FIRST SIGHT

by RowanRhy

"It won't be much longer, Professor and Mrs. Snape. I'm sorry I can't give you any pain potions, but it's just not safe."

Severus didn't focus on the doctor's words, only on the fingers wrapped about his own. Hermione's. Waves of pain came and went, and he rode them out with her, focusing on the feeling of her hand about his tense digits, distracting himself from his carefully hidden worry by remembering the way she looked before events transpired to ultimately bring them to St. Mungo's.

The memories went back years--to the first time he'd ever laid eyes on her. She was an annoying eleven year old with her hand in the air, desperately seeking his attention while he directed his venom at James Potter's son. As the months and years passed, he grew used to her presence in the Potions classroom, always the one with the correct answers, the top marks, and the one who was probably responsible for keeping Longbottom from destroying more cauldrons than he actually did. When she was absent from the class due to the Polyjuice Potion disaster and then the petrification from the basilisk in her Second year, he'd actually missed her. Not that he'd have admitted it back then. Grudgingly, he'd recognized a brilliant mind behind the teenager's façade, and the same sort of desire for validation and recognition that he'd always had, but would never admit--not until it had led him to make the wrong decision that had marked his life ever since.

Fortunately, Hermione had, in Gryffindor House, found friends who gave her recognition--even though, in his opinion, they never really did appreciate her as much as she deserved. She had been in no danger of seeking approbation by joining a Dark movement, and swearing oaths to evil.

He cringed mentally as he remembered the look on her face the first time she'd actually seen the Dark Mark on his forearm. A senior at Oriel University in Oxford, studying Potions, Hermione had returned to Hogwarts for a meeting with the Headmaster in connection with the fight against Voldemort, bringing ideas to combat the Unforgivables through potions. She'd inadvertently snagged his sleeve, pulling it up as she squeezed past him in a crowded corridor. The mingled horror and pity in her eyes had sent him fleeing away from her to lock himself up in his darkened chambers, hiding away from the goodness and beauty that he had finally admitted that he desired for his own, feeling totally unworthy of her.

"Severus?"

"Yes, love?"

Words he'd once found horribly terribly difficult to say to her--they now flowed from his lips with ease of mead from a bottle. The first time he'd ever said them to her was the night before Potter and the members of the Order of the Phoenix had their decisive and final confrontation with Voldemort. They'd been working non-stop for three days, finishing up the massive amounts of Nullus Cruciatus potion that they'd finally developed after four years of complex and frustrating work. When they'd finally bottled the last batch in the minutes before the golden dawn had illuminated the morning, he found himself wrapping his arm around her exhausted frame and drawing her close against his shoulder, pulling her down to sit next to him on the battered couch he used to sleep on when he was working overnight on a touchy potion. Her still-bushy hair tickled his nose as she'd snuggled in tiredly against his side, seeking warmth in the chill of the dungeon laboratory. Her arms had entwined around his waist and she relaxed against him on the verge of sleep. He'd wrapped his right arm around her shoulders, buried his face in her hair and whispered "I love you," into her left ear. Before he fell asleep from the overwhelming fatigue, he dimly heard her reply, "I love you too, Severus," and felt her lips on his cheek.

"We're almost there." The doctor's voice penetrated his musings and he inadvertently squeezed Hermione's hand, eliciting a sharp gasp from her.

"I'm sorry." He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them in further apology.

"You never did recognize your strengths, Severus." Her voice was tight with suppressed emotion, and he immediately bent over and found her lips with his own.

"Enough of that, Professor. It's time."

He obediently and nervously settled back in his chair, tilting his head back, and waited for the mediwizard to do what had to be done. Severus hadn't been this afraid when he had finally faced the fugitive Lucius Malfoy two years after Voldemort had turned to dust; nor when he'd awakened in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing afterwards, crippled by the effects of the last curse that Malfoy had flung at him before Potter had sneaked up behind the last of the Death Eaters and terminated his life with the Killing Curse.

There was the sound of quiet conversation between the mediwizard and the attending nurse as the wetness of a potion suddenly cooled the burning beneath his brows--and the pain he'd lived with for five years was gone. Then came the words. "You can look now, if you want, Professor Snape."

Severus opened his eyes and blinked away a wash of tears and the experimental Ocularis Potion as the face of his wife came into focus for the first time in five years. She appeared to be surrounded by an aura of glimmering light for a moment, before the doctor shifted the surgical lamp to a less direct angle and it only highlighted the mop of brown curls instead of being a dazzling glare in his restored vision. The mediwizard silently urged the nurse through the door, leaving them alone.

"You cut your hair."

"Oh, Sev--" Her hand squeezed his once more and she laughed at his surprised comment.

Her face was wet, he saw, and she smiled tremulously at him before a whimpering cry drew her attention down to the infant that was cuddled to her breast with her right arm. Severus followed her gaze and sucked in a breath as he saw his daughter for the very first time as she pulled crankily away from Hermione's breast. A drop of bluish-white milk trembled on the rosebud lips, and her face screwed up in annoyance at the interruption of her meal. Her eyes were squinched shut as she began to howl, and he could see that she had, mercifully, inherited her mother's nose.

"Here, Severus. Hold Olivia." Hermione passed the grumpy child over to him and fiddled with her robes, tactfully ignoring the tears that were trickling down his face as he finally saw the demanding, beautiful child that was the product of his and her love.

He ran a fingertip gently down her delicate cheek to her lips, halting the crying, and causing her to open her plum-coloured eyes to stare up at him in surprise. "She does have my mother's eyes." He looked up at Hermione. "I never dreamed that I'd ever get to see her. Or see you again.

Together, they rediscovered their daughter, Hermione pointing out birthmarks, and Severus looking at each and every feature that he'd heretofore only known through touch and hearing. He knew that there was a whole world to re-explore, but for now, he was satisfied to keep his newly reopened eyes on the two loves of his life.

FINIS

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was initially started to be an answer to the WIKTT Challenge "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" where Severus gets to hold his child for the very first time. I was all prepared to have the required panic, Hermione cursing him out and threatening bodily harm, and the cliche'd "miracle of life" comment.. .but my muse had a totally idea in her head. Who am I to challenge my muse? This is the second draft of the story as the first version was apparently confusing to some of the initial readers. Thanks for the constructive criticism! You can learn about WIKTT at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whenikissedtheteacher