A/N: My obeisance, as always, to Luna305 (bloody brilliant beta and narrative continuity goddess) and Anastasia, for sending virtual kleenex. Chocolate Frog Snape Cards to both.


Experience

She stared at him. Is that a smile? No... it can't be...

It was.

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As they finished eating, Hermione decided that a dinner cooked by Severus Snape was a rather acceptable apology for his having blasted the furniture to bits. Regretting what she had to do next, she folded her napkin slowly. "Thank you. That was excellent."

He nodded, but tensed in anticipation of what was coming..

Tilting her head in apologetic acknowledgment, she said, "There's something you're not telling me."

"Many things."

"Something very specific. The symbols, Severus. They make sense, yet they don't. What is it you're not telling me about Lily?"

"You've deduced what happened at Hogwarts, yes?"

She nodded. "Enough of it."

A brief look of relief crossed his face, before it was replaced by something harder.

"You've pieced together what happened, then. Sixth Year."

She nodded.

He held out his hand to her across the table, drawing her gaze to his thumb. A new cut.

Why hasn't he healed… Oh. An old scar next to it.

Her eyebrows raised.

Still some surprises left, then. "No grand arcane ritual. It was… sentimental. Muggle."

"So she knew. That you're Half-Blood."

"Yes, she knew. She saw my Potions textbook often enough. And she enjoyed puzzles. She hoped I would have the courage to stand up to my Housemates. She believed I would. 'We're strong, Severus. Our blood is strong. I'll prove it to you.' A nick of her dagger, and…'" He looked past her, at the cold hearth behind her. "She was wrong. Not about her strength. About mine."

He was silent for a very long time.

Finally, he said, "Hermione, I assume you are as familiar in my role in the prophecy?"

"As far as I know."

"Very well then." He stood, glancing at the window. Still misty. He frowned. "Somewhere more comfortable, I think." He waved his wand and the dishes cleared themselves.

By tacit agreement, they returned to the library. She started toward the table, but he waved her to a chair. Confused, she sat.

He steepled his fingers and started silently for a few moments.

Feeling time starting to slip, and anxious to conclude her calculations, she finally betrayed her impatience with a shift in her chair.

Sitting straighter, he began. "It is not a matter of not wanting to tell you – you will find, I'm sure, that you already know. No, it is a question of deciding which matter to address first."

She drew her legs up underneath her, settling into the chair, and looked at him expectantly.

"Before I explain the symbols – you will understand them and begin to see their implications before my explanations are finished, I'm sure – " he looked away and muttered something.

"I'm sorry? I didn't hear."

"Could you, perhaps…" He Transfigured his chair so it was slightly wider.

Her eyebrows raised a fraction, then she joined him, a little uncertainly. Okay. Strange. He put his arm around her and drew her into the crook of his shoulder. Maybe not so… mmm… Focus, Granger; this is important.

Touching her seemed to free his voice. "I told you earlier that the power that ultimately took Dumbledore's life was the same power that saved Potter."

She nodded, "Blood magic." Her eyes widened. "Oh."

"No, that was all Lily. She was a mother then. That changes things." Very softly, he added, "But I was… implicated, regardless. Her passion to save her child. Her desperation. And her sacrifice." He closed his eyes and exhaled. Then he raised his eyes to hers. "As you noted so perceptively, I do not always say exactly what I mean."

Turning slightly, she looked at him questioningly.

"Did you never wonder why Albus trusted me?"

"Honestly? Yes. It was enough for me that he did, but I can't – well – " she gestured toward the table where her papers lay, and shrugged, half apologetically.

"Do not apologize for your curiosity, Hermione. Never. But especially not now." He held her more closely.

Even as she welcomed the protected feeling of his arm settling more solidly around her, it made her worry about what was coming next that made him do it.

"I know he trusted you. He had faith in you. That hasn't been enough for – well, everyone else, not since… But I -" She tilted a chin, a small, fierce movement.

Distracted for a moment, he chuckled. "As you've proven, Hermione. And that's the crux of the matter – proof. Dumbledore did not, as you say, trust me on faith alone. Although it would not have been unlike him to rely entirely on faith in most matters, do not mistake his faith for stupidity. In this matter, he, too, had proof."

"He knew about… about you and…"

"He knew about me and Lily, yes; he missed little from the Head Table. I refer, however, to a few years later."

She waited.

"The prophecy. You know I heard it."

"Yes."

"And," his voice tightened, "reported it."

She nodded.

"I didn't know, Hermione. I had no idea whose… executions I had just..." He drew his fist to his mouth and held it there, clenched.

She didn't move.

"I didn't know that she was expecting a child, or when. But I learned. And at first I was… I was still angry. But later, eventually… after too long…"

"You went to Dumbledore."

He nodded. "I went to Dumbledore, and he warned them. Lily and - and the Longbottoms. I had expected to die, but he didn't turn me in. Instead, I turned spy."

She sifted the images in her memory and drew in her breath sharply. "You made an Unbreakable Vow with Dumbledore."

"Not with Dumbledore." His fist still at his mouth. "With Lily. With Lily… Potter." He lowered his hand and stared straight ahead.

Hermione stared at him. He's never called her that before.

His hand fell to his lap. "Dumbledore was our Bonder. Every day that he saw me alive, he knew – not believed, knew - his trust in me was not misplaced."

A thousand questions tumbled through her mind, but she ignored them. "He had faith in you, just the same," she said, stubbornly.

"He was a problematic man."

"So when you said that the power that saved Harry was the same as the one that killed him…"

"It was, Hermione. That power was me."

He gave her a moment to let that sink in. Think, Hermione.

She knitted her brows. "The Quidditch game. His broom. You must have been watching him the entire time."

"I was speaking the counter-curse instantly. I hadn't even enough time to identify the source of the curse. Because I carry her blood in my veins, the Vow is more than voluntary."

"A compulsion."

He nodded.

Her eyes widened. "How horrible." Her eyes narrowed. "Severus… what, exactly, are the terms of that Vow?"

Very quietly, he replied, "To protect the child she then carried. To aid him in his mission, should he be the one prophesied to confront the Dark Lord. And, should he fail, to complete his mission for him."

Hermione drew in a sharp breath.

"Yes, Hermione, exactly. Exactly what Narcissa asked of me last year."

"You still loved her. Lily."

"Yes."

"But… wait. You can't complete this mission. Only Harry can."

A raised eyebrow. Good, Hermione… Now a little more…

She ran her hands into hair and pressed. "If Harry fails, you will have failed, and you will die."

"Yes, Hermione." A little more…

She looked up at him. "Another gift. So you wouldn't have to live under Voldemort, should he..." She shook her head, amazed. "Dumbledore may have been a genius, but Lily… She was…"

"Compassionate." And you, Hermione, are exceptional.

Oh. OH. Her eyes widened. "Passion, desperation, and sacrifice. And blood." Her tone was accusing. "All of them yours."

He nodded.

He did not do that. He didn't! She reached for his face and turned it toward her own – a gesture of compassion, but more one of command. "Your sacrifice. You knew. You knew , because of the blood bond, it could be something more, something in addition to the Vow, and you… you…"

"I embraced it."

"A compulsion. For love. The inverse of the Dark Mark."

He couldn't escape her gaze.

"Love. The flip side of Voldemort's power. And you chose it – you twisted it into a compulsion. You bound yourself. By blood magic. To the Vow."

"Yes."

She glared at him. "That was unbelievably medieval of you."

Medieval? He returned her gaze warily. But her expression was changing as he watched. That smile again.

"And selfish, and stupid, yes, definitely stupid, but mostly, most importantly, medieval."

He stared at her. That mind... He had no idea what she was going to do next.

She brought her hands to his face and held it firmly. "You, Severus Snape, are a bona fide idiot." She leaned in and brushed her lips against the corner of his mouth.

Breath… Warm… he thought, his eyes fluttering closed.

"And I think," she said, her lips a breath away from his, "that your medieval idiocy may have bought us exactly the chance we need."

He had no idea why his response to being called an "idiot" was to bury his hands in her hair and draw her to him, claiming her kiss, gently, insistently, lost in the feel of the weight of her head in his hands, his mouth moving firmly, possessively…

His only coherent thought was, Mine.