Chapter Twenty-Six: Christmas Rose
Severus fell apart on the inside as Hermione cried against his chest. He drew in ragged breaths as he tried to pull himself together. His chest ached, his heart ached, his throat ached.
The sudden heat from the shattering of his Occlumency was almost unbearable—he could feel nothing but warmth. Warmth from his body, as well as Hermione. Sweat beaded his brows while a clot of emotions threatened to break out inside him.
He was so focused on pulling himself together that he nearly missed it when Hermione stopped crying and slipped into sleep. He held her sleeping body, finally allowing himself to succumb to the release of his emotions. It felt the closest he had come to crying in nearly twenty years. Severus clutched Hermione like a lifeline, trying not to let his breathing come too close to gasping so that she could continue to sleep.
An age seemed to pass by as all the rage, frustration, fear and helplessness of the previous months passed through him, his jaws clenched so tight that his head hurt.
With one final gasp of breath, everything passed, and he studiously packed away the flickers of contentment that he had enjoyed while speaking to Hermione so he could not think of them.
He fell limp against the sofa like a wet rag, taking Hermione down with him. It was a miracle that she had slept through his breakdown. Exhausted, Severus closed his eyes for a moment. He just needed a minute to clear his mind before he left Hermione to her sleep. He barely noticed when her steady breathing lulled him to sleep as well.
When he woke up he didn't understand that he was waking, because waking had never been like this. Gentle warmth suffused his body, and there was no pain, either in his body or in his soul. A small soft body rested on top of his, in his arms. He could smell a faint hint of honeysuckle, as well as a muted vanilla musk. It was Hermione. His mind was warm, his heart was warm, and his cock was very warm.
For a moment he thought he was dreaming, that he had decided to steal Hermione away from Potter and the war after all, hiding her away like a beast with something precious. Then he felt Hermione nuzzle his neck softly with her nose, sending very real shivers down his spine. Said spine went rigid as the reality of his situation crashed down on him like a bucket of cold water, which jolted him into full awareness—the woman in his arms wasn't a dream. Quickly, but gently, he eased her off his body, and extracted himself from the sofa.
He paced a little, as he tried not to imagine the look of horror Hermione would surely have if she had woken up in his arms. The brief dream he had of them living together and running away from the war didn't bear thinking about. He just—could not think about that. As he paced, the discomfort in his trousers faded.
He paused in his pacing. It was late in the afternoon. The living room was washed in the dim glow of dusk, with long shadows, and he had skipped lunch. He needed to find them food, and he needed to leave the house before he lost his mind (he wasn't quite sure if he hadn't already). Cursing softly, Severus grabbed his wallet and changed into faded black jeans and a beat-up old biker jacket that he wore to fit in with the local Muggles. He covered Hermione with his winter cloak before he left.
Hermione woke up warm and in pain, but relaxed and safe. Now that her Occlumency wasn't numbing her sensations, she could clearly feel the side-effects of the Crucios she had endured, though the potions she had taken had helped.
She sighed as she stretched. The faint scent of Severus surrounded her—it was a heady and comforting scent, and for the first time in a long time she felt truly safe. Shifting slightly under his thick cloak, she enjoyed the feeling of being cared for before she finally allowed herself to fully wake up. She stretched out, and slowly stroked the smooth and heavy garment cloaked over her, shivering immediately as part of it fell from her. It was obvious that there was some sort of built-in warming charm in the cloak.
Dobby had brought her out of Malfoy Manor, but it was Severus who had saved her. He had not berated her. He had held her in his arms. To say she was confused by his actions was an understatement. Her heart greedily provided her with one explanation as her head gave her another. He was just looking out for his closest ally, of course. Possibly his only friend at the moment.
A loud miaow alerted her to the fact that Crookshanks was hungry. She was as well, thinking of it.
After rummaging through Severus' cupboards and finding Crookshanks' preferred brand of cat food, Hermione managed to make herself a cup of tea and find some rich tea biscuits. Once she felt less faint with hunger, she turned her attention to the walls of the sitting room that were filled with books.
She trailed her fingers through the unwarded titles. Severus' library consisted mostly of useful books, particularly concerned with the Dark Arts, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions, and Healing, though there were plenty of titles on Herbology and Magical Theory and Charms. There were several rare tomes that she had only seen references to, but what really intrigued her was the collection of literature that took up half of a shelf. There were many Muggle classics, like Dante's Inferno and Goethe's Faust and the collected works of T.S. Eliot.
But despite the intriguing picture that his books painted of his taste in more emotional reading, Hermione was currently in no mood for Severus' depressing taste in literature, so she settled down in a chair to read his annotated copy of Numerology and Grammatica. They never had much time to talk about things other than the war and Horcruxes, but reading his thoughts on Arithmancy was almost as good.
Severus returned to Spinner's End, arms laden with produce and perishables. He had bought enough ingredients to make a Christmas dinner for two, even though Christmas was in two days and he had no idea if Hermione would be staying that long.
Christmas music had played at the supermarket, and he had remembered the last time he heard the Muggle carols was when he had turned the radio on in Hermione's parents' car as he drove it. If she stayed, it would be the second Christmas in a row that he spent with her. A second Christmas when her life fell apart again due to the blasted war. Two Christmases that he had someone to spend with who wasn't a work obligation, if she stayed.
He didn't deserve her presence. He gathered his emotions carefully and found some semblance of equilibrium before he entered his home.
He was surprised to find her awake in his sitting room, engrossed in one of his books, her familiar curled up beside her. There was a sense of disorientation that came with the scene, as if he was looking at the life of a completely different wizard where a witch and a familiar waited for him at home. His throat tightened and he blinked, but the image did not change.
Hermione startled when she noticed him, eyes wide as she took in his attire. "I hope you don't mind that I borrowed a book…"
"It's fine," he said, fingers tensing around the groceries. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," she said, and tucked her hands into the sleeves of the robes she wore. His hand clenched harder when he realised that she was wearing his cloak. "I've mostly stopped shaking. The pain is worse than before but I think that's an improvement over being numb."
"I can give you something for the pain. Do you know if you'll be staying for a bit longer?" he asked, hope and pessimism warring in his chest.
"I…" Hermione trailed off, visibly working through something in her mind. "I'm still quite hurt," she finished. "I would like to stay a little while longer, if you don't mind."
"All right," he said, feeling relief and dread in equal portions. "I'll put these things away and make dinner. You may read whatever books you find that aren't warded."
Severus hastily threw together a spiced sausage and bean stew, which he served with crusty dinner rolls. Crookshanks had jumped on a chair at the table and stared at him before he caved and gave the cat a small portion of sausage.
Hermione had begun to yawn after dinner, and it was late, so he helped her to bed, and then spent the rest of his evening staring blankly into his fire. It had been pleasant, eating with Hermione. It had always been pleasant, spending time with her quietly, or eating together, or doing magic together. He could feel the war drawing to a close, and he was loath to cut their time together short, because he knew this was likely the last time he would spend with her. He didn't know what to do with that, so he stared into his fireplace, looking for answers where he knew there were none.
Hermione studied Severus from underneath her lashes as they went over the numbers for the school. She studied his heavy brow, the light creases between his eyes and around his mouth, his prominent nose and his dark eyes. They usually looked black but she knew now that they were a rich brown in direct sunlight, something she found out early in the morning when they quietly sipped coffee. He had shed his frock coat earlier as the fire in the grate warmed the room, but even without the extra bulk of the coat he was still striking in his buttoned shirt and trousers.
She swallowed. How had she missed that he was always as human as anyone else, with a life and a home and a past? He tied his hair back when he was at home, revealing high cheekbones and a face that was not as thin as she previously thought. She quickly averted her gaze when he looked up to focus on the parchments before her.
She never would have guessed that there were so many things to take into account when allocating a school budget. There were reams of parchment to wade through accounting for all sorts of expenditures—chalk, potions ingredients, the sheer amount of food the students ate was staggering, as well as what they spent on furniture of all things, not to mention strange miscellaneous expenses like special fertilizer for the Whomping Willow or ectoplasm cleaning solution to deal with Peeves.
When she had commented that of course Death Eaters would embrace the evils of paperwork, she had been surprised by the rich deep rumble that had come out of his chest. She had never seen him smile before, and his face transformed when he did. He looked like the most handsome man she'd ever seen when he smiled, and at that point it was useless denying herself what kind of feelings she had for him.
It was pleasant, spending time with Severus, knowing that she wasn't the person who would have to be ultimately responsible for everything, knowing that for once she wasn't the one who had to have all the answers. Safe and cherished was not something she felt frequently anymore.
They worked until the sky grew dark, at which point Severus excused himself to make dinner. Hermione offered to help but found that she had no energy left after poring over the endless castle expenses, and Severus had waved her off.
That night they had a simple fish stew in a tomato-based soup with crusty rolls, and then Severus forced her to rest while he worked on his budget alone. There was something about the meals that he was cooking that stood out in her mind, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
Hermione spent the rest of the evening dozing with Crookshanks, and then changed out of Severus' ancient jumper to sleep when she felt she could no longer prop her eyes open. She applied more of the ointment to as much of her body as she could, and had nearly fallen asleep when she heard a disgruntled yowl and found that Crookshanks had gotten stuck between the side of the bed and the wall.
She sheepishly went to Severus for help, and he moved the bed to extract a very displeased half-kneazle. He gruffly handed her another large grey jumper that he dug out from the chest of drawers in the room, this one newer and smelling more like him, and then left her without so much as a "goodnight", but she still smiled when he left.
The next morning Severus seemed to be in a good mood, though he stared at her when she made her way to the kitchen dressed in his lumpy grey sweater and red flannel pyjama bottoms. He shook his head, then offered her toast and coffee. He never explained his behaviour, but during the day she caught him looking at her with a blank stare a few times, which made her feel very self-conscious. They spent the day companionably working on reconciling the accounting records done by the house elves, which was an exercise in frustration because the elves did not use the same units of measurements that wizards did.
That night, Severus left her to visit Malfoy Manor "on business", so she spent the evening reading one of his many potions theory texts. She wondered why the books were not taught at Hogwarts until she realised exactly how high-level the texts were. Severus had so many books, so many of them incredibly old—it boggled her mind to think of exactly how many of his tomes that he had read, and how much knowledge one man had. It was incredible, and breathtaking, and wasted on someone who balanced ledgers for schoolchildren by day and lied to Death Eaters by night. He could have been doing so much more, though she wryly supposed that even in a different life he might have ended up Headmaster of Hogwarts.
But she ignored those thoughts, as it was Christmas Eve. She had nothing with her except her clothes, her familiar, and a wand that obeyed reluctantly, but she wanted to do something for him.
She didn't think he would appreciate a gift given directly to him, but thought that he might not mind some decorations for holiday spirit. With a few conjuring charms, the kitchen and sitting room were decorated with boughs of pine, several sprigs of holly and mistletoe, and Christmas roses. There was no tree or tinsel, but the foliage brightened up the gloomy house considerably.
His face looked terrible when he returned, but his expression softened at the sight of the decorated sitting room, where she had waited up for him and had finished reconciling the elvish accounting.
"It's almost Christmas," she said.
He visibly swallowed. "Thank you," he said, with some undefined emotion in his dark eyes as he looked at her. The entire house felt still then, and she warmed under his gaze. She held her breath as she waited for him to say more, but then the moment broke.
"You should go to bed," was what had come out of his mouth next, and then he left the room, leaving it colder than when he was in it.
Severus closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the voice in his head that was screaming at him that he was going insane.
Hermione Granger was an intelligent and beautiful young witch, who was fierce, compassionate, and kind. She had—eventually—forgiven Ronald Weasley when he had left her and Potter in the middle of a war—and here, he couldn't help but compare her to Lily, who he had thought had the largest heart when he was younger, even if the comparison wasn't fair. (Because he had not deserve to be forgiven by Lily. The situation wasn't the same with Weasley, as he at least had the good sense not to join up with the Death Eaters.) She had asked after Dobby as soon as her mind had cleared, and she was heartbreakingly beautiful with her wild curls and soft skin illuminated by candlelight, dressed in his lumpy grey jumper as she helped him sort through the accounting left behind by house-elves.
There was nothing strange in the fact that he found her attractive; any wizard would have found her attractive.
But the fact that he had threatened Narcissa Malfoy over the fact that she had sold out Hermione—even though Narcissa didn't know that was why he had threatened her—and called in Narcissa's debt to him on something of a suicide mission was something of a momentary lapse of sanity. He asked Narcissa to retrieve the Horcrux from Bellatrix's vault, and with Bella's keys he knew that Narcissa could enter her vault, though at great danger of being discovered.
When she had asked him what purpose he had for wanting the cup, he had told her that, "it was to ensure the safety of Draco's future." It was technically the truth, as he did not think that Draco would survive long in a Death Eater-ruled future. She had given him a long look, but finally agreed, evidently convinced by whatever she saw in his face.
There were probably ways to acquire said Horcrux without endangering Narcissa, but she had stood by while Hermione had been tortured and exposed her, and he wanted vengeance. And, it was a way for Narcissa to redeem herself, as he could not ignore how the Malfoys had helped him over the years. If things went south and affected Draco he would step in; Draco had called for Dobby at the crucial moment, and he was proud of him. But he found he cared a lot less about Lucius and Narcissa these days, and if he wasn't so weary and out of his mind he might have found himself mourning this fact. They had been real friends, at one point in his life.
And there was a Horcrux at the end of it, though he was too honest with himself to try to delude himself into believing that was his primary motivation for asking this task of Narcissa. He tried not to lie to himself as a habit.
He would not lie to himself and pretend that he didn't wish for things to be like this forever, just the two of them spending their days in front of a cosy fire in a place where no one else would intrude. The sight of her decorating his living room for their Christmas together, waiting for him dressed in his jumper had made him physically ache.
He wondered if she knew the symbolism of what she had decorated his rooms in—pine boughs for hope, purification, and friendship; holly for foresight and domestic bliss; mistletoe for a safe space to meet or blessings in love and fertility; and Christmas roses for hope and love. She must not have known, because he could not imagine anyone associating those things with himself, but the mad voice inside his head told him that she had understood his other messages, and that she was Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age, and that—it was still madness.
Because then he remembered that when she was tortured, her driving motivation for withstanding the attacks on her mind had been about protecting Potter, and he wondered if his ancestors had been cursed by the Potter family, if some haunting presence took perverse pleasure in watching him fall for women destined for the Potters.
He had not slept well since the war had started, and he could scarcely sleep with her in his house. When he did sleep he had impossible dreams that made waking up a bitter shock to his system.
He needed her gone before she destroyed what remained of his barely-held-together equilibrium, but he couldn't bring himself to send her away.
Resolved, he gave himself permission to indulge in one more day before he distanced himself again. He could not remember when was the last time that he had looked forward to Christmas.
Christmas Day was spent reading companionably in front of the fireplace. Hermione had ignored her pile of gifts in the morning, wondering how she managed to receive gift delivery at Spinner's End despite the Secret Kept nature of the house. (Later, she would discover that Severus had gone to Hogwarts and asked Dobby to gather all her gifts.)
Severus had said nothing about exchanging gifts, so Hermione hung the soft black merino scarf she had been surreptitiously knitting over the past weeks on the coat rack, with a small bow stuck on one end. So far, Severus had not seemed to notice.
They didn't speak much, but the silence was a comfortable one. Hermione even managed to hide her smile when Crookshanks jumped into Severus' lap and refused to budge.
All too soon, the sky outside darkened, and the day was drawing to a close. Severus had barred Hermione from the kitchen while he cooked, which caused her heart to flutter a little, even though she told herself that Harry or Ron would have done the same in his place. Not that Severus could ever be comparable to Harry or Ron.
Once dinner was declared ready, Hermione sat down and stared at the Christmas spread. Moroccan lamb stew was a bit of an unorthodox choice to serve for Christmas dinner, but that was not what nagged at her mind. "...Severus?"
"Yes?" he grunted, as he laid out a salad and more crusty rolls to go with the stew.
Hermione wondered how to put it. "Do you know how to cook anything outside of stewing things in a pot?" She winced. That could have been put better.
The corner of his mouth twitched. "If you have any complaints about my cooking you are free to go to the Burrow where Molly Weasley will be more than happy to provide—"
She panicked. "No! Your stews are very good! I was wondering if being a Potions Master influenced the way you cook, is all."
Severus finished setting out the cutlery, and poured out some mulled tea for them to share. She could not drink alcohol with her potions, and it seemed that Severus did not wish to drink alone. "It...has something to do with it. I've never had much occasion to cook before—I often stay at Hogwarts or with the Malfoys, so when I cook alone I fall back on what I know, which is cutting things up and brewing them in a pot."
"It's...you're very good at what you do cook. This stew smells incredible," Hermione said, taking another bite of the stew. The lamb was savoury and rich with spices in a tomato-based sauce, and the dish had been topped with torn mint and almonds. "The tagine is amazing. I'm not normally much of a cook, but if I was well, I could make us a whole Christmas roast. It's one of the few things I know how to do."
Severus' spoon froze halfway to his lips. Then she realised what had made him pause—if she was well, she would not be spending Christmas with him at all.
"I'm sure it would be very good," he finally said. "But if you tried to poison us I would prefer that it would be on purpose—bezoars do not protect against food poisoning and even I could not rescue us from that fate."
Hermione groaned—why did none of the men in her life trust her to cook?—and then they enjoyed the rest of their meal in contented silence. Severus had purchased a small chocolate cake for dessert, which they both barely managed bites of before they had to stop. Her heart was as full as her stomach at the end of the night.
He sent her to her room to deal with the dishes himself, on account of her still recovering, and she finally got to investigate the small pile of packages left at the foot of her bed. It felt like it had been a perfect Christmas.
Unwrapping her gifts had revealed a soft blue Weasley jumper from Mrs Weasley and a jar of Peruvian Instant Darkness powder from the twins. There was a series of mass-market romance novels from Harry and Ron with an attached note saying "we thought you would appreciate more materials for your lectures", which had her chuckling at her memory of her theorising on how they could use the power of love to defeat Voldemort during some of their long nights camping, using arguments and theories from stuffy books written by dead people.
Her heart dropped when she could not find a gift from Severus in her pile, but she reminded herself that she had no right to expect gifts from him, especially when he had spent so much time and effort on her during the past few days. It was when she was changing into a single sleep shirt that she saw a single blossom of blue hyacinth sitting on her table, lying on top of his folded up cloak. A simple note adorned the folded black fabric, with two words: keep it.
AN: Credit to eilishly for mulled tea as a Christmas drink
Life's been very eventful lately and I was without a laptop for two months, so this chapter's out late. ^^; I'll try to get the next chapter up in three weeks, but I'm probably starting a new job in this time frame, so it might be a bit until I post the next chapter-but I am like four chapters away from finishing this fic, so fingers crossed life calms down and I can finish and post this thing in its entirety soon.
It really means a lot to me to get all of these lovely supportive comments and how patient everyone has been for the next chapter-so thank you all so much for the support!