A Rose By Any Other Name.
By Kes.
Disclaimer: As normal I don't own it.
Hermione was a little depressed for a few days after the visit to her mothers' grave, as expected. The others gave her a little distance as hinted by Severus through Harry through a glare during class.
Severus had managed to slip the two of them to Hogsmede a few of times in the past fortnight. Finally, a perk of me being a loner, and Hermione being a bookworm...
They went out every few nights to various places, Severus mercifully went unrecognised.
Severus pulled out of the chair "madame?" He said playfully. Hermione grinned and cocked an eyebrow "mademoiselle". She smiled and sat down.
"Oh! Of course, I'm sorry 'mademoiselle'."
They went to a variety of restaurants in Hosmede and beyond. They occasionally went to somewhere 'muggle'. Each time, however, Severus paid.
They ended each 'date' by slipping to Hermione's room via Harry's invisibility cloak that he had let her borrow – by this time knowing full well why. Each time Severus was exceedingly formal and raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Hermione was in heaven.
The last date however, went a little differently.
"Do you - do you want to come in?" Hermione blushed slightly.
"All right." He smiled gently sensing his own nervousness reflected in her voice.
She cleared her throat nervously, and opened the door to her rooms. They were decorated in light blues and pinks...hardly any red.
She sat down at her desk and indicated for him to do the same, he sat whilst she conjured some coffee how cliché…
"So..."
"So..."
Hermione smiled.
He looked at her intensely, his obsidian eyes boring into her with a fierceness that she had never encountered.
"Can I ask you something?" She looked at him nervously.
He looked curiously at her and raised an inquisitive eyebrow, signalling that she could continue.
Hermione looked at her hands, unable to meet his eyes. "Why did Madame Pomfrey say that you would be able to understand what I'd...been through...better than everyone else?" She looked up from her hands to see him staring at her again. He sighed deeply.
"Hermione, you know for a fact that I do not divulge that kind of information in just anyone...however, I feel I must admit that you are not 'just anyone'." She smiled at him.
He inhaled deeply and began his story: "Ever since I can remember, my father used his wand more often on me than on anything else in the house. If something went wrong at work, it was Severus' fault, if my dad's stocks in something went down, it was my fault, if the Dark Lord was displeased, it was my fault. And he'd always turn on me.
My first real memory was when I was about four. I heard my mother scream and then there would be a pale blue light and it would hit me on the shoulder. It hurt, I cried for hours afterwards.
My father would go away for days on end, and turn up unexpectedly. This was years before Voldemort's first rising, before I joined. My mother decided that my life at school would be hard - and she was right - and so she taught me half of what I needed to know for my entire education before I even went. I couldn't get a wand, but I knew the theory behind all of them. My love was potions, naturally. I could do almost anything my mother put in front of me. It was magic, but this type was legal for me to do."
He looked at Hermione and looked at her, as though gaining strength from her awed silence.
"Quidditch was brilliant as well. I learned how to play as a chaser, and I was able to fly practically before I could write. In my slightly later years prior to Hgowarts, I'd fly for hours on end, within my father's sight - it was safer that way - loving the feeling of the wind in my hair, the exhilaration of the air in my face, having to constantly control the broom.
In my years at Hogwarts, I slowly realised my fate. A Death Eater. In a way, I wasn't surprised. I wanted to. If it made my life easier, if it meant my father wouldn't aim his wand threateningly at me every time I sneezed." He shivered involuntarily at the memory, a momentary weakness.
"In my 6th year, on my 17th birthday, I was summoned by my father to Hogsmede, with a...I hesistate to use the word friend...more an 'acquaintance'...Malfoy senior. He was a Death Eater. He was here to make sure I did the job.
The Dark Lord didn't intimidate me. I didn't even flinch when the scalding hot iron seared my tender flesh on my arm, brandishing me forever. I didn't feel it because I was numb. I couldn't feel anything at all."
Hermione clasped his hand in hers, silently from across the table, not wanting to stop his monologue that must pain him to tell her.
"On the holiday between sixth and seventh year, I went home, as usual, but my father seemed to be annoyed with me to an extreme. I lived in permanent fear, every time I moved a muscle - and every time I didn't - he'd crucio me.
One day, in the middle of the holidays, he tried to use a new spell he'd been devising. Only this time, it hit the wrong target. My mother, fed up with the constant beatings of her only son and to herself by her supposedly loving husband was too much to bear.
She blocked the curse. She died instantly. I was the last thing she saw. She was smiling at me, a sad smile.
That's why I don't like 'foolish wand waving'.
For a few years, I decided to try and work the Death Eaters, try and break them down from the inside. My father somehow managed to convince the authorities that my mother died due to a 'terrible accident'. My father was killed my Lord Voldemort two years after my final year.
The Dark Lord tried to see me suffer with a crucio curse. I felt nothing. I think he was threatened by my lack of feeling. He tried to kill Lily. Potter's mother. When he did that, I went to Dumbledore.
I told him of my inner dealing with the Death Eaters, and of the threat to Lily. He took me in and asked me to work as a spy. And I did, until the day of Voldemort's demise."
He looked up from their intertwined hands, seeing Hermione's tear-glistened eyes. Her lip was quivering, attempting not to cry. She said nothing, so Severus got up slowly.
He knelt down by her chair. "I know what you are going through. I can help you through this, okay?"
"No."
He looked slightly shocked.
She gently pushed him slightly out of her way and knelt beside him quietly. "We can help each other." She smiled, unshed tears glistening.
Two sets of eyes stared at each other for what seemed to be an eternity. Slowly and hesitantly, Severus broke the gap between them and kissed her.
A sympathetic kiss soon escalated into a passionate embrace, although not quite comfortable with them both kneeling on the floor.
Severus quickly dragged them both up off the floor and began kissing Hermione's neck and caressing the bare skin behind her ear and moved his hand so that he could smell her hair, she smiled into his chest and dragged his head towards her own.
"No." Severus stopped abruptly, becoming increasingly aware of the fact that his hand was slowly making its own way towards the buttons on her blouse.
"I can't take advantage of you in this state, Hermione. You'd never forgive me, and I know for a fact that I'd never be able to forgive myself. I think it would be best if I left you for tonight." He smiled down at her, eyes blazing with his illicit passion for her, carefully glazed with something resembling control.
Hermione looked at him, almost pleadingly. "No. Please, stay - " He began to protest. " - Hear me out Sev. I want you to stay and sleep with me..." She blushed. "Um...in the same bed, but not...you know...not just yet anyway." She grinned and went to the bathroom to get changed, leaving a shocked Severus Snape in her wake.
'Sev'? What kind of name is that?