business, feeling his walls building themselves up. A deep breath and a roll of his shoulders centred his pride. A word floated around his mind, daring him to say it.

"Resentment I suppose. Resentment that morphed into my personality eventually," he scoffed.

"Resentment?" Muriel pressed, crossing one leg over the other.

"I was rude to a girl when I was young, my dearest friend," the memory of Lily nearly made him wince as his words rang through his head, Mudblood. "She stopped speaking to me and that made me angry. I allowed the anger to brew for so long that I ultimately caused her death and that has been eating at me ever since." The image of her cold form in his arms flashed behind his eyes.

"You loved this girl," the older witch deduced.

"I didn't know what love was," Severus confessed, recalling the endless fights between his mother and father. The constant barrage of insults and neglect he experienced daily in his childhood. "Didn't have a role model, you could say."

"Was that your excuse, then? For being rude to your friend?" She continued to pry. Severus hesitated, but with every sentence, the weight on his shoulders seemed to lift. While he despised vulnerability, it was something he would have to learn to be a better person.

"That and the fact that her dear Gryffindors picked on me relentlessly since I started at school," the anger that still festered from his childhood bubbled up but he pushed it down. "I blamed them all for my actions, but it was my fault for holding a grudge instead of letting it go. I could have risen above it all, kept my friend, even been an aid to society but I let myself be swayed by those equally as angry."

"The Death Eaters," Muriel inferred.

"Lucius was my only friend, he was just as closed off and angry as I was," Severus continued. "His wife, Narcissa, took me in as a son before she was able to have her own, even though I was only 5 years her junior. After I sentenced the Potters to their deaths, I made a promise to Dumbledore in exchange for ensuring their safety. After they died, the guilt that consumed me made me even more easily manipulated. I kept my promise, though Albus did not. Consistently I put myself in danger to keep their son alive, without a second thought. I transformed that guilt into anger and tormented him so it wouldn't show how much it pained me to see him. How much he reminded me of his parents. He was the embodiment of everything I had done wrong."

"And now?"

"I held onto that grudge for so long, let it eat away at all my kindness." Every bark, bite, and snide remark flowed through his thoughts. He remembered the numerous times he had been awful to Minerva, his only true friend. Even after Lupin had apologized, Severus had been consistently rude and frigid.

"Until you met Hermione," Muriel finished for him.

"Yes well, I'd met her when she was 11. An insufferable know-it-all I used to call her," he winced at the nickname. "She was an incredibly bright witch for her age, she still is. It wasn't until she had pestered me into giving her some tutoring lessons that I really began to know her. A bookworm, like myself, and so eager to learn. I wanted to be better for her. Better than I'd been for the last two decades of my life."

"I find writing letters helps me form apologies to those I have hurt." Muriel stood, placing her cup back on the tray at the foot of the bed. "Even those who were already dead by the time I realized I owed them an apology. Perhaps you could give it a try? It might help you feel better for Hermione."

"And my daughter," Severus added quickly. Pain bubbled up as he tried to picture her.

"Your parents may not have shown you love, but I know you are capable of it." Severus swallowed hard at the assessment. Was he capable of it? "Do not be afraid to show your daughter you love her, to tell her constantly. Give her your time and attention and she will know what love is," Muriel advised.

"Hermione must be such an incredible mum," Severus sighed.

"Yes. But it is not her job to make you an incredible father, so remember my words. If you ever need my advice, I'm just a phone call away." At this Muriel stood and strode to the door frame. "There's parchment and a quill on the desk, if you'd like."

When the older witch left, the silence deafened him. He loathed to be alone with his thoughts and frequently pushed them back behind his barriers to allow himself his solitude. It seemed now, though, that those barriers no longer existed and every pain and awful memory resurfaced. With a huff, he pulled himself from the bed and hobbled to the writing desk in front of the large window overlooking the expanse of the property.

Severus looked down at the parchment in front of him and sighed. He began to pen a letter to Harry Potter, an apology for the treatment of his mother, father, and Harry himself through his years at school. He confessed to telling Voldemort about the prophecy and how he was responsible for Harry's parents' death. It was long-winded, and he didn't even know if Potter was still alive after the war, but it was a starting point. He then wrote shorter letters to James Potter, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin, forgiving them for their years of bullying and apologizing for the grudge he bore long after. Then another, to Lily, the longest letter of them all with the most apologies to make. Finally, a letter to Minerva who had taken care of him through all his years at Hogwarts, both in school and after, as though he were her son, even though he was a prickly and gloomy man.

The wizard wrote one more note thereafter, to Hermione and their daughter, apologizing for his role in the war and hiding things from them. He went on to explain that he was determined to make a new life for himself, one that would allow him to be the father he never had for the daughter he had yet to meet.

He knew there was nothing to do but fold up the pages and tuck them away, as at least three of the recipients were deceased. He hoped, though, that he could at least deliver them to those who had made it out of the war alive. A visit to the graves of those that had been lost was in order for the others.

-x-

Standing over the graves of Lily and James Potter was a sobering moment, one that he hadn't expected to feel so healing. He transfigured the letter into a lily and placed it on her grave. Where once he felt an overwhelming obsession, he felt calm. She was at peace, with the person she was meant to be with. Harry was safe, so he'd heard, and the war was over. The guilt that he harboured seemed to wash away with the breeze.

Severus had spent five days in bed, resting up until he was able to safely remove the bandage around his neck. He looked less frightening and had more energy. Muriel had written to Hermione on his behalf, letting her know that he was in need of more time to rest. Today was the day that he would finally be able to see his love and their daughter as a free and repaired man.

He strode over the witch who looked at him with concern. "Are you ready to meet your daughter?" Severus linked arms with the older witch and the two apparated away to the gates of Hogwarts. The sight chipped at his resolve. A shell of the former castle laid out before him. Where once was his home seemed to stand a burial ground.

Muriel didn't spend a minute longer staring at the wreckage. Instead, she marched onward, pulling the stunned wizard along with her. "She's in the infirmary, Poppy let me know before we left." Severus wanted to run, but the rubble under his feet would surely trip him if he wasn't careful. He was able to return to his proper wizarding robes and was not about to let another set get torn up. He took a moment to reach down and check his pocket, to ensure his purchase was still on his person. Satisfied, he continued on.

Severus stood and stared at the doors to the infirmary, which seemed to remain mostly intact. The hesitation he felt tingling up his arm came from picturing Hermione's face when he would walk through the threshold. Would she smile? Cry? Would she scream and punch him? How much did she know? How much could she forgive? Dread bubbled up in his stomach and he couldn't convince himself to turn the door handle.

But it was done for him, Hermione threw open the door and stood under its archway looking up at him. There was dirt on her cheeks and her hair was a mess but pulled back off her face. A gasp left her lips before she launched herself into his arms, pulling his face to hers and kissing him forcibly. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close revelling in her scent. He bunched her t-shirt in his fist and felt a tear fall on his cheek. He genuinely couldn't tell if they were his tears or hers, but it didn't matter as he melted in her embrace.

"You're alive," she whispered against his lips.

"You're alive," he whispered back.

"Annabelle," she breathed, her eyes flying open. Hermione reached down and grabbed his hand, pulling him into the infirmary and over to a bassinette in the corner by the office. He looked down and saw a small pink infant. Her eyes were closed but she had a mess of dark curls on her head that he immediately reached out to touch. The soft texture under his rough fingers sent a jolt straight to his heart. Hermione leaned into him, looking down at their child. Slowly, Annabelle blinked open her eyes and looked up at him. He expected, for a moment, that she would scream at the sight of him, but a wide, toothless grin spread across her cheeks and she reached up to him.

Severus gladly took her into his arms and cradled her, mesmerised by her beauty. She had rolls on her arms that were stuffed through a frilly pink cotton dress. It was a hot summer day, so he imagined the outfit was cool though he worried for her exposed toes. He promptly grabbed them and gave them a little squeeze to which she squealed with delight. He felt Hermione's arms tighten around his torso and released his breath.

"Annabelle Jean Granger, meet your father, Severus Tobias Snape," Hermione laughed as Severus winced. "We'll have to change her last name now that everyone knows who her father is."

"Annabelle Jean Snape." Hermione Jean Snape, he repeated internally. "Hermione, I-" interrupted by the clatter of metal falling to the floor, Severus spun to see the hospital wing was packed with people. All sorts in bandages and braces. Madame Pomfrey was busily fluttering from one to another. Students were helping wounded teachers and Aurors were taking orders instead of barking them. Severus' breath caught in his throat as he took in the scene.

"Come with me," Hermione's soft voice broke through his daze as he felt her hand snake into his. He gripped his daughter a bit tighter with one arm as Hermione led him out of the chaos with the other. They walked towards the courtyard and sat down by the fountain. "I saw your memories, what you gave to Harry." Severus winced. "You loved her," she said, her voice nearly breaking.

"I was enamoured with her, yes, but it was not real love. Love is selfless. I wanted something in return for my affection and became bitter for it when it was not reciprocated," he assessed. His tone was hard and it took him a moment for him to finally meet Hermione's gaze. "Love is what I feel for you. Undying devotion that needs and expects nothing in return. How I feel for Annabelle," his voice fell as he looked down at his giggly daughter. Her bright brown eyes gleamed up at him and filled him with warmth.

"Love is how I feel for you, too," Hermione whispered. Severus turned his head and gingerly captured the witch's lips.

"Will you do me the honour of marrying me, Hermione Jean Granger?" He summoned the ring from his pocket, lowering himself to the concrete in front of her to ask on bended knee. Hermione's face lit up, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

"Yes, of course I will," she nodded, taking the silver ring and slipping it onto her finger. It was a simple ring, a single stone with 6 prongs and a band that wound like vines, but it suited her perfectly. She leant forward, planting a kiss on his cheeks then his mouth. "I love you, Severus," she breathed. He gripped his daughter a bit tighter, feeling her squirm in his grasp.

"I love you, Hermione," he muttered back with a chuckle. "And I love you, Annabelle." The baby girl sneezed in return. The couple giggled and Hermione bent forward to nuzzle her daughter's cheeks.

"Everyone thinks you're a hero, you know," Hermione started, sitting up and running a finger over her daughter's dark curls as Severus resumed his seat beside her on the fountain's edge. "They know how Dumbledore asked you to kill him, to spare Draco's soul. Everything you went through..."

"And yet, you are the true hero. You and your friends. Everyone who fought in the war," Severus scoffed. "I was occupied with being unconscious."

"Healing. You were almost killed." The witch's tone turned stern and he met her eyes. "If you had died, Annabelle wouldn't have her father, I wouldn't have you. You protected Harry his whole life, you protected mine. Everything you did helped us win the war, Severus. You can't be cross now that you get to enjoy your life after."

"No, you are quite right. I never allowed myself to dream about a time after the war, not fully. Never without something nagging at my mind and telling me it would never be possible." Severus let out a deep sigh. "What am I to do now that I have everything I could ever need and nothing to get in my way?"

"Kiss me," Hermione stated, a smirk playing on her lips. Severus gladly obliged, taking in every moment he could, finally allowing himself to know that it wouldn't be their last.

"I wrote you a letter, you and Annabelle. I have some for the others too, but I thought you could read yours now." The wizard summoned the piece of parchment from his pocket and handed it to her. "Perhaps I should have given this to you before asking for your hand, but you can always change your mind."

"I would never change my mind," she responded firmly. Unfolding the letter, Hermione's brows furrowed as they always did when she read and she crossed one leg over the other.

My Dearest Hermione,

I have sat here writing letter after letter to atone to those I have wronged over the years. To let go of grudges and become a better man. To become a man worthy of your love. I grew up not knowing what love was, abusing it when I received it, and never giving it correctly. I know now that love is not a thing that comes with expectations or the assumption of reciprocations. But instead, something that is given without hesitation and waiting for others to present you with love first. I understand now that the past cannot be changed and I only have control over my own actions in the present. I am resolved now to be the kind of partner and a father that I never had as an example.

When we began our tutoring sessions, the plan was already in place for me to step in and kill Professor Dumbledore, to save Draco from himself. I should have shared the plot with you. I should have protected you. Draco did more by giving you his family ring than I ever did to save you from the events that would take place. You are the brightest witch I know and you probably could have come up with a solution none of us three could see. Perhaps it would have changed things. Perhaps for the worse. I tried to convince myself that if you knew, you'd follow me after and only be put in more danger than I had already subjected you to.

But as I have said, the past is in the past and there is nothing to do about it now. I regret allowing you to live in the dark, to question yourself. I regret not being there for the birth of our daughter and not making the world safe enough to help you raise her from the beginning.

And to Annabelle. I have not met you yet, however, I find myself torn apart without you. You were brought into the world at such a dangerous time. Your parents fought to keep you safe, to allow you to be raised in a world better than we had, even if we were not there to see you enjoy it. I am glad that I lived to see this new world. I am glad your mother is alive to see it too. I hope that you will have the strength, determination, and intelligence from your mother and all her bravery. I hope, too, to impart some of my better traits upon you as well, though I am yet to find out what exactly those would be.

You both deserve better than a man who spent too much of his life pining over something he could never have, only to turn to the dark entirely in its stead. So I will be better. I promise to be better, Hermione. My love. I promise to be selfless and supportive. I promise to notice the little things and remember the important things. I promise to be there for our daughter and show her just what love is supposed to be.

Always,

Severus

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