A/N: I'm back! So sorry again! I have been busy, really really busy but I am back, I don't know for how long but I will try my best to finish this FF within this month, so wish me luck!
Hope you like the chapter and if so, please leave a comment below, you know it helps me write faster ;)
"Minerva?" Asked a worried Dumbledore, as he sat up from the couch and went to help McGonagall steady herself.
"oh, Albus, thank Merlin you are all fine," She gave a fast glance at the occupants of the room before returning her eyes back to Dumbledore.
"What happened?" Harry asked, his eyes harshened at the mere idea that somebody might have gotten hurt.
"They are gone, well, for now at least," A still breathless McGonagall whispered, "I didn't know what had happened to you. You were gone when I entered the Great Hall and everybody was sending curses here and there while Voldemort was… petrified, I suppose? I don't know who had the nerve to do that but whoever did it, has my esteem," McGonagall said as she gladly took a seat on the couch.
"I did it," She said and just then she realized how reckless she had been. She felt Severus' hand reach and grab hers. Maybe he was thinking the same thing: she had done it for him, she had risked her life for him.
McGonagall sent her a tired but proud smile before going on with her story.
"Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were attacking Slytherins when Death Eaters came in. We couldn't do much but we were able to send them away. They were too surprised to actually engage in a fight so they more or less tried to go away as undamaged as possible. The other teachers and I protected the school as soon as they were all gone. They can't come in now, at least not until they break the protection and it is going to take a while. The whole Order is already at Hogwarts. I told them, Albus, I told them you are alive," She said with a glee she couldn't hide.
"Alright, then, I think it is time we take back what is ours, shall we?" Albus said with his unwavering smile, offering his arm to Minerva as she grabbed Severus' hand harder.
She gave him a meaningful glance before apparating back at Hogwarts. She wasn't going to hide anymore. She didn't care whether the students or the other teachers were going to judge them, she had faced Voldemort, she could face her friends' judgment. He sighed and before she could actually say something, she found herself in front of the Hogwarts gates.
As soon as they were inside the hall, everybody stood up and applauded. Merlin! It was a feeling she had never experienced before and she smiled uncertainly at all that crowd. Everything was lighted and in less than an instant, the tables were filled with plates full of food. Everybody was shouting something, she couldn't hear a single voice distinctively, she just felt this big wave of happiness overwhelm her.
It took her a couple of minutes before realizing that Severus wasn't by her side anymore. She looked back and she saw him surrounded by all the students that had stayed, their eyes menacing as Severus looked at them with contempt. She left Harry and Ron take their glory as she walked back to Severus.
He looked at her with something akin to surprise before turning back with his usual theatrics, his billow following him in an airy twirl but before he could actually disappear, she ran to him and grabbed his hand.
"No!" She shouted and she regretted it the second later. Why the hell did she do that? Now everybody was looking at her, even the Headmaster had stopped his glory walk to look at her with disbelief. Damn, why she would never shout up?
"He is innocent, totally and wholly innocent. Severus Snape saved the Headmaster, he had to feign being a Death eater, he had to do whatever he did in this past month in order to save Dumbledore and all of us. I… he is part of the Order, without him the Order and Harry, Ron and I wouldn't be here today," Nobody said anything, they just made to believe her but no one asked for forgiveness for having judged that man so wrongly for so many years. Their gazes didn't become accepting but remained suspicious.
The Headmaster called the attention back by clapping his hands a couple times, he said something but she couldn't hear it, she wouldn't hear it as she kept her eyes fixed on Severus. He ducked his head down as everybody went to listen to the Headmaster's speech.
She sighed. He deserved more than that.
He was about to leave but she stopped him.
"No, don't you dare leave," She said, grabbing his hand, her ears deaf to any other sound but his voice.
"I don't belong here," He drawled and she wasn't able to catch the feeling behind those words: was he disappointed? Was he relieved? Was he sad? She couldn't tell, he had become as stoic as ever.
"Then neither do I," She said and she took his hand to lead him in the dungeons.
It was so strange, everything was so silent. She wasn't used to see Hogwarts like that. Especially the dungeons, they were empty. She could shout and nobody would hear her. She blushed as she thought that it wouldn't be necessary to use a Muffliato when they were down there.
"You should be up there celebrating with your friends," Severus said as he closed the door behind him, everything was the same as she had left it a month before. It was such a strange feeling being back there, she hadn't thought she would see this room for months and instead here she was.
"They won't miss my presence," She answered with indifference.
"Will you miss theirs?" He asked all of sudden, turning back and looking at her with such an intense gaze that she had the urge of turning away.
"No, I will meet them later, right now all I want to do is to celebrate with you this first victory," She said, as step after step she neared him. He didn't back away, he looked at her almost with superiority but she knew it was all a facade. He wasn't truly convinced of her statement but she would change his mind in a moment.
She put her hands on his shoulders. God, she had missed the chance of doing that daily. Every time they met in the cottage, they had to hurry before he went back to Hogwarts and she went back in the woods. But now they would have a full night for them and she had not intention of wasting it.
She could feel his chest move faster under her hands and she relished that sensation of power as if she had been starving for it for years. She felt free, powerful, relaxed. In that moment she didn't fear the coming days, she was there and that was enough, everything seemed enough and right. She lingered in that moment of bliss.
"I have missed you so much," She whispered with intensity, as she grabbed the collar of his coat to shed it away.
He didn't reply but she didn't care, she probably wouldn't have heard him anyway as she put all her concentration on getting him undressed.
She let her hands slide down his chest, the sensation of his black shirt under her fingers heightened the experience of touching him again after so long.
She wanted him, she wanted him so much. She needed him as if he belonged her, as if he was hers to have and do what she wanted. It was her right.
And he bore every ministration of hers. Not once he complained about the slowness of her motions, not once he tried to take over until he was almost naked, his shirt down on the floor, his belt unfastened. He took her hands so fast that she didn't see it coming. It was his turn but she growled in complain.
"Turn around" He whispered in her ear and she felt her core ignite so fast that she thought she would faint. Her heart pumped so hard.
She grabbed the back of the couch in front of her and she sighed as she felt his hands undress her with so much delicacy that for a moment she thought she had imagined it all.
And then his hands, oh his hands, touched her bare skin right at her waist, his fingers moving up and down on the nook right between her hips and her pelvis. It was one of the most erotic experience of her life.
She moved her back to prompt him to do something more than just teasing her and she heard him grunt in impatience. Merlin, how much she enjoyed making him lose his head as he did it to her.
He slapped her round cheek. He slapped her hard enough that the sound resonated in the whole room. She cried out aloud, half in surprise half in arousal. And then she felt him right at her core, teasing her.
Before he could get away again, when she felt him right at her entrance, she made the last move. And oh, finally peace. She heard him grunt in pleasure, that sweet torture finally over. She had forgotten how sadistic he could be.
She started moving backwards, getting what she wanted but he stopped her, his hands grabbing her waist with enough harshness to scratch her and damn it if she didn't like it!
"Don't move, Hermione," He warned her as he breathed fast in her ear.
He bent forward, his chest touching her back, his hands grabbing her chest as if his life depended on being attached to her. She realized it was one of the most intimate moments they had shared. He stayed for a couple of minutes, without moving at all, he lingered in that moment where they were finally united again. She felt so much tenderness towards that man. She let go of all her thoughts and she basked in that moment of bliss with him for those minutes. They deserved it, after all.
And then finally he moved again, his hips thrusting against her butt slowly. It was a new experience for her. It wasn't one of their desperate moments, where they sought each other with hunger, no, it was almost transcendental. She could feel each one of his strokes, she could feel his skin touching hers, every particle of her body was so high, so sensitive to each move.
It all lasted but a moment: all those sensations were too much to bear and in less than five minutes, she was moaning against his hand that tried to keep her upright and he followed her shortly after, his breath ragged against her back as she let herself go on the couch.
"I don't ever want to be apart from you again," She pleaded, her breath still missing.
"Neither do I," He admitted in a whisper.
They stayed in his quarters, they just moved to his bedroom and collapsed on the bed as if they hadn't slept for months. well, it wasn't that far-fetched.
As she positioned herself right by his side, her head on his chest, she briefly thought about what was going on in the Great Hall. She was surprised when she discovered that she didn't care at all about what was happening there, she wouldn't move from there in a thousand years.
"Do you want to go to celebrate with your friends?" He asked all of a sudden as if he had read her mind.
"No, not really, I prefer to stay here, with you. The mere idea of getting out of bed and facing the cold… no, thank you," She smiled, turning her head up to look into his eyes.
"They will wonder where you have disappeared," He said, as if he was tempting her to actually get up and go check upstairs how life was there. She understood in that moment that perhaps he felt guilty.
"I don't care, they will see me tomorrow morning, tonight is for us," She replied, caressing his chest.
"Severus, I don't want to be there. I really and truly don't want to be there. I am not here to keep you company or because I feel obliged to, I am here because I want to be here." For a second she wondered about something she had never considered before: was that relationship becoming too serious too fast? She was choosing him over her friends and that meant so much, too much.
"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be here, Hermione. It's happening exactly what I didn't want to happen: I am keeping you away from real life, you are here with me in a freezing dungeon instead than up there celebrating with your friends. I don't want your life to be like this and if you stay with me, you will always have to choose between this and them," He said, indicating with contempt their surrondings.
"Then you want me to be up there and feel sad all the time because I am not with you? I don't know about you but I don't think that 'celebration' means that. We can be happy, Severus, but just if we stop fighting against each other. We need to be a team," She looked straight into his eyes, trying to convey him what she felt and thought.
"You will realize some day that I am right, Hermione," He said with resignation but he tucked her back by his side and it was enough for her. She didn't have the energy to argue at the moment and in less than ten minutes, sleep took over.
When she woke up the next morning, the soft light of dawn came in through the windows. She sat up and watched mesmerized that tenuous glow she hadn't seen for a really long time. It was a normal December morning. She never thought she would ever be able to see it again.
"Severus, look at here," She said in awe but when she didn't get any reply, she turned around to see that the bed was empty. She didn't expect that. She summoned a clock to check the hour and discovered that it wasn't as early as she had thought it was. It was half past seven. They must have slept more than nine hours. God, if she hadn't needed that good night sleep! She felt refreshed and full of boundless energy.
She put something on quickly but before going upstairs and check what had happened to the rest of the world, she decided to bask in the sweet warmness of that early morning a little while longer. She sighed. She felt so peaceful and relaxed. She didn't want to go away from there. Not when she had feared she would never see these walls ever again.
For the first time after a really long time, she thought once again about her future. She imagined herself there, with Severus, with that renewed light, a world without Death-eaters and without Voldemort, a world without all that hatred and pain, where Severus and she could be together without being judged with too much harshness, where Harry didn't have to be the Chosen one but could live a normal life with Ginny, where her dearests weren't meant to die every other day. With her eyes closed, she smiled as if right there and then she was physically touching that world.
She couldn't delay that moment any longer, she had to go upstairs and tackle whatever problem would come next. perhaps, in a not too distant future, she could live in that world she had just made up in her head.
Once in the Great Hall, everything and everyone looked as if nothing had happened the previous day. Everybody was eating their breakfast and chatting over meaningless things. Had she imagined everything or was everyone pretending a normality which wasn't there yet?
Whatever the cause, she looked around in search of Severus and she spotted him with Albus at the head of the only huge table right in the center of the room.
She ignored everyone as her eyes remained fixed on her prey until she felt someone tuck at her sleeve.
"Hermione, where you rushing?" Ron said with his mouth full.
"I need to speak with the Headmaster," She cringed when she realized she had been trying to hide her actual wish to speak to Severus. Her shyness be damned.
"Right now? Come on, seat here with us, eat something, you disappeared all night yesterday and you didn't eat anything," He looked sincerely preoccupied and she couldn't not give in to those two big blue eyes that were looking at her full of carefulness
"Where have you been all night? We tried looking for you but we couldn't find you anywhere," Harry's eyes were full of suspicion and she couldn't help to duck her head down in shame.
"I was with Snape. Did you have fun?" She hadn't realized until then how famished she actually was. She felt like those two eggs were the best she had ever had in her life.
"Can we go and talk somewhere more private?" She hadn't expected that question but he didn't look angry, just curious. She nodded in silence before swallowing the last bite.
They went upstairs in their old common room, or at least it looked like that to her. She didn't belong there anymore, she felt too grown-up. She knew she wasn't that much older than one month before but still it looked to her like a lifetime had gone by. That time was over and truth be told, she couldn't imagine herself there once the war was over, if it was going to be over any time soon.
"So, Snape is actually on our side?" Harry started the conversation with all the feigned indifference he could muster.
"Yes, he is, he has always been, I have known for a while, for months now but I couldn't tell you, Harry, I had to swear not to tell you, we couldn't risk for Tom to know it," She tried to convey how much she felt sorry for those months of lies through her gaze.
"I get it, Hermione, the important thing is that we are all fine so far. I just, I didn't expect you to…befriend Snape, that's all. You looked pretty close yesterday, I was surprised. I mean, it is a lot to take in at once: Snape is not a death-eater, Dumbledore is alive, we are back at Hogwarts… I am just a bit confused. You don't have to explain if you don't want to, I am not judging you, I mean, he is good now technically, I mean he always was but now we know it," His cheeks turned red and his eyes avoided hers as his speech became so disconnected. She knew what he meant and she knew he meant well so she simply smiled and ignored his embarrassment.
"It is complicated…" She tried to say but she was stopped mid-sentence by Ron.
"Are you out of your bloody mind, Harry? She doesn't have to explain? I think she owes us a lot more than that! I mean, 'Mione, what the bloody hell? Snape? You are in love with Snape? Did you inhale too much of those fumes in the Potions classroom?" Alright, she had expected that reaction, she was definitely more surprised of Harry's reaction rather than Ron's.
"You don't know him, Ron, he is a good man, a very good man, he is not the grumpy professor we have always thought he was. It all started five months ago when I had to collaborate with him in order to find a cure for Dumbledore. You don't know what he went through for us, Ron, for us. Every time he went to Voldemort, he would come back in a way that I don't even want to describe. He was hated and is still hated by everyone but he was so misunderstood by all of us," Her eyes ignited with love, no matter how much she tried to hide all of her feelings in front of her friends.
"Maybe you have forgotten about the hell we went through because of him for six years, Hermione," He was so full of rage and then she realized something: maybe, in a not too far future, she would have to choose between Severus and Ron, in case he wouldn't come around. She knew perfectly well what choice she would make.
"Give him a chance, Ron, just give him a chance to show you who he really is. After all, it's not like we have been saints in these past six years," She reminded him with her most severe gaze.
"You are making a mistake, 'Mione, you will see," He ran out enraged. For a few minutes, Harry and she remained in an embarrassing silence.
"He will come around…sooner or later," Harry caressed her hand in solace and she felt relieved that she didn't have to hide everything from her friends anymore. It had been a hell of a month and she was exhausted by all those eternal fights. She at least wanted the confort of her friends in that moment of darkness, they all needed each other, they had to stick together or Voldemort would have an advantage on them. Everything could be said about the death eaters but not that they weren't united.
"It's just that… you know, I never really imagined Snape as a sentimental person. He certainly doesn't look like it," She saw what he meant and she couldn't help a malicious smile to appear on her lips.
"I know, but I can assure, he can be pretty sentimental, more than you think," Harry closed his eyes in horror and shook his hands in front of him.
"I don't want to know more. I'm fine about it but I don't want to know, ok?" They burst into laugh and for a moment she thought that everything was normal again or at least she had the hope that everything could get normal one day.
"Where is everyone?" They went back to the Great Hall but it looked as if the whole castle was deserted.
"I don't know, we didn't talk for more than half an hour," Not a voice nor a sound could be heard. The table was still there, perfectly laid with plenty of food and drinks, but everyone was gone. Yes, they weren't more than a fifty people at the moment but still it looked creepy.
"Let's check stair by stair and see where they are all gone," Once reached the first floor, they met Lupin with Nynphadora whispering near the headmaster's room. She knew something was off as soon as they met their gaze.
"What's wrong?" She asked in a worry.
"Snape is getting called by You-Know-Who and it isn't pleasurable. Albus and Minerva are trying to find a way to make it stop, they are evaluating the possibility of giving a Draught of the living dead in order to give him some peaceful sleep for a while. After all, he will get tired of…" But she didn't wait to hear the rest of Lupin's words.
She stormed into the room and reached the Headmaster's bedroom. As soon as she opened the door, she became oblivious of everything and everyone around her but him. He laid on the bed, his eyes shut in pain, his body shaking relentlessly.
"Hermione, you should go back in the other room, we will take good care of him," McGonagall told her with her gentlest voice. She had forgotten how soothing it was.
"No way!" She couldn't help to reply. She didn't care one bit at how downright rude she had sounded.
She looked at all those present: McGonagall, Dumbledore, Flitwick, Shacklebolt, half of the Weasley family. It was so strange to see all them there, right by Severus' bed, their eyes full of shared pain. It lifted a weight from her shoulder knowing that she wasn't the only one caring for him anymore.
"The draught of the living dead is a very dangerous and unpredictable potion, I don't think it's the wisest choice," She thought out aloud.
"What do you suggest?" Dumbledore asked and everybody turned to look at him as if he had lost his head. He trusted her.
"A bewitched sleep spell, the strong one, it is safer and less dangerous. He won't feel a thing," She went by his side and reached for his hand. It felt as if everyone had stopped breathing around her.
"Flitick, would you have the honor?" She felt her charm professor move around and lift his wand and then, finally, he was asleep. She let out a sigh of relief. She couldn't bear those moments of panic anymore, she almost longed for an enchanted sleep herself.
"You will check on him?" Dumbledore asked her with a slight smile and she nodded reassuringly.
They all turned to look at him with quizzical eyes. They looked all confused about what was happening all of a sudden and if it hadn't been for the stressing moment, she would have burst into one of her most amused laughs. They had such funny expressions.
"He is in good hands, let's go get some well deserved rest now. Goodnight, Hermione," Once the door was closed, she laid by his side, her eyelids snapping closed and it was just lunch time.
"If you don't stop getting me so much worried, I will… I don't know what I will, but I promise I will do it," She sighed and let sleep take over her.