Chapter Thirty-One: Nasturtiums

Hermione struggled to open her eyes; her eyelids were impossibly heavy. She felt like she had been run over by the Knight Bus. A glance at her wristwatch told her it had only been two hours since she was knocked out; it was fortunate she stopped herself from drinking the entire Dreamless Sleep. There was silence around her. She had been placed in a bed in the Great Hall, amongst many rows of bed. Madam Pomfrey and others were still treating the injured and cursed.

Hermione struggled to sit up and noticed with relief that her beaded bag was still attached to her belt, and the wand she had been using was still up her sleeve.

Quietly, as not to disturb the people sleeping around her, Hermione slipped out of her bed, silently making her way out of the Great Hall. Her breath hitched as she came across a cloth-covered body guarded by Remus. She could feel a breakdown coming from the thought that Harry was—but Severus needed her, and she didn't have time to think about the fact that she couldn't save her best friend.

Testing a theory, she Apparated when she had just left the castle. The wards were still down. Smoke clung heavily to the school grounds, broken through with flashes of spell-fire, but Hermione was beyond caring about what happened in battle anymore.

She landed in the Shrieking Shack with a soft pop and found Severus almost exactly as she had left him. Still exhausted but marginally better after her nap, she used up all of her reserve energy to Apparate them to St Mungo's.

"I need a healer," she screamed as she took in the scene of chaos that was the accident and emergency receiving area. There were scores of injured, from both sides of the war, and harried healers attempting to triage and keep the bleeding to a minimum.

Almost immediately, two green-robed healers took in her blood stained robes and the corpse-like man beside her.

"Y-you're Hermione Granger," one of them stuttered. "You're wanted by the Ministry," he said, voice nearly cracking. Hermione resisted the urge to scream again.

"Haven't you heard? Thicknesse was a puppet of You-Know-Who, and everything he's passed into law is currently under review," the grey-haired woman beside him said irritably. "Honestly, it's probably going to be weeks before we know which one of the two is the wanted person, if we even get there." The healer looked pointedly at Severus Snape.

"I don't care if either one of us is wanted by the Ministry, you are healers, you will do your job, and I have a man who needs healing. I have spent the last months of my life taking down Voldemort, and so help me if—"

"Miss Granger," the woman with the bound-up grey hair interrupted. "First of all, congratulations for taking down You-Know-Who. Healer Smythe-Smith and I will see to your...companion's healing immediately, and you may wait in the waiting room while we work. It's currently unclear who is wanted by the Ministry right now, and we are healers, not law enforcement," she finished, gentling her voice.

"Do you know anything that might help? With the patient, I mean?" healer Smythe-Smith asked, face flushed from being interrupted.

Hermione took in a shuddering breath and felt the adrenaline leave her body. She had been prepared to fight for Severus' right to sanctuary, but of course St Mungo's was a neutral entity.

"He's been bitten by a very large snake. Nagini. You-know—Voldemort's snake. Arthur Weasley was bitten by the same snake before," she said. "I tried to stitch his wounds shut with the usual spells as well as a spell of his own creation, but nothing was working. And he's had a dose of Draught of Living Death." Hermione twisted her fingers together. "I didn't know what else to do."

"Thank you," the older healer said. "That was probably the best under the circumstances. We need to begin healing him as soon as possible, as the Draught of Living Death does not produce a perfect stasis.

"Alright Smythe-Smith, let's take the patient into room 213," she said, conjuring a stretcher and levitating Severus' body onto it. There was a small trail of blood left behind on the ground, which caused Hermione's stomach to clench with fear. Without another word, the healers left her, and Hermione followed at an awkward pace until they reached an operating room.

With nothing to do, she slumped against a wall on an uncomfortably hard chair, and dozed while she waited for Severus' surgery to finish. While she dozed, she could hear the conversation of the healers and their assistants in a low murmur. She tried to focus on conversations near room 213, but nothing stuck out.

Eventually, she heard a cough. It was healer Smythe-Smith.

"Miss Granger, I'm sorry but I have to ask you to move," he said. "You can't be in the operating area, and visiting hours are over. Only family can remain, if they stay out of the way."

Hermione thought fast. "Actually…"

Severus felt as if someone had bludgeoned his head all over with a sledgehammer, especially on the sides. Pain was good. Pain meant that he was alive. He could tell with his eyes closed that the room was dark, but he didn't open his eyes in case they were waiting for him to wake up to take him to Azkaban.

Judging by the sterile and faintly sickly stringent smell of bleach covering an undeniable stench of sickness, he was in hospital. He could sense another person in the room with him—a hint of honeysuckle and vanilla. Hermione. He opened his eyes then, eager to see her.

"Hermione," his whisper came out hoarse. Silence. The sounds of her breathing had shifted a little though.

Louder, he tried again. "Hermione!" That hurt attempt had hurt.

There was a shifting in the dark. "Severus? You're awake!"

"My wand?"

"I've got it. Don't worry." Immediately he began to worry. There was something about her voice—

"What's wrong, Hermione?" he asked, barely able to keep his own voice from breaking from the strain. His throat was full of glass shards and he could barely think.

"Harry died."

Severus closed his eyes, a useless gesture in the dark, and exhaled slowly.

"I'm sorry," he said, almost regretting waking up, for a moment feeling the grief of failing Lily for the last time. His biggest failure, perhaps. He almost regretted it, except he was a selfish bastard and Hermione was alive, and he couldn't bring himself to regret that for any reason at all. It was apparent from the scratchiness in her voice that she had spent some time crying.

Hermione cleared her throat and cast Lumos. In the dim light of her Lumos his eyes immediately caught onto the fact that her face was swollen, and her eyes were red from crying. Her hair was wild, and it looked as if she had not eaten or slept well in a very long time. A brief glance around the room showed that it was a private room at St Mungo's. He wondered if the Ministry or the Malfoys had put him in the room.

Someone had placed a pot of brightly-colored nasturtiums at his bedside table. For victory.

"Mrs Malfoy brought those by," Hermione said softly, which did not answer his question of a victory for whom. "Voldemort is dead, by the way. They're still sorting things through at the Ministry, and there are still skirmishes going on between the Death Eaters and their lackeys and the Aurors and the Order, but it's looking like the...new Ministry is going to win. They brought in Aurors from France to help." Her voice grew more and more unstable as she spoke.

Severus closed his eyes again. "That's good," he said, and then without thinking much of it, drew Hermione into his arms from where she was perched on his bed.

As soon as he wrapped his arms around her, she began to cry. His arms burned with the effort of holding her, but for the moment, he was at ease. If this was his last chance to see her before Azkaban, he would hold onto her for as long as he could.

Then, because he was Severus Snape and he always looked his gift horses in the mouth, he had to ask—"How did you convince St Mungo's to let you stay here?"

"Ah." She mumbled something.

"I can't make that out."

"Well, you know how you gave me that compact?" she asked, and immediately he understood what she meant.

He must have recovered much more than he thought he had, burning pain in his head and throat aside, because he could not help himself from wanting to torment her over this, a little. "Oh?" he asked, as if he didn't know very well what she was intimating. "And how did that help?"

"I—well, might have misled the healers into thinking that I'm your fiancée," she whispered, and he didn't need to look at her face to know that it was glowing a most becoming shade of pink. His heart leapt at the words I'm your fiancée, even though he knew it was not real.

"That's fine," he said, eyes drooping. Before his eyes closed he saw that she looked as if she wanted to ask a question, but then his energy faded. He wanted to tease her a little more, but he was still too bowled over by the enormity of what he had just learned. Voldemort was dead. Potter was dead—which relieved a sick twisted part of his heart. He would never have to deal with a Potter again; except he knew it broke Hermione's heart, and for that he found himself finding reasons to hate Potter. Even in death he hated the boy, though he found he could breathe easier knowing he was no longer beholden to the boy, or responsible for him, or obligated to care for him anymore. The Ministry was fighting off Death Eaters just fine, and Hermione Granger was alive and well.

He tugged her closer to his chest. "Sleep," he said, closing his own eyes. For once in his life he allowed himself to savour the moment without worries for the future, then fell asleep with her hair in his face, breathing in her soothing scent of vanilla layered with her lightly floral shampoo.

It was a cold and dreary late spring day when they put Harry Potter's body into the ground.

It did not feel real. Hermione had thought of many outcomes of the war—slavery under Voldemort's rule, the collapse of magical Britain, winning and putting all the Death Eaters in jail, dying for the cause—but in none of these scenarios had she imagined that Harry would be the one to die. It seemed inconceivable that Harry, who had escaped Death so many times before, would die.

What use was all the cryptic nonsense about the Deathly Hallows if Harry died?

Severus had told her that the legends of being the Master of Death were just that—legends—because magic was many things, but mastering the inevitable end of life was still beyond them, would likely be forever beyond them. Because there had been no evidence for such a thing being possible despite what Albus fucking Dumbledore wanted in his youth. But Hermione hadn't wanted to believe it. Didn't Lily Potter prove that wrong when she sacrificed her life for her son? But trading one life for another was not the same as cheating death.

She should've known.

Hermione watched with dry eyes as Harry was lowered into the ground by Ron, Neville, George, Charlie, Percy and Bill.

She heard none of the words from the Ministry official who spoke of the brave Harry Potter who brought down the worst Dark Lord in the history of Magical Britain. They said nothing of the boy who ate treacle tarts with a messy relish, whose hair could never lie flat, who loved his friends like his family and who was equal parts thick-headed and insightful.

There was nothing left of Harry Potter, her friend, and only The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Take-Down-Voldemort.

Ron's eyes were red.

Then they were throwing flowers in his grave. Strangers threw in lilies and nasturtiums and laurel leaves, but Hermione was throwing down a bundle of wormwood and asphodel, because what else could she feel, except her bitter regrets following him to his grave?

Finally, they began to move soil on top of his coffin with spades, not magic. There was nothing magical about Harry's funeral, except for the people invited, because that was what he wanted. He wanted to be interred in Godric's Hollow with his parents in their private grave, not in a tomb for people to gawk at. She had done her best to honour his requests.

She should've seen the fact that Harry would sacrifice himself when he closeted himself with Griphook, a Gringotts goblin. She should've known that he was not finding ways to destroy Horcruxes and live, but instead he was making a will because he was the one who would always sacrifice himself for his friends.

Her eyes blurred with tears. She tried to focus on the rest of the funeral service, but nothing registered within the desolate emptiness of her mind.

An eternity later, Harry James Potter was buried in a grave beside his parents, finally at peace with the world.

Severus didn't know how Hermione found the time to be with him in hospital, nor did he much care. Witnessing Hermione fall apart due to her broken heart for Lily's boy was a penance to pay for failing to save Potter's life, Severus reasoned. It was the least that he could do now.

And it was just like him, then, that even his fiancée—fake (but his mind whispered that she had accepted the compact and told other people that she was his)—would be in love with a Potter. A Potter who took down the Dark Lord and would no doubt experience even more of a transformation from demon to saint than the Potter who came before him.

It was a strange sort of masochism for him to be there for her while she broke down in his private ward, away from the uproar and chaos of the wizarding world outside, but it was the least he could do. Severus wondered if perhaps he truly was masochistic as he held onto Hermione while she cried, but it felt like this overwhelming sense of guilt was the closest he could come to regretting Harry Potter's death.

There was no guilt for his relief that that particular chapter of his life was done—James Potter, Lily Potter, and their son were no longer his problems. He was finally free now. And the only cost for this was Hermione Granger's broken heart.

If—a very strong if—he ever made it out of Azkaban, perhaps she would still need him with her. He would be there for her. (Kingsley had appeared twice to say that his trial was merely a formality, but he had no trust in the Wizengamot no matter how many people Kingsley had successfully ousted from it in his current power grab.)

He was almost glad for the fact that the healers had told him not to speak too much for another two weeks. He didn't think he had any words left. That did make him feel guilty—that even though Hermione was obviously suffering the loss of Potter, he was still at a loss for what to say to comfort her, because for him, the death of Harry Potter meant overwhelming relief. That it was finally all over. That even if it meant being all over for him as well, it was finally over. He could finally let his ghosts rest in the past and move on, even if that only meant a cell in Azkaban. It wasn't like they had Dementors there anymore.

So he said nothing and did nothing but hold her, not questioning why she turned to him for comfort when she had a whole clan of Weasleys to watch out for her, and passed away his time in hospital feeling almost guilt free for the first time since he realised he could be responsible for other people, which had been since he was very young.

Hermione was an idiot. Severus glared at his bland hospital lunch as if it was an exploded cauldron and casually said: "By the way, I've blackmailed the healers to keep quiet about our engagement. I would rather have bribed them but I haven't been able to go to Gringotts."

Her mind stumbled to a halt, then her heart stopped briefly as well. She had been so lost in a fog of unreality—nothing had felt real after Harry's death, except Severus—that she had not even thought about the disaster that could have happened if word of her charade with Severus had gotten out.

She hadn't even considered that she could have blackmailed or bribed the healers into seeing Severus. She didn't think that would work—the hospital seemed to have some integrity, but her first thought had been to…pretend to be his fiancée.

Because she was in love with him (and didn't that hurt to admit?). She had somehow fallen in love with the acerbic man with the too-thin frame and hooked nose and a personality more prickly than Crookshanks (though she thought he was quite handsome in his own way, a bit striking, a bit ugly, a bit awkward, but still breathtaking). She didn't know when her feelings started or how it happened. She wanted to pretend her feelings made no sense, but he was so intelligent and brave and good, how could she not fall in love with him? And she had only realised the depths of her emotions when he was at death's door, as he asked her to never forget him. The conjured forget-me-nots were still pressed in her battered copy of Hogwarts: A History. She hoped that was not prophetic in some way—that Hogwarts would not be their entire history.

Sometimes, when she visited him, she thought perhaps he had meant the other meaning of forget-me-nots when he gave them to her—true love. But that was a ridiculous line of thought, because he was Severus Snape. Master spy, the foremost Potions Master in England, and eternally devoted to Lily Potter. He would never see her the way she saw him—how could he, when she was so lost she could barely see herself after the war? It was extremely inconvenient being in love with Severus Snape, not the least of which was because the man was in love with a ghost whom she could never compete with.

She realised she had been silent too long and swallowed the lump in her throat that always came at the thought of Lily Potter. What had they been talking about? Right. Blackmailing healers. "Thank you. I'm sorry I forgot—"

"It's fine," he said, interrupting her. "You've been…grieving the loss of Potter." He shifted in the hospital bed, looking highly uncomfortable. "I am familiar with the…grief that comes from the death of a close friend." An understatement, if Hermione had ever heard one, thinking back to ten years after the death of said friend and how one of the first things he said to her child was that he still bitterly regretted her death.

"I also…regret his death," he said, his face bare of emotion except for a slight flare of his nostrils. Because of course, Harry was Lily's son. He continued on, as if with great reluctance. "If there is anything I can do…"

Hermione felt tears well up in her eyes, fresh grief mixed with the old pang of never being enough, never being the one that someone wanted to be around, then hurriedly wiped away her tears with the back of her hands.

"I'm fine," she said. Severus looked on at her in well-deserved disbelief. She wanted to explain that she had failed and she didn't know who she was anymore if despite all her efforts at protecting Harry he still died, that her heart ached all the time because Harry had loved her best of all her friends but even then he still loved Ron more but she still missed him so much, that after everything had happened she no longer had Ron even as a friend and she missed him and hated him in equal portions, that Luna was busy working on The Daily Observer, and that without her parents soon she would have no one because she could not imagine Severus keeping her in his life now that the war was over. That she was empty and adrift and hurt, but being around him made the hurts bearable.

But she couldn't say any of that, no matter how much he had wanted her to remember him as he thought he was dying. As if she could ever forget.

So she said none of that and focused on the tray of food on his lap that was still mostly untouched. Blinked to clear her eyes of tears. "How do you feel about getting something better to eat?" she asked brightly, thinking of the cosy pub she had found near the entrance to St Mungo's that led out into the Muggle world.

Severus shot her a look that told her that he knew exactly what she was doing, but he didn't push it.

"Please," he rasped. "I would coerce the entire Wizengamot into passing House-elf legislation for you if you brought me a steak and kidney pie. With Firewhisky."

Hermione laughed nervously. She did not know what to do with this version of Severus—soft and joking in a way that almost made her think he was earnest. Wondered if this was because of the heavy duty pain potions he was on. Was grateful for the fact that he had missed entirely how stupidly in love she was with him.

"I can't give you alcohol. The healers would have my hide. But I'll see what I can do about the pie," she said, feeling her heart beat heavily from the look on Severus' face. He looked almost like he was smiling—it was definitely still more of a smirk—but his face was relaxed and open in a way that she had never seen before. Hermione made a hasty exit from the hospital room before Severus Snape could wreak any more havoc on her carefully guarded heart.

Severus Snape knew he was a bad man. But he could not stop himself from flustering Hermione about their fake engagement while the healers were around—she would blush prettily every time he called her "darling", and the healers who had once been his potions students looked as if they had seen a newly revived Voldemort when he did so. He was trying to turn over a new leaf, in light of his new lease on life and the fact that he needed to be on his best behaviour before his hearing, but on his list of sins teasing Hermione Granger and scaring healers was so insignificant as to be unnoteworthy, and he was bored.

And seeing a flustered Hermione Granger was so much better than a grieving one.

Being in hospital was mind-numbingly boring. He hated it. He would sometimes lash out at the healers when Hermione wasn't around, but he held himself back because it was not her fault that he was still stuck at St Mungo's, and the healers seemed eager to have her stay in his room once they figured out that his temper was much more tempered when she was around.

It was sad, how after two decades of spying on the two most powerful wizards in Britain he was reduced to entertaining himself like this. Which was why his discharge almost disappointed him; it was going to be very lonely at home, without healers to terrorise and Hermione to fluster, but he was still so tired all the time that it wouldn't matter much.

It should not have been surprising when Hermione insisted that he be released into her care—she was his fiancée, after all (and while Severus Snape was not in the business of deluding himself, he wished, for once, that he was)—but he was still surprised. Had almost put up a fuss. Then he remembered that he had no job anymore and could not just ask Hogwarts elves to assist him until he was entirely well again.

The fact that he did not know what his official employment status was remained exceedingly awkward, and he could not bring himself to ask Hermione about it. He had received no post except letters from his barrister, and he didn't want to know. He wasn't sure what would have been more depressing—being jobless for the first time in his life since before he left Hogwarts, or a Board of Directors who would allow him to get away with the literal murder of his predecessor and the torture of innocent children under his watch.

Considering how corrupt the wizarding world was, he was probably still the Headmaster of Hogwarts. So he tried not to think about it.

"Let's go home," Hermione said as the healers announced that he was ready for discharge. Severus felt a bitter sort of yearning that he thought he was long over.

"It'll be good to be home, Hermione," he said, the words almost corrosive on his tongue with want.

So he watched in silence as Hermione filled out his paperwork, took over the (probably subpar) potions that he needed to take, listened intently as the healers gave their care instructions and what he needed to do for the rehabilitation of his vocal chords, and silently stood still as she draped an old grey cloak of his around his shoulders and covered his face with the hood.

He said nothing as they left by the back entrance of the hospital, said nothing as they Apparated to Spinner's End, said nothing as she held his hand there the entire way.

But when he saw how clean his home was, still, after so many months away, which could only have been the work of one Hermione Granger, he cleared his throat as softly as he could and said the only words he could think of saying.

"Thank you," he said, voice almost the rich rumble that it once was.

"Don't worry about it." Hermione smiled, the only bright thing in the godforsaken house of his, no matter its state of cleanliness.

Severus felt an alarming lurch somewhere in the vicinity of his heart, and began to really worry about it.

AN: Hope you enjoyed this! I haven't been able to respond to comments for a while now but I really do appreciate every one of them, thank you everyone.