A/N: Thanks to Luna305 for beta-during-thunderstorm (crazy wench), and to my partner in "Don't flinch yet; ok, now would be good; helLO, what are you thinking," Anastasia, who saved Snape from me, me from Snape, and me from myself in this chapter.
Yesterday and Tomorrow
Before, it was autumn.
Now it was rain.
Severus felt his heartbeat, steady, as he breathed in the scent of rain. The first time is the hardest. He held the book in his hands, watching as it shrank, smaller, smaller, growing darker, blacker, his blood on it joining, shrinking, a red spot moving to an end, tendrils extending, shrinking, smaller, and finally, it sat on his finger, antennae waving, its light glowing, then fading.
"Tayet," he said quietly, so as not to wake Hermione. He extended his finger carefully toward the phoenix.
Tayet's eyes opened, black, glowing, hungry, reflecting the yellow-green light. She followed the light, alert, opening her beak.
He tipped the firefly in. He supposed it was a kind of immortality.
Tayet looked at him questioningly but made no sound. He touched her head gently, and she closed her eyes, leaning into his finger.
His expression was unreadable, and there was no one to read it.
He sat on the floor and rested his elbows on his drawn up knees, lacing his fingers together loosely, examining them through a fall of wind-blown hair. His eyes were alive with a newfound lack of doubt and a lack of reserve that still spoke deeply, resonantly of the tremendous will and force behind them. His eyes would never be innocent, but it had been a lifetime since they had been this clear.
He looked up at the sleeping witch, and around at the Spartan room in which they would spend the next several hours. He was damned if he'd spend it sitting on a bare plank floor, watching her sleep.
A low noise in his throat. Predatory. Paradoxically tender. Oh, yes. A bit of… hm… rearranging was definitely called for.
The curtain over one of the alcove rippled as the room behind it became larger. A fresh, insistent wind blew from Severus' wand and the air in the bolt-hole changed, grew cleaner, deeper, softer…
He paused, and changed the curtain from non-descript, dusty charcoal to the rich, deep red of glowing coals, a dying sun.
He looked at the ceiling, considering, then gathered his will. Slowly the ceiling transformed into an opaque, swirling cloud from which a gentle green rain fell, disappearing before it touched the floor.
He considered Hermione's sleeping form, and her clothes became a heavy black silk cloak, wrapping her in cool simmering midnight indistinguishable from his own
He dropped to his knees before her, his arms on either side of the chair. Leaning in to the smooth hollow of her neck, he exhaled her name, warm, on her skin.
She awoke, alive.
"After the initial release, one often finds that subtlety has its own, even greater rewards," he murmured, hands drawing the silk up her arms, chill, slick, soft, warming under his hands.
"Severus," she whispered.
Hands sliding around her shoulders, he gathered her close, stroking the silk against her, a rustle, an enticement, a promise. Hands wrapped in silk to her face, drawing the cloak with it, inside, nervous, aware, each breath a friction against the impossibly smooth seduction…
His cloak? fleeting, thought, gone.
Thumbs moving the silk on her face, hands hidden, covered, in the endless folds… her eyes open, looking to his, black, deep, impossibly warm, blazing, comforting, terrifying. She gasped and turned her head, suddenly, surrender, leaning her face into his hands, rubbing the silk against his fingers, friction, surface tension drawing it over the back of his hands.
"Yes, Hermione." His voice an incoming tide, tangible, patient, unsatisfied.
His hands firm on her face.
"Look at me." His voice barely audible.
Deep in his eyes, filling them, toward her, of her, for her, she saw him dream in his eyes.
And she was broken, terrified, gentled, powerful.
He saw it all.
He knew she could say no; she knew she couldn't.
They were both right.
"Do you want this, Hermione? All of this?"
She had no words.
Small smiling lines appearing at the corners of his eyes, he asked, "No?"
His silk-entangled fingers pressing, dragging the cloak down her bare arm… "Or – I think – yes."
She nodded.
…and across her collarbones…
…down to her heartbeat… and over… silk in silk drawing silk aside, exposing, brushing skin, lightly, cool, chill, friction, skin tightening, warming…
"Yes," she murmured, her eyes not taking her eyes from his.
"Surely, it cannot be that you have no questions…" he drawled, amused.
She tried not to ask. (Knowing hands not touching rustling drawing silk moving silk, silk falling open, closing, folds of silk changing - shiver - patterns, cool… Just feel…)
She really did try… But – yes – questions. (The play of silk… Just feel…) "When we - before… when you - it was… desperation, sacrifice, blood… yes?"
He smiled, a knowledgeable smile. Innocence lost. "What you are really asking me is if, when I took your innocence, so roughly, was it beyond my control?"
Silk moving slowly, sudden –
- she caught her breath – and whispered, "Yes, that's what I'm asking."
"That was passion. Life, flying in the face of death. My passion, and also yours - " he arched his eyebrows and moved, deliberately…
- silk - slow… Her breath shuddered.
His voice, low, careful, "Was it beyond your control, Hermione?"
…chill …smooth …skin open, outward, reaching - She shook her head, and whispered, "No, it wasn't."
He drew his silk covered hands across her chest, covered, not touching, but –
"Real passion isn't pretty, Hermione."
Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back, her throat, an offering.
His eyes glittered.
- a corner of the cloak drawn quickly, firmly down her neck – "No, not pretty…" he whispered. "I filled you with the echoes of my fractured soul, and you forgave me and I made you scream, Hermione. I made you scream before I ever touched you and yet you let me touch you again."
- a whisper of silk – "I wanted you to."
"When I took you, on the floor, and held you, trembling, shaking, lost… and you sighed, you cried out… I am alive in your breath, Hermione, in your voice… "
His hands – still silk – on her sides, smoothing, down - and -
"No, passion's not pretty. It's dangerous. It breaks. It opens. What I did to you, for you, because of you; and what I may yet have to do… so very wrong, in so many ways - And yet - Hermione, believe me…" his voice dropped, urgent, impossibly low, and the silk, hands, slipping, on her skin "…as I took you, and you held me, perfect, whole, unbroken, and it was wrong - I enjoyed it. You. Us." His hands tightened, possessive. "Immensely."
The wind, the silk, the breathing, the heartbeats – silent.
His voice rich, resonant, full, silk up her neck, under her chin, behind her ear…
"Nothing here is beyond my control, Hermione. Nothing, except…"
…his hands firm, strong on her hips, his lips warm on the corner of her eye…
"... except you," he finished, glorified, resigned.
Both hands heavy with silk, he drew her towards him, to her feet, closer, and his hands, then, skin, under the cloak, warm, around to the small of her back, pressure, closer, the linen rough on her skin, inflamed, wool, scratching, the silk, cool…
She leaned into him, felt his body, covered -
He smelled rain.
She opened her eyes and looked up. She saw the clouds on the ceiling, whirling in concert with the mark on her skin, the mark whose voice was no longer keening, just circling, an endless sigh, relief, pain, pleasure, relief, pain...
"I made you my shadow, Hermione," he murmured. "I buried my emptiness within you; you forgave me, and I branded you with your own forgiveness. This vacuum, this storm," he looked at the sky, "it's mine. It's what I have left."
She nodded.
"But I can give you what I no longer have."
He turned her toward the curtained alcove, standing behind her, wrapping his arms around her, keeping the cloak closed against the circling wind.
She had a wild imagining of what lay behind it. "And that is?"
"Myself."
He waited. His hands twitched on her arms, tightened, revealing his uncertainty, his trepidation.
She leaned back, into him, eyes glinting, smiling when she knew he couldn't see. "What you're feeling right now, Severus? That's called 'hope.'"
He tensed, but her mercy was swift.
"And my answer is yes. Of course it is." She took his hand and drew him toward the curtain, very gently adding, "You maudlin old bat. What did you expect me to say?"
/x/
It's not actually impossible to lie about love to someone who has the evidence of your broken soul emblazoned over her heart, but it really is the height of bad taste.
Not to mention cruel.
For once, and for reasons he didn't fully understand, Severus wanted to say something, but he was at a loss.
He lay thinking for a long time, running over the possibilities. "I might love you, if I could"? That would simply not do. "I don't love you, but only because I can't"? No better. "You probably will save this maudlin old bat from himself, but we'll both probably have to die to accomplish it"? Accurate, but hardly appropriate, given the circumstances.
He scowled, and thought some more.
Finally, he found his voice. "Hermione?"
She curled against him, drifting, aware. "Mmm?"
"Hermione, I -" He didn't seem to be able to finish.
Her eyes narrowed in the dark. He is not going to say that. "Don't - " she began.
"Hear me out," he insisted, irritably. "And do listen carefully."
She knew that tone. She rolled her eyes, which he could not see, but nodded against his chest.
"Hermione, it's too soon for truth, but it's also – " he swallowed nervously, "it's much too late to lie."
She frowned as she puzzled it out.
Then she hit him with a pillow.
He raised his eyebrow in the darkness. She didn't need to see him to know that he had.
