3
Heart don't fail me now.
Courage don't desert me.
Don't turn back now that we're here.
People always say.
Life is full of choices.
No one ever mentions fear.
(Anastasia)
She walked up the drive to the last emergency safe haven that Ron, Harry, and her decided they would keep just in case they would have to continue to be on the run for a long period. The tent was good for what it was but if this had lasted longer they would have had to get a more permanent residency.
So, after deleting herself out of her parent's life, she took most of the money from the sale of their business and house and gave it to Monica and Wendell Wilkins to use in Australia. Some of the money she took and bought a little house on top of a high Scottish hill in the middle of nowhere, rolling green was all that was to be seen.
It was a three bedroom, one bathroom, with a tiny utilitarian kitchen, and a basement. In the living room there were a lot of empty bookshelves that she had planned to fill. But as she walked closer, she knew that she had a Severus to save.
Putting her wand to the doorknob and turning she entered her house and found... a whole lot of nothing. Severus Snape was not in the living room. The kitchen. The dining room. He was nowhere downstairs. With quick strides Hermione ran up the stairs and looked in the closest bedroom (the one that was going to be Ronald's) and still did not see him. Suddenly, she heard a noise out of the middle of the upstairs rooms (funnily enough Harry's room.)
Going into the room Hermione was happy to see the Professor half hanging off of the unmade bed. She came up fast to his side and looked him over to see if anything horrendous had happened to his wound since she had sent him off with the Portkey. Everything was still terribly raw and red, but the wound itself was beginning to close around the edges. Noting his pallor, she decided that he was in need of another blood replenisher. She rummaged around in her bag with the Undetectable Extension Charm on it and retrieved another vial of the potion. She watched him closely as he took the potion and color returned to his face. He stared her down momentarily before asking, " Miss Granger, may I use your wand?" She nodded and fished her wand out of her pocket. Quickly he moved his wrist, flicking her wand of he body, paying close attention to his healing throat.
"Please sit back against the bed frame. I am aware that the battle just ended and you are here attending to me instead of attending to yourself." With a few sputtering sparks flew from her wand and he whispered a diagnostic spell and looked at the results.
"Did you eat at all during your time on the run, girl?" He snarled at her. She saw the diagnostic reading and it wasn't anything that she wouldn't have been expecting. "I don't know, Sir. Did you?" She snarked back with equal amounts of worry and vitriol. He was incredibly thin and pale. But, there he sat with mouth agape. Hermione thought for a moment and couldn't believe that she had just said that to someone with so much authority and someone she risked literally fraying time to save. "I'm sorry, Sir. I…" But, she was caught off guard when he started laughing. He raised a hand to his neck and in a deep baritone he was laughing.
Hermione never thought that she would see the day when Severus Snape laughed at a student being snarky back to him. Hell, she never thought she would see him laugh. Something strange in that moment happened between the two of them, both weary and worn, sat in the unused bed of the unused house and laughed.
Over the next few hours the two of them didn't do anything. They sat on the unmade bed in an empty house without saying a word. Everything in the world was weird; Severus was alive, Voldemort was gone, Harry was safe, and Hermione was sitting in a bed with her Potion's Professor. Breaking the silence she spoke softly, "What am I supposed to do now?" He turned to her, raising an eyebrow critically, "Whatever do you mean Ms. Granger?"
"What am I going to do? I didn't expect to live this out any more than you did truthfully… I am the Mudblood best friend of Harry Potter. I am lucky if I still don't die from Bellatrix's bloody carving job… What. Am. I. Supposed. To. Do?" With a huff he looked over at her with somewhat sad eyes, "Ms. Granger,"
"Call me Hermione, I did save your life."
"...Hermione. You realize that the Ministry will likely give you any position you want. If that isn't what you want to do you can always sit your NEWTs at the Ministry." She sat there and listened to him talk as she started wracking her own brain with ideas. "That sounds to be the better idea for me." She paused and took a breath, "I don't think I would enjoy going back to Hogwarts after all of the destruction that I witnessed. I have always wanted to do something like teaching. Charms. I would like to teach Charms."
"Why did you save me?" Severus quickly stated after a brief period of silence. "Harry told us some of what was in your memories. I could not have just let you die, not after hearing a little bit of what you did to save everyone." She spoke quickly, "Once I figured out that I was going to go back in time to save you, that I was going to turn time, I decided that you weren't going to be the only one that I was going to save. In for a penny and all of that."
"Who all did you save?"
"Fred Weasley, Nymphadora and Remus Lupin, and Colin Creevey. Those are the ones I know for sure other than yourself."
"Was it worth it?"
"What, saving you? Absolutely. No one deserves to die the way that you did Professor Snape, no one. You were alone and yet you were on our side the entire time." She thought that it was strange that they were sitting here with no cares in the world and talking amicably. "You know I always looked up to you. You were so precise with everything and Potions is like the best of medicine combined with cooking. I bet you have a deft hand at cooking. Even when Ron and Harry thought you were evil, I was on your side. Some part of me is quite fond of the fact that I can now tell the two of them, 'I told you so.'" She laughed slightly.
"I am a pretty decent chef. You will not speak a word of this to anyone. But, for one Christmas as a kind of joke gift, Minerva gave me a voucher to a Muggle cooking class, it was quite enjoyable." He said with a wry grin, "I happened to cook her the trifle we learned in the desert course for her at one point. She believed it was the house elves."
"I love trifles, let's say you owe me some once we have you healed to your fullest."
"I owe you my life, not a sweet."
She chuckled lightly when a white glowing stag entered the room. "Hermione, where are you at!?" Harry's voice trembled out of the stag.
"I have to go. Would you like to come with me? Harry's probably already told everyone he could that you are on our…" Snape cut her off, "And even if he didn't I would still come and face the wrath of everyone I caused to distrust me. I will be going with you." They sat there for a moment before the both of them stood up, Snape (still holding her wand) cast a generalized cleansing spell on both of them, setting their robes straight.