Severus woke Hermione up with a kiss. "Good Morning, love. Did you sleep well?" said Severus. "Better than I have in ages, thank you, for everything." "You don't have to thank me, I should be thanking you for just letting me be there for you. You could have pushed me away and then I don't know what I would have done. I love you." Hermione smiled, "I love you, too. More than anything, I love you." "Hermione, I'm sorry, but I need to go out. I have an appointment that I really can't break. Are you going to be alright here by yourself, I could always find someone to stay with you..." "Severus, I think I can last awhile without somebody by my side. I have been selfish keeping you so busy; I should have realized that you have things to do. Go ahead to your appointment. I'm just going to go back to sleep for a while; I'm still a little tired." He still looked a little unsure. "Go, I'll be fine." "Okay, I won't be gone for long. The house elves will bring up some breakfast for you when you wake up again. See you soon," said Severus, and he apparated to his office.
At the office, Severus began setting up everything for the plan; he didn't want anything to go wrong. Harry soon arrived at the office, as well. "Hello professor, how have you been? And if you don't mind me asking, what is this all about? The letter you sent me was very vague but since you said it was urgent, I decided to come," Harry said as soon as he entered the room. "I'm sorry I had to be so vague, but I still can't tell you much, it's not my place. What I can say is that Draco has done something awful." Harry snorted. "No Harry, it is much worse than anything he has done before. I can't tell you who he did it to but it was someone very close to both of us, someone who never deserved to have something like this happen to her. Did you bring the cloak? All you need to do is stand in the corner of the room and place a recording spell while Draco is here talking. This plan will require some acting on my part, but I think I will be able to manage. Oh, and you don't have to call me professor anymore, I should think that we have both grown enough to be able to call each other by our first names, okay?"
"Sure, umm, Severus," Harry said, a little confused about why Snape was being so nice to him all of a sudden. "But one thing that has been bothering me, how do you know about my invisibility cloak?" "Harry, think, who owned it before you? When you father was in the Order, it would sometimes come in handy for getting by unnoticed." "Oh," was all that Harry said. It was somewhat disconcerting for him to hear Snape, or rather, Severus, talk about his father without any hint of disdain. Perhaps he had "grown", and for the better.
"Okay, here he comes; I can see him out the window. Get into the corner and put the cloak on. Now I warn you, you are going to be surprised by what you see and hear. It is also more than likely that you will be furious once you hear what he has to say, but you have to remember that by doing this we are doing all that we can legally do to him." "Right, don't worry, I won't mess this up."
Harry had just made it to the corner and pulled the invisibility cloak on when a knock came from the door. Severus answered it and pulled a false smile onto his face. "Why Draco, come in. It has been a long time since our last session. I'm sorry it has been so long but I was quite sick and needed some time to recover." A look of genuine concern crossed Draco's face. "You were ill? I'm so sorry, if I had known I would have visited you. You are feeling better now, I hope." "Yes, much better, thank you."
They chatted for a little bit before Severus's plan really began. He stood up and turned around; pretending to shuffle some papers on his desk, he muttered a dry mouth spell and then put the papers back. They talked a while longer when Severus said, "If you'll excuse me, all this talking has made me thirsty. I'm going to get some water from the kitchen down the hall. Would you like anything?" "You know, all of a sudden I'm my mouth feels so dry, I would love a glass of water, thank you." Severus left and soon returned with a glass of water for himself and another glass containing water and undetectable truth serum. Draco quickly finished the entire glass and the questions began.
Draco had soon told everything that had happened. All the horrid details came out. He went over everything that had been said and how she had tried to fight him. He lingered on how it had felt to be inside her while watching any hope of getting away, of being saved from the nightmare, fade from her eyes. He loved the fact that he had broken her spirit. After all was said, he just sat there and laughed.
That was all Harry could take, throwing aside the cloak he pulled out his wand and pointed it directly at Draco. Seething, all he had time to do is sputter, "You, you..." before Severus grabbed hold of him. "Harry," he hissed, "remember what I said. I know exactly how you feel. I wanted to kill him when Hermione first told me, believe me, I would still like to kill him, but that is not what Hermione wants. She just wants this to be over; she doesn't even know I'm doing this. If one of us hurts him that would mean jail time and what he has done would most likely be overlooked. I promise, he'll do worse in jail and with this evidence he will surely be convicted. Don't hurt him, just arrest him. That is why I asked you to do this, so that someone from the ministry with power will have heard the truth."
Harry, now calmer, decided that Severus was right. Magically binding Draco, Harry read him his rights, which are quite a bit different than muggle rights. After apparating him to the nearest wizarding holding prison and filling out the necessary paperwork, Harry went to Severus's house to see Hermione.
While Harry was taking Draco to prison Severus walked back to the house, stopping on the way to buy flowers for Hermione and a bottle of wine for Harry. As soon as he entered the house, Hermione, beaming, came running to meet him. "I'm so happy you're home. Ron got here right after you left! He won't tell me where Harry is, but he did say you were the reason for the unexpected visit. Thank you so much! So, do you know where Harry is?" "The meeting I had been with Harry, we had something important to do that I need to talk to you about. He is just finishing that up and then he will get here. We have to talk before Harry gets here; could you go and tell Ron that I said hello and ask him to excuse us for a minute. I am going to go and put the flowers in a vase and you can meet me in the kitchen, okay?" "Sure, be there in a minute," she said, wondering what sort of meeting he would have been having with Harry. 'Doesn't he hate Harry; well, then again I used to think he hated me, too.' she thought.
Telling Ron that she would be back soon, she went in the kitchen and found Severus putting the tea kettle on the stove. "Hey handsome, what did you want to talk about that was so important?" asked Hermione, wrapping her arms around him. "Well, I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll begin by telling you that Harry knows about what happened. I'm sorry, I didn't want him to find out, but he had to know for my plan. You see, although you said that you just wanted everything to be over, I had to finish it and see that the slime that did this to you was a least put in jail." He told her everything that had happened and was ready to hear her say that she had wanted it to be over and he should have just left everything alone, but all she did was let out a sigh of relief.
"Severus, I can't thank you enough. I had changed my mind, I want him in jail. I just wasn't sure how to make anyone believe me and then you go and do all the work for me; I didn't even have to talk to him. Also, I wanted Harry to know, and Ron too. I just don't want to talk about it and didn't know how to tell them. Do you think that you could tell Ron for me, also? I'll try to answer their questions but I don't think I could tell either of them outright." "I would do anything for you. Just wait in here and I will come get you once I finish telling Ron all I know," he said, kissing her on the head.
After a while Severus came back into the kitchen to get Hermione and the tea. Just as they entered the sitting room with the tea and biscuits, there came a loud pop; Harry had arrived. He rushed over to Hermione and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Hermione, are you okay? I just, I dunno, I just wish I could have done something," said Harry, taking a step back from her. "Harry, you don't know how much you've already done by just arresting him. And as for being okay, well, I am fine physically but it will be a long time before I am alright mentally. I am getting better and better every day though; thanks to Severus. He is the only reason I'm able to do anything. If it weren't for him, I would never be able to get out of bed in the morning or do anything to take care of myself," she replied as she glanced at the man by her side.
Now Ron spoke up, "If it were up to me I'd kill Draco in an instant. Why in Merlin's name are you letting him off so easy?" "Ron," said Hermione in an exasperated tone of voice, "if any of you hurt him you would be in trouble and that is the last thing I want, Severus told you that." "But still, it just not fair." "Nothing about this has been fair, Ron," said an angry Severus, "and you're right, Draco does deserve a punishment worse than prison, but there is nothing we can do about it."
Everyone sat down and had tea while Hermione and Severus answered the rest of the other couple's questions, most of which were about their relationship. Both were amazed that Hermione would have actually chosen to be with Snape, as they couldn't help but think of him. After all the questions were answered they spent the rest of the time chit chatting. The time to leave came too soon for all of them. Harry and Ron were just about to use the floo to get back home when Severus remembered the wine he got for Harry. "Hermione, would you terribly mind getting Harry's gift? I just have one thing that I want to tell Harry and Ron before they go."
After Hermione went to get the wine, Harry asked what Severus wanted to tell them. "I just wanted to let you know that I will never hurt her and, as much as I am able, never let her be hurt again." "You know," Harry said, "somehow I already knew that." "Yeah, you're not half bad," Ron said, "I really never would have guessed Hermione would have ever been with you though, no offense." "None taken, I never would have thought she would even give me a second glance. I love her more than anything."
"Hope it's me you're talking about, Sev," said Hermione, having heard the last part of what he said. "Who else would I be talking about, you're my everything." he said taking her into his arms, "Thank you for getting the wine for me. Harry, this is for you for helping me put Draco behind bars." "Really, you didn't have to get me something. I would have done anything to help, but thank you, nonetheless. I will save this for when we celebrate after the trial, for I'm sure that we will be the ones doing the celebrating," said Harry. Everyone said their good-byes and promised to visit each other in England soon.