He was there with her when she finally tackled the pile of mail that sat getting stale in her room. Many were get well cards – from the Weasleys who were undoubtedly mourning Harry's death – from Remus Lupis and many other order members. A nice note from Neville and a few from some other underclassmen who she'd tutored or befriended through out her years at Hogwarts. Then, there was the stack of letter's from her parents. They looked utterly out of place with their carefully addressed envelopes and little square stamps in the upper right hand corner. They mailed the letters to a company that would then send it owl post. It wasn't as if Hogwarts had an address that some muggle postman could find on a map and even if he did stumble by all he would see would be a dilapidated castle in the distance. She opened her parent's letters – the first demanding to know why she'd missed her weekly owl post date. Next, a note of apology and worry when they'd heard the news. Her father demanded that they be allowed to visit her at the hospital or at the school or where ever they were keeping her.
"Did they come?" she asked but Severus shook his head sadly.
"Muggles can't come here." he said but she knew that. "Albus met with them."
"The headmaster went to my parent's house?" she asked. It was an absurd idea and she imagined it would play out like a scene from a situation comedy on the television – a laugh track whenever Dumbledore did something her parents found odd. Meaning constant, uproarious laughter, of course.
The last letter was a goodbye letter. It was heartbreaking.
"Someone told them I came to, right?" she asked and he nodded though he didn't tell her who and he waited silently for over an hour while she wrote a long, long letter back to them and sent it away on a school owl. "Where is Hedwig?" she asked, as an after thought.
"Who?"
"Hedwig. Harry's owl. The white one." she asked, suddenly desperate to know the location of the loyal bird. "In fact, where are all of Harry's things?"
"With Weasley, I imagine." he said, reaching out to her for she was getting a frantic look in her eyes – like she was trapped and he wanted her to sit back down because she was pacing and he couldn't pace anymore because his hips hurt. He missed pacing. He waited another half an hour while she wrote the Burrow.
When the relationship had started, it had been student-teacher and then illicit and then, just as they'd started to approach normal, the war took everything. Hermione started thinking of what happened as a chance for a fresh start. To get to know each other without breaking any rules. He was undemanding. He concentrated on her health. Getting her stronger, getting her to eat and put on a little weight. Hermione had never been muscular or athletic. She was a bookworm. She'd been thin, yes, but soft and yielding. Her hips and tummy had soft curves and that had been Snape's favorite part. Now she was skin and bones, her clothes didn't fit her. She was always cold. He was tired a lot as well. His hips ached and Poppy had him in physical therapy to improve his dexterity. They both were getting stronger but their moods improved only slightly. It was Hermione who finally voiced the opinion he'd been holding back from her.
"I don't think that staying in this castle is helping me." she said. "I'm not doing anything here. I'm not productive." She said this, standing in doorway to his bathroom after just having a bath. She had a white towel wrapped around her and he could see her bony shoulders and her hair which was starting to grow back was dripping and the drops of water were traveling down, leaving trails of moisture on her skin – like porcelain. She was pigeon toed which was – he thought – totally against the grain of her character but was endearing nonetheless. The first time he'd seen the angry scar on her back, she'd jumped and tried to hide it from him but he'd held her down roughly knowing she wasn't strong enough to fight him off and inspected it to his heart's content. She'd been furious and tearful but he didn't want her to be ashamed and he gave her salve to apply every day and the scar looked lighter now.
"Where would you go?" he asked and her face fell. He understood – it sounded like he wouldn't go with her.
"I'm not sure." she said. "Wherever I got a job."
"I don't want to be presumptuous in thinking if you left that…" he said. "I won't follow you if you don't want me to."
"I don't want you to follow me Severus." she said, cold now, tired of being damp in nothing but the towel.
"I see." He thought he could hear his heart breaking. The sound of it hitting cement and then someone grinding the pieces into dust with the heel of their shoe.
"I want you to want to come. I want us to go together." He released the breath he'd been holding and suddenly felt like laughing.
"Pathetic." he mumbled picking up her robe and tossing it to her.
"What is?"
"Me. I used to be… solitary. I used to be feared and a force to be reckoned with and now I know that I would follow you around like a puppy if you asked me to. What did you do to me, woman?" she smiled softly and shrugged.
They packed everything. All the books, the potion ingredients that were solely Snape's, his clothes, her clothes, pictures, shampoo, shoes, candles, dinnerware, quills, scarves, hair elastics (unneeded for the moment), and every spare bit of parchment that they owned. All their things were jumbled together in unlabeled boxes (so unlike them both but that was them before and this was them after) and they sent all the things along to the Italian house (all thought that was the before them as well and neither would be happy there and eventually Snape would buy a home for them in England, near the water) and they put on their nice clothes and went to see Hermione's parents.
She had imagined this meeting once before, fleetingly, and then scoffed at the mental picture because she knew it would never happen. Now, she was compulsively smoothing her black skirt and plucking the fuzz off that green silk blouse that was just now fitting again and Severus was next to her on the sunny porch with wicker furniture, leaning heavily on his cane in his black trousers and a black, muggle, button down shirt that she'd gotten for him and he'd not complained when he put it on. She'd, before they'd left, sat him on the closed toilet and brushed his wet hair and trimmed all the jagged edges with a pair of scissors and now his hair was neat and shiny and they'd both gotten their color back and suddenly they weren't weak or sick or recovering anymore. They were just two people in a very unstable but real love waiting to meet the parents. She glanced up at him when she rung the bell and his twitched his lips into a brief ghost of a smile and this relaxed her enough so that when her parents flung the door open, she could greet them with open arms.
Her parents were so happy to see her alive that it took them close to five minutes before they noticed Severus on the porch watching the gratuitous display of love with a somewhat detached interest. Her father gave him a once over but shook his hand and invited him in the modest two story home. Severus stepped in and Hermione clicked the door shut behind him.
"This is my mother, Doris, and my father, Charles. Mum, dad, Severus Snape." she said and the whole thing felt wrong and awkward – two worlds never meant to collide. It was Bruce Wayne standing in the same room as bat man. It was a sight she never thought she'd see.
"Nice to meet you." they all murmured and Severus looked ridiculously out of place in the home with all its light colors and soft fabrics. He was too tall and too dark and her mother was staring at him like he was about to pull a rabbit out of a hat and she wanted to be prepared. But they'd both put their wands away and wouldn't take them out unless it was a life or death situation. Doing magic in front of muggles, even muggles who knew, was simply too much paper work to be worth it.
They sat in the living room and drank tea and Hermione told them skewed half truths about her accident and recovery. She told them about Harry and they were sad for her though they'd met him only briefly on shopping trips to Diagon alley but even then, by her third year she'd learned to do her shopping on her own. Her parents asked him questions about potions which he answered tactfully – "It's like muggle chemistry" – even though he couldn't brew with the precision he once could. They asked about his parents – "Dead" – and what he liked about Hermione.
"She is very intelligent and compassionate and has a most respectable work ethic." he said, and glanced at her. "I also think she's pretty." This seemed to please her parents who asked them to stay the night, at least, because they must have traveled so far already and left so early to get there at the time that they did. Hermione didn't bother to explain apparition or magical travel and so they said, yes, they would spend one night and her mother left to make lunch and her father had to go into the office – "Dentist?" Severus asked, confused – and she showed him her bedroom. He laughed when he saw it.
"It's so childish." he said, picking up a stuffed bear and examining it carefully.
"I was a child here." she reminded him and looked at the small bed. "I'll have to transfigure that." she murmured. He nodded. "Thank you for coming here."
"Your parents seem very nice." he said dutifully. "My parents didn't like me and we had a house so large that no one ever had to see anyone except for at meals and this house is very, very different to me." he explained. "No matter. How are you feeling?"
"Just fine." she said, because he was helping calm her nerves. She took out her wand and enlarged the bed – "Engorgio," – and they laid on the bed together until her mother called for lunch up the stairs.
The day was uneventful. Hermione's mother seemed to be a little frightened of Severus and treated Hermione like she was about to break. Severus busied himself reading while Hermione helped her mother in the garden. Soon, her father came home and they played a game of bridge together, after Hermione had explained it to Severus. He'd picked it up quick and though they didn't win, he seemed to be fairly comfortable with her family, muggles though they were. After dinner, they escaped upstairs, feigning fatigue. Truthfully, Hermione was tired but she wasn't really sleepy. It was nice to be alone with Severus and not worried about what her parents might say or do next. At least they'd not brought out baby pictures or home movies of her getting a bath. If she'd brought Ron home or – heaven – even Victor it may have been different but Severus was not a boyfriend, he was a lover. He was not a boy, but a man. And after that last battle and months of recovery, there was nothing childish left about Hermione Granger.
Now, in the small bedroom made even smaller by the enlarged bed, they rummaged through their luggage for their night things. Severus had never really spent any time in a muggle home and tried not to show his surprise at the smallest things, like lamps lit by tugging a chain or the blender or how the starting on car engines punctuated the still night air every so often. Hermione pulled her high necked flannel nightgown out of her bag and Severus eyed it with disgust. He hated that nightgown, though he understood while she wore it. Hermione, when'd she'd finally gotten around to wearing clothes to bed with him, wore these strappy silk numbers that he'd simply adored. This nightgown left everything to the imagination and covered the scar that dissected her shoulder blades. He could tell she wasn't feeling very attractive lately with her marred skin and boyish hair cut. He didn't know how to tell her she would always be sexy no matter what. The hair cut actually suited her – she had a lovely neck.
Tonight had been trying, though, and he couldn't stand that nightgown for one moment more. He startled her snatching it out of her hands but he shot her a look daring her to say anything and she remained silent as he transfigured it into something much more pleasing. She took it quietly and held it up to her, black satin with spaghetti straps – it would barely cover her bum.
"Better." he said and she looked for a moment as if she might cry but swallowed it back and smiled weakly at him. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead, her cheekbones, her nose, her lips. They'd not made love since their tumultuous reunion. At first they'd been to sick, weak, and tired and now they were both so scared of breaking the fragile relationship. It would never be as it had been, but they didn't know where else it could go just yet. He was kissing her now, though, and not in the soft, unsure way his kisses had been lately. This kiss was much more… Severus. He was rough and demanding, forcing is tongue into her mouth and letting his hands roam freely. The new nightgown was forgotten and was soon hidden under a pile of their clothing. A muggle house was no place for silencing charms and so she stifled her giggles, then her moans, and then her screams into the pale skin of his shoulder.
After, tucked into his arm feeling warm and sated, she turned her head up to look at him.
"Do you still love me?" she asked, quietly, because she could hear her father watching TV in his study and her mother down the hall in the master bedroom.
"I never stopped." he assured her. This seemed to appease her and it wasn't long until she fell asleep. A few hours later, she woke up again, alone in the bed. After waiting a few minutes – he could be in the loo – she put on the black nightgown and transfigured her robe to match, intent on finding Snape. Her father had always been somewhat of an insomniac and so she wasn't surprised to see soft light coming from the living room. She could hear her father talking and when she heard Severus talking she stopped and sat near the top of the stairs too curious to hear what they were talking about to interrupt them.
"She seems different. Like she lost her determination, her drive." her father was saying, now and Hermione felt tears spring up behind her eyes. Was it that obvious?
"The war was… well. I'm afraid Hermione hasn't been as truthful with you as she could have been. The war is nearly a decade old and she was hurt very badly." he said but her father didn't seem surprised.
"I knew when the letter came that we were giving our daughter up for the greater good, to that school but…" his voice faltered. "And what of you, Mr. Snape?"
"What of me?" Severus asked, softly. "I plan to leave the school permanently and to marry your daughter, if you'll let me." Hermione was shocked to hear it. "I am a man of considerable wealth, Mr. Granger, and Hermione will have the best of everything. She'll be able to pursue any scholarly endeavors she wants." Not needing to hear anymore, Hermione crept back up to bed and fell asleep for the first time in a long time without a worry or a care in the world.
a/n: short chapter everyone, but i thought i'd post what i have in celebration of clawing my way out of a pile of school work. i think maybe one or two more chapters and i'll be done. anyone still reading this :)