Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter.
Thanks to betas AMRA1 and Larilee for looking over this.
Forget Me Not
Chapter Two
She returned that evening. Severus didn't know what to say. When they had fought in the past, it usually ended with one of them storming out of the room. Later, she would seek him out, climbing into his lap and telling him that she loved him, even when he was unreasonable and horribly mean. Or he would find her, sneaking up and kissing her on the neck, telling her he adored her, even when she was daft and foolish. But there was no warm camaraderie this time, no laughter over the ludicrous things they had shouted at each other, or soft kisses of apology. For the first time ever, he would have to say the words "I'm sorry". She wouldn't know they were what he meant unless he spoke them this time.
"I shouldn't have said some of the things I said this morning," he said after pouring them both a cup of tea.
"Some of the things?" she asked derisively.
"All right, most of them," he said irritated. She seemed determined to make this as hard as possible for him. Not that he blamed her. She stared at him.
"I'm sorry," he said finally, after a few awkward moments.
"I accept your apology. I talked to Professor McGonagall today and I feel a little better about the whole situation."
"What did Minerva tell you?" he asked warily, fervently wishing that she had not talked to the old woman. Salazar only knew what she had told Hermione.
"That you appear harsh, but that you worship the ground that I walk on," she told him. Had she really said that about him? He wondered if his emotions were so transparent; he had thought he was rather guarded, but apparently, even McGonagall could interpret his every mood.
"She said that, did she?"
Hermione nodded, keeping her eyes on the fire. "Is it true?"
"I don't know about the worshipping part, but I do love you, Hermione," he said, moving closer until he sat next to her. She turned and met his gaze.
"I don't say that a lot, not often enough," he admitted.
"But I knew." It was more a statement than a question.
"I think so. I hope so." He reached for her hands, taking them in his. She balked and started to pull away, but he held them tight.
"You love me too," he said. Maybe if he prompted her, she would repeat the words. It wasn't the same; however, it was a start. But she didn't say them.
"Maybe it would help if you told me how we fell in…how we became a 'we'," she stammered instead.
She wouldn't say the word 'love,' he noticed.
"Okay," he agreed, letting go of her hands and settling back into the couch. He didn't know where to begin, with his cruel treatment of her as a student, the summer that Dumbledore had asked him to teach her the Wolfsbane potion, or afterwards, when she had become an Auror and she had started pursuing him. He finally decided on that summer they brewed potions for the Order, when he realized for the first time that Miss Granger had grown from an irritating adolescent into an irritating, but intriguing, adult.
He heard her breath hitch just slightly when his hand brushed up against hers.
Regarding her seriously, he reached out and covered her hand with his. When she didn't pull away, he knew his suspicions were correct.
"I hope you haven't developed any silly schoolgirl longings for me, Miss Granger," he snapped. She was inches from him; he could smell her lavender shampoo and he could see the red blush that quickly spread over her cheeks. She trembled slightly from where he had surprised her, but her eyes glittered with anger as she turned to face him.
"They could hardly be schoolgirl longings since I'm no longer a student, Sir," she retorted. She wrenched her hand from his grasp and turned back to her work. "Although, now I see they might be silly," she said, more to her potion than to him.
He shouldn't have touched her. He never touched anyone if he could help it, a habit developed over many years. He would be more careful in the future.
"Such longings are dangerous, Miss Granger," he said a few moments later. "They distract us from our purpose."
"Is that so?" she asked. "I always thought that such 'longings', as you call them, help us to accomplish what needs to be done in times like these."
"You are mistaken," he snapped.
"Are you speaking from personal experience, observation, hearsay, or have you read something that leads you to this conclusion?"
He glared at her. Ever the irritating know-it-all, she had challenged him her entire seven years in school, and she seemed determined to continue even now. She always insisted on asking questions that he didn't have the answers to and Severus Snape was not a man who liked to admit that he didn't know something. He resented the courage that prompted such questions, resented it because he himself didn't possess it. He had never regretted that until he had met her. It took the prompting of an insolent twenty year old before he even thought to ask such questions, and he still wasn't sure he was ready to face the answers.
He hadn't seen her in the months following the war, a welcome, but ultimately too short reprieve. She had eventually shown up with more irritating inquiries, only this time in reference to the case the Ministry was preparing against him.
"I'm sorry, Sir," she started. "I have to ask these questions."
"Don't be absurd, Miss Granger. We both know you and everyone else at the Ministry are itching to know all the sordid details of my life as a spy."
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," she said through gritted teeth.
"I will not sit back and let you dismantle my life and invade my privacy, simply because you and your former classmates didn't happen to like the way I treated you in class."
"This will go easier if you will just tell me what I want to know."
"My job has never been to make your life easy, Miss Granger."
"I'm trying to make it easier for you, you obstinate ass," she practically shouted. "Do you want a public inquiry? Do you want Rita Skeeter writing daily accounts of your trial as a Death Eater? You have made few friends, Snape, and many more enemies. Someone has anonymously submitted evidence, which proves you were relaying information about the Order and the Ministry to Voldemort. I can't believe that, so I'm here to help you prove your case, but if you can't accept help, then by all means, enjoy your stay at Azkaban."
He glared at her, wishing she would leave. He hated to admit that she was right, that he needed her. No one would believe the word of an ex-Death Eater, but if he had the beautiful and famous Hermione Granger arguing for him then his chances of avoiding Azkaban improved.
"Fine. What do you want to know?"
He looked over to see her blinking slowly, trying hard to stay awake. He stood and moved down the couch.
"You're tired. You should be in bed," he told her, leaning over and brushing the hair from her face. She shook her head sleepily.
"No, I'm fine. Tell me more."
"Go to bed, Hermione," he said imperiously, straightening up to tower over her. She scowled at him and then looked nervously at her hands. He suddenly realized that either she was too embarrassed to admit that she didn't know where the bedroom was or she was frightened of entering it with him, most likely both.
"I have papers to mark," he said, pointing to the bedroom door. Reluctantly, she moved in the direction he pointed, reassured that she now knew where the bed was and that he would not be assaulting her on her way there.
He crept into the darkened room several hours later, when he knew she would be asleep. Seeing the familiar lump on her side of the bed comforted him, as did the weight of another person. But something wasn't right. It was true what they said; you never truly miss something until it is gone. For years, he had complained about Hermione and her penchant for stealing the covers, as well as her insistence on clinging to him like a leech.
They had a perfectly large bed, with plenty of room for the two of them, but she claimed she was unable to sleep well unless she had an arm or leg wrapped around him. It had taken him ages to get accustomed to sleeping like that, and even years later he still awoke in the middle of the night only to have to disentangle himself from her in order to go back to sleep.
"But you fit so nicely next to me," she argued with him one night after he had woken her up by pushing her away from him. "There's no one else who fits like you, we're like puzzle pieces."
"Have you tried many other pieces?" he asked sharply.
"No, and that's not the point."
"What is exactly?"
"I just think that so many people out there are looking for their soul mates, relying on the fuzzy feelings they get, when they could just walk around with a tape measure and see who would fit nicely next to them in bed, someone who will make them feel safe and comfortable."
"You're not making any sense. Go back to sleep," he ordered her.
"Will you at least throw your arm over this way, so I can feel you next to me," she asked, yawning. He frowned, but scooted closer, rubbing his hand up and down her arm until her breathing evened out and he knew she had fallen back asleep.
Only now that he had been granted his wish that she would stay on her side of the bed for just one night he realized how much he had come to rely on her presence to help him relax. He rolled over and looked at her sleeping silhouette. She seemed agitated, tossing and turning. He contemplated moving closer and taking her in his arms, but he was nervous about the prospect of her waking up. He didn't want to frighten her. Only hours later did he finally drift off to sleep, haunted by dreams where men came and stole her away in the night.
He awoke the next morning, tired and anxious, but determined to brew some Dreamless Sleep Potion for the both of them. He couldn't be expected to treat her with consideration, let alone lovingly, if he couldn't get more than three hours of sleep a night.
"We usually eat breakfast in here, together," he told her, seeing her heading for the door.
"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed. She sat down at the small table in the corner of the room, and waited while he tapped his wand. Toast, jam, fresh fruit, and tea appeared. He held the teapot over her cup, waiting for her answer.
"Yes, please," she murmured before taking an orange and a slice of toast. They ate quietly without speaking; the only sounds, the scrape of knives spreading jam and the soft clinks of teacups on saucers.
"Ummm, what exactly am I to do today?" she asked, finally breaking the silence.
"I don't know," he answered.
"What do I normally do?"
"You're an Auror."
"Oh." Another long pause ensued while he drained his teacup.
"I think, perhaps, you should pay a visit to the Weasleys. Molly can help you catch up on the last ten years and it will be good for your morale. You always come home from the Burrow disgustingly happy."
"Do I visit them often?" she asked.
"Too often in my opinion and too little in yours."
"Oh," she said softly. She stared intently at her orange, searching for words. "What will you do today?"
"I have classes this morning and this afternoon I will go to your office at the Ministry of Magic. Maybe something in one of your case files or your calendar will lead us to who did this to you."
"Do you really think you can find them?"
"I won't rest until I do," he said through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath to calm himself.
"I'll see you tonight at dinner," he said a few minutes later after having finished his toast. He stood and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
"In the Great Hall?" she asked, looking up at him.
"In the Great Hall, unless Molly insists on you staying there, which she probably will. In that case, I'll see you back here before bed." She smiled at him wanly, and he knew that it took all of her Gryffindor courage to play the part of his wife, even in this small interaction at breakfast. To her sixth year mindset, chatting about their plans for the day over breakfast, and him kissing her goodbye, must seem so strange. But if she could try, then so could he, he reminded himself. He had a lot more at stake.
Hurrying through his classes, he swept down to the front gates after lunch. He Apparated to London and pushed his way through the crowds to the Ministry of Magic's visitor's entrance. He was surprised to find Arthur Weasley waiting for him in the lobby.
"Dumbledore told me you would be stopping by today. I thought I would come down and see if there was anything I could do to help," he offered. Severus nodded. The Headmaster knew he would never ask anyone for help, but as usual, he had made sure that it was available to him.
"I just wanted to poke through her desk and files, and see if there are any leads as to who might have done this to her."
"Right, this way then," Arthur said, nodding and ushering him through to the lifts.
He stood in stony silence as they got on the crowded lift. Shuffling to the back, he tried not to breathe as an older wizard, reeking of garlic, got on.
"That's Richardson," Arthur whispered as the smelly man finally exited onto the third floor. "Just got back from fighting some vampires in Estonia."
"That explains the odor," Severus said, wishing not for the first time that his nose wasn't so large or so adept. At least, they had made the switch from owls to paper airplanes.
"Well, here we are," Arthur said as they finally immerged on the fifth level. "Hermione's desk is right this way. I should know since we have lunch together every Wednesday she's in the office."
"I didn't know that," he said. She had never mentioned her lunches with Mr. Weasley. He wondered why she had never told him; she probably thought he wouldn't have cared to hear about them. The thought suddenly made him sad.
"She's an invaluable resource when it comes to Muggles. Most Muggle-borns either return to the Muggle world or sever ties with it completely. The International Statute of Secrecy makes it hard to do anything else, but do you know Hermione has kept in touch, not just with her family, but several friends from her neighborhood."
"Our apartment this is a suggestion only -- but I would change apartment to quarters or rooms is cluttered with her Muggle artifacts," he complained.
"She promised to explain comptoputers to me next time," Arthur said as he stopped in front of a desk. Severus instantly recognized it as hers, the one picture he had ever allowed her to take, one of him on their wedding day, hung next to maps and bulletins regarding her cases.
"I think that's computer," he said. "Thank you for showing me her desk. If I find anything, I will let you know." It was a dismissal, but a polite one, he hoped.
"I'll leave you to it," Arthur said. "I hope you find something that will lead us to whoever did this to her."
"Me too," he agreed, nodding his head.
"If I ever lost Molly…I don't know what I would do. I don't think I could survive that," Arthur said softly, almost to himself, and then he left. Severus sighed in relief, and started his search. Going through her files, he decided to take all the ones that were currently open, as well as all those where the criminals had since been released from Azkaban. He rifled through the papers on her desk. It appeared as though she had tried hard to stay organized, with little sticky notes and boxes for different things, but documents were strewn every which way. Finally finding her calendar, he flipped to the week she disappeared.
"Don't put off until tomorrow what can be done today!" it shrieked at him. She had bought one of those annoying planners for him last Christmas. He had put up with it for two days, an admirable feat in his opinion, before he had cast a Silencing Charm on it.
There wasn't much there; a note about lunch with Potter and Weasley at The Three Broomsticks and a meeting with her boss about a new case, but that was all. He looked at the week before.
M spotted in London? was written in her loopy scrawl three days before she disappeared. Who was M? He would have to look through her case files and see if any of them started with an M. Or perhaps it was something she was working on the side? She had a penchant for taking on extra work; she hated to be idle. It wasn't much, but it was a starting point.
A/N: The idea that people's soulmates depends on how nicely they fit together, (as in one millimeter off and the relationship will never take,)comes from Nick Hornby's book "How To Be Good." Once you're finished reading this you should run out and read this book, but only after you review, of course.