She hadn't meant to fall out of love with Ronald Weasley. Not really.
But Hermione had been at Hogwarts teaching, while he had been busy with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It caused the cracks and problems in their relationship to become exposed, eroding it in the same way desert sands would wear away the surfaces of great monuments. They had always fought, but their rows grew colder and took longer to recover from, and there was always a note of displeasure and resentment from Ron whenever she so much as mentioned her friend and colleague, Severus Snape.
It wasn't as though she had meant to fall out of love with Ron. Just as she hadn't meant to fall in love with Severus.
It wasn't as though Severus had pursued her; in fact, he had been rather cold and distant with her when she had first joined the staff. She'd spent the first six months of working with him trying to get him to take her seriously as both a colleague and an adult. The rest of that first year of teaching was spent enjoying having a friend who appreciated literature and learning to the degree that she did.
It wasn't that Ron was unintelligent or didn't read; they simply didn't have a lot of crossover interests and their shared history and friendship would only carry them so far. He actually hadn't been a terrible boyfriend to her at all. Time and distance drove a wedge between them, and she'd known for certain at the end of the summer that followed her first year of teaching that she'd completed the process of falling out of love with Ron and falling totally in love with Severus.
It wasn't anyone's fault that things had happened the way they did; at least not in reality.
But if anyone had flipped to page five of the Daily Prophet, they might have assumed otherwise. Rita Skeeter had taken great delight in painting her as the heart-breaking banshee who had crushed her famous former paramour. She'd lost count of how many Howlers she'd received berating her on Ron's behalf from numerous self-righteous strangers. It seemed the news correspondent was still bent on ruining her good name.
Concerned that she'd only been dragging him down with her, Hermione had stayed away from Severus, keeping their contact outside of mealtimes at a minimum when school had resumed. Though neither one had admitted outright to having feelings, she'd made the executive decision not to do anything about it – not while everything had been still so raw and fresh with Ron.
Two months into that school year, Severus finally confronted her, noting that her behaviour had been strange and she'd been distant. He'd barged right into her office after dinner one evening, catching her off guard, and demanding to know why she suddenly avoided him at every turn and barely spoke to him. It shouldn't have surprised her that he had realised Skeeter's article had affected her. Hermione had stood there in silence, staring at the floor in the hopes it would swallow her up so she wouldn't be forced to admit to him that she was in love with him.
Some Gryffindor she was.
'Why are you avoiding me?' His voice rang out in the silent room.
'Just leave it alone, Severus,' she said, wrapping her arms around herself and turning to look out the window. 'Stop prodding at it. It's too delicate––'
Severus had entered her office without so much as a knock. She felt backed into a corner, unable to escape him as he stood blocking the only exit to the room.
'This is about Weasley, isn't it?'
She spun around. 'What?'
'I heard that–' Severus paused, his lips pressing into a thin line. 'I thought you had ended things with the youngest Weasley boy.'
'I did,' Hermione answered, still confused.
'Are you experiencing… regrets?' he asked quietly, his dark eyes searching her face.
'No!' she said without hesitation. 'Not at all.'
'I thought that–' Severus shook his head and looked away from her. 'It doesn't matter.'
Hermione frowned at his sudden withdrawal. He was the one who had followed her into her office and started asking questions. She hadn't asked for this. As he turned to make his way back to the door, she lunged forward, putting a hand on his shoulder.
'Stop,' Hermione told him. Gentling her voice and touch, she said, 'Why did you come here?'
His shoulders sagged as he expelled a deep sigh on his outward breath. 'Because, witch,' he groused as he turned back to face her, his voice filled with impatience. 'I was under the impression that there was a shift in dynamics between us, and that this was at least partially to blame for the end of your relationship.'
'It wasn't the reason,' she assured him. 'There was a lot more to it than that. It wasn't just this–' she gestured between them, '–that caused my relationship with Ron to fail. We didn't have enough in common, our work kept us apart. And you––that I've come to appreciate you beyond the capacity of friend was just another reason it would not have been fair to continue with that relationship.'
Severus' eyes widened almost imperceptibly at her confession. If she hadn't been standing right before him, eyes fixed to his expression, she might have missed it altogether. A small smile lifted the corners of her mouth. It had been so long since the last time she had cause to smile that the expression felt unnatural to her.
'You can't take the blame for Ron and I not being right for one another, Severus,' she told him seriously.
His eyes darted back up to hers and she caught the small tremble of his lips as he fought off a smirk. 'What now?' he asked.
Hermione shrugged, dropping her arms to her sides. 'I'm not really sure.'
'Would you like to continue to turn a blind eye to whatever this is?' Severus gestured between them this time.
Shaking her head, she took a step towards him to close the distance between them. 'I don't think I can now,' she said, chuckling. 'Nor do I want to.'
'Then I suppose there is only one solution,' he drawled, outright smirking now.
'And that is?'
'I suppose I ought to ask you to go out to dinner?'
Her smile widened further. 'I suppose I ought to accept.'
He smiled then, and the sight of it nearly took her breath away as her heart began to hammer away in her chest frantically. 'Hermione?'
'Hmm?' she hummed in response.
'I'm going to kiss you,' he warned.
'Oh!' she exclaimed softly. 'Well, I'm hardly going to complain if you do.'
'Good.'
His lips against hers were firm but gentle, and she locked away the memory of it so that she could replay it over in her mind at a later date.
That memory never failed to bring a smile to her face, and now, three years later, Hermione looked back on it fondly, grateful that Severus had not allowed her to berate herself endlessly for hurting Ron – that Severus had been brave.
However, it wasn't until that morning over breakfast that she had truly been able to forgive herself for not being able to love Ron the way he had been in love with her for so long. In fact, it wasn't until she had opened up her Prophet that morning that she had been able to forgive herself. The newspaper had printed a photo of Ron and Lavender Brown sitting across from one another at a cafe. Apparently they were having a slow news week, so one-third of the Gryffindor trio on what appeared to be a friendly coffee date was newsworthy. In the photo, Ron was smiling and laughing at the lovely blonde woman in the photo with him. He hadn't looked at her that way since the first year of their relationship.
Hermione smiled and shook her head, closing the paper and folding it in half before tossing it back onto the table so she could turn her attention to breakfast.
'Nothing interesting in the paper?'
She looked up from her food and saw Severus buttering a piece of toast nonchalantly. 'Not really,' Hermione answered.
'I saw the article about Mr Weasley and Miss Brown,' he drawled.
'When did you––' she began before abruptly cutting herself off as realisation dawned on her. 'You already read the paper.'
It was a statement, not a question. 'Yes,' he replied smugly.
She might have been naive enough to ask when he'd found the time in the past, but she knew better by now. He was an early riser, much to her chagrin. It was often to her benefit––he would always shower first in the morning and the temperature and tiles in the bathroom would always be warm. He would also often greet her in the morning with a mug of tea in bed, spoiling her by bringing fresh apricot scones for her on weekends, and he never chided her even when the crumbs got through their sheets.
'What do you think, then?' she asked him.
'About Weasley?' he replied.
'Mmm,' she hummed as she took a bite of her own toast.
'I can't say I have an opinion on the matter,' he said with a lazy smirk. Although Severus had come to accept her continuing friendship with the Weasleys and Harry, she knew he was still not overly fond of Ron. 'And you?'
Hermione shrugged. She hoped that Ron was happy, even if they weren't that close any more. If the photo in the paper had been anything to go by, she rather thought he might be on the way to becoming happy again.
'I supposed I don't really have an opinion either,' she answered finally.
Severus steadily pushed down on the coffee press before pouring them both a mug of the dark, rich brew, adding a splash of milk to hers before he addressed her again. 'He deserves to be happy.'
Hermione smiled at him, her cheeks smarting from how wide it was. 'He does.'