A/N: Thanks again to TheFrenchPress for the photos.
CW: This chapter gets a little bit dark for Hermione emotionally and refers to mental health and infant death. Please be kind to yourself if this is not for you.
Fall carried on.
The nights got longer and Hermione found herself sitting in front of the fire in her kitchen stove more and more often. She watched the tiny embers burning, sifting through memories.
She found it was easiest to focus on her past when she was watching something else combust. There was something soothing about the natural cycle of destruction.
Severus had not been around for several weeks. She wondered if he had finally gotten tired of showing up unannounced in her lab. Or perhaps had finally moved somewhere else.
Or maybe he was just punishing her for what she did seven years earlier. But she didn't think so.
There was a familiar quality about their time in a shared space. Even when they weren't speaking as he watched her place samples under a microscope, it was comfortable.
It reminded her of the way he used to look at her when she was mixing potions ingredients as his apprentice. Of the way his mouth curved up at the edges when she mastered a new potion.
Of the one hug they'd shared.
The single kiss.
It had been glorious. Passionate. Life-affirming.
She wished she could take it back.
No, that wasn't true.
She wished she had waited until she had finished her apprenticeship to make her feelings known. She wished that he were emotionally equipped enough to have handled the situation better. That he hadn't shunned her. That they had had a discussion. That she knew how he felt. That they'd waited.
It didn't seem like he had started a life with someone else in the last seven years, but she supposed it didn't look like she had either. What did she have to show for it? A failed marriage and a late daughter.
She curled her knees further up under her chin in front of the fire and wept.
A/N: I promise the next chapter will be a little lighter.