She feels a hand on the crown of her head. Unmoving, resting there, like it's siphoning something away.
He whispers something into her hair, uttering words she is unable to process and can barely hear anyway because of how hard she is sobbing.
Now he knows. Now he knows. Now he knows.
Later she will have no recollection of the memory ending, of the white smoke appearing all around them as it dissolves. The first thing she is conscious of is the hard, cold white tile against her knees in the bathroom. Bending over the toilet and retching, though nothing comes out. His fingers are threaded through her hair now, gentle in a way she doesn't believe she deserves, holding it back.
When the heaving stops she presses her forearms flat against the cool porcelain and rests her forehead on them, shaking all over, wishing desperately to regain control of her body.
And still, his hands in her hair. Her stupid, bushy hair. She can feel the shape of each finger, the warm length of them, the place where each one bends to conform to the shape of her head. They move from crown to nape now, soothing, but he still doesn't say a word.
Hermione leans back against the bathtub, panting lightly as her surroundings come back into focus.
The octagonal tile beneath her.
The white sink across from her.
The moss-colored towels hanging limply on the back of the door.
And her potions professor sitting beside her, his eyes boring intently into hers. Though there's no need for Legilimency anymore, of course, she reminds herself, now that he's seen everything. She has nothing left to hide from him. They're even. He can judge her as he will.
"Hermione," Severus says. His voice sounds strange given the acoustics of the bathroom, echoey and distant. She's dimly aware of his fingers still tangled in the split ends of her hair. She waits for him to say something else, bleary, exhausted, her body shot to hell by the combination of her sleep schedule, their strange hours, the ghostly pain of her burns, the rock-hard tile digging into her ass—all of it. She has never been so tired, she thinks. She is so tired that the very act of listening takes effort. Saps precious energy. But she recognizes her name in his mouth as he repeats it, regains a little bit of awareness.
"It wasn't your fault," he says.
"It was," she whispers, and she hardly recognizes her own voice as it comes out of her mouth. Dry and croaking, like it's been years since she talked. Like she hasn't spoken since she was seventeen.
"It wasn't," he repeats, irritated. He hasn't looked away from her once. She is aware, vaguely, of a slow and constant drip coming from the bathroom sink.
"It was," Hermione retorts argumentatively, like a child. "The spell came from my wand. Who else could be blamed?"
"You were under the Imperius curse," he says, impatient. Drip. Drip. Drip. She can feel his body shifting beside hers, his muscles tense. "You were a weapon, yes, but you were not the wielder. Bellatrix Lestrange killed your parents."
Hermione stares firmly at the floor and doesn't say anything.
"I killed someone, you know," he continues softly, reminding her.
And she thinks for a moment, how self-focused she'd been to forget. To say all of this self-blaming nonsense to the man who killed Albus Dumbledore. Her eyes dart to his face.
"I'm glad Bellatrix is dead," Hermione whispers. "But it feels wrong to feel that, somehow." She blinks rapidly, unsure whether she'll cry. "When Molly killed her, I was happy. Happy, and relieved. None of them ever found out what I had done… what Bellatrix made me do…"
"Trust that no one took more pleasure in that bitch's demise than I," he says fiercely, and a warmth floods her body. It's been so long since someone understood.
"And trust, too, I would never repeat any of this, Hermione. And that nothing you've done could alter my opinion of you."
Because she can't hold his gaze she looks at his hands. Pale and strong, with long fingers. She has seen them do so many things. With those hands he has cooked for her, he has changed her sheets, he has rubbed a healing salve into her burns. He has chopped and diced and distilled and washed and cut. The list of things those hands have done are endless.
Those hands, like hers, have even killed.
She folds out her own fingers and palms unthinkingly to compare them to his—their similarities, differences. She notices, for the first time, a long, jagged line through the center of his palm. She can hardly remember Divination—a long life? A tragic one? A mark of evil?
Hermione doesn't see how she can be good when she has done the things she has. But if she believes that he is good, what does this mean for her?
Their fingers are touching now, hers much smaller than his. He just watches her, silent, letting her do what she wants. She flips her hand and rests it on top of his briefly, feeling the warm skin, his hard knuckles, and then without thinking she begins to trace five invisible lines further up his forearm. She pushes the sleeve of his robe back, knowing what's beneath, but inhales sharply nonetheless. He makes a hissing sound, like he's in pain, and she feels him trying to pull away from her, cover up again—a brief flex of muscle, but she's holding his arm in place now.
She's never seen a Dark Mark up close.
He lets her hold him. There's an odd beauty to it, really, she thinks, a dark and graceful elegance to the snake's body as it twists forth from the mouth of the skull. She runs her index finger along the snake's curve. She can feel a hint of resistance still, like he wants to pull away, like he doesn't want her looking at it—this evidence of the worst part of him, the worst thing he ever believed, the worst thing he ever did.
"It's different for you," he says, his voice so low and quick she can barely make out the words. "You were cursed when you killed. I did it of my own free will."
"It isn't—" she begins, but he continues.
"You shouldn't touch me, Hermione," he breathes, even as she can feel him responding to her touch, gooseflesh rising on his skin beneath her fingers. "I'm not good, Hermione, I—"
There are tears on her face again, though she doesn't remember the sting behind her eyes that usually comes first.
"Doesn't that mean I'm not good either, Severus? I killed my parents. I killed the very people who made me. How does one return from that? How could you—how could anyone—ever call me good?"
As she speaks, her voice continuing to rise, her fingers are still moving in a reflexive pattern across his skin, across the Dark Mark. She moves her reach higher, grazing the crease of his elbow. He shudders.
They are sitting so close now that their sides are touching completely, the edges of their calves and thighs and hips and arms and ribs and shoulders.
She can feel his breath on her face, quickening.
She experiences a sensation much like standing on the edge of a cliff, or waterfall, and looking down a great distance into the depths below, unable to see the ground, or the surface of the water, and wondering whether she should jump. His eyes like two dark, inviting pools, drawing her in.
Their faces are now so close she cannot take both of them in at once, so she fixates on the right one, her breath coming in short little bursts, his breath soft against her lips, and then—
"You are good, Hermione," he says. "You are good."
She's the one who closes the distance, in the end, almost to silence him as much as to finally taste him, but he isn't done. She kisses him furiously as he continues to say it, between breaths, between tongue and teeth—
you are good, you are good, Hermione, you are good—
and they are on top of each other, she is fighting the words, she is kissing with a violence she has never known before, not with Viktor or Ron or anyone else, trying to show him—
I'm not, I'm not—
and he is meeting her every attempt with passion—he likes it, he likes what she's doing to him, moaning, likely it's been years since anyone has touched him like this, she knows it's been many for her—she crawls on top of him as she feels something unleashing inside of her, threads her fingers roughly through his hair and pulls his head back, moving up the side of his neck with her lips and tongue and teeth as he continues to say it—
you are good, you are good, Hermione—
grinding against him, unleashing every pent-up desire, yet he continues, and she bites down on his lip so hard it draws blood, surprising them both.
She freezes for a moment—
I'm not, I'm not—
as they both taste copper. She stares into those twin dark pools, waiting for him to finally realize, and how are there still stupid tears in her eyes, after all of this, after everything, their chests heave against each other, she feels him everywhere, she waits for it to be over, for him to realize his mistake—
Severus presses his face against the hollow of her neck; she can feel the damp warmth of his forehead there against her own sensitive, burning skin. Like they've succumbed to the same fever. She feels like another person entirely.
He is still breathing quickly, every exhale a concentrated heat that she can feel straight through the thin fabric of her nightgown, slick with sweat.
"Hermione Granger," he whispers, and the words catch in his throat.
She can feel his voice in her sternum. In her heart.
"You are the purest thing I have ever touched."
Something wrenches in Hermione's stomach.
He lifts her up into his arms, pulling her from the cool marble of the tub's edge entirely into his hold, and then he takes her to the bed.