Thank you everyone who has left reviews and favourites so far - and yes, this is based on Austen's Persuasion! Bonus points to everyone who guessed correctly :D I've pretty much finished writing the whole thing now, and it will be about 6 chapters long. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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The next days were agony. Hermione was everywhere, glowing and bright, and Severus longed to tangle his fingers in her thick curls, to bury his face in her soft neck, to hold her again and be held by her in return.

She shone with an irresistible confidence. There were those, like Dumbledore, who had doubted her abilities and usefulness to the Order. Severus knew that that there were others who, throughout her life, had tried to denigrate her for her blood status or for the colour of her skin. Hermione had proven them all wrong. She had held tight to her self-belief throughout, her strong sense of pride carrying her above the tide of those who had belittled and underestimated her. Now, she was a celebrated war hero, the shining star of the Order.

Whenever they were in the same room, Severus watched her with an aching heart. But she ignored him steadfastly, never exchanging more than polite necessities. He knew that in her mind, he had joined the ranks of those who had failed to believe in her. But now they were trapped together for these two weeks at Grimmauld Place, a compulsory celebration following the defeat of Voldemort. Minerva and Arthur had insisted he attend, and Dumbledore, too, had prodded him to go.

As he had the first day, Severus continued to excuse himself from the company as much as possible, insisting that he had to brew more batches of Wolfsbane for the newly turned werewolves, as well as potions for other casualties of the final battle. But still, he had to endure endless hours of being in the same room with her, witnessing her flirtatious banter with Remus and Sirius who were growing ever more infatuated, day by day.

One afternoon, almost a week in, they had all gathered in the garden for a game of quidditch. Severus had been roped in as keeper, and had been doing a fine job of it despite his lack of recent practice. For once, Hermione was not in the midst of the action, having never overcome her dislike of flying. Instead, she cheered on from below, admiring Sirius and Remus' skills as the seekers for the opposing teams. She was wearing a red sundress which accentuated her waist and the soft curve of her hips. Severus was consumed with longing and ever aware of his pallid form, his unrecognisable descent into full-blown ugliness. He would never be able to touch her again.

He was interrupted from his depressed musings by Sirius' shout - 'I am determined to win!' he called down to Hermione, a broad charming grin accompanying the words. And eventually win he did, swooping through the air in a daring barrel-roll to snatch the snitch from right under Remus' nose. Flushed with victory, he dived down towards Hermione, stopping mere inches from the ground, and presented the snitch to her. 'For you, my lady,' he pronounced dramatically.

'Thank you!' Hermione laughed, 'that is just what I like in a man! Determination and firmness, you follow through on your promises. I can't stand people with a weak nature, who say one thing and then do another. You could not be so easily swayed from your purpose, I think. I want a man who will fight for me.'

The cruel words hit Severus like a bludger. It was doubtless that she said them with his rejection in mind. So this was what she thought of him. Weak-natured and easily swayed. She had not forgotten, and she had not forgiven. And as Severus was watching from above, Hermione gave Sirius a kiss on the cheek in exchange for her snitch and gave him a winning smile. Sirius blushed and grinned and took her hand in his and pressed a kiss against her palm, the perfect image of the smitten suitor.

Severus looked away then and clenched his broom tightly in his fists as he flew down to land, stumbling somewhat on the impact. His team had won but he felt no victory. Percy approached him to shake his hand for a good game, he had been the other team's keeper, and Severus let himself be drawn into a boring conversation about airspace regulations. Hermione was behind him, and Severus was glad that he didn't have to see her with Sirius. It was bad enough that he could hear them laughing together behind him.

The next morning, after a sleepless lonely night, Severus was brewing in the kitchen again when Arthur's toddlers, Fred and George, interrupted his solitude. They were over-excited and bored, and soon they were pulling at his legs and cloak as Severus tried to concentrate on his complicated potion which could blow up at any moment if he made a wrong move. 'Stop that!' he growled at them, 'let me go now!' But they didn't listen and continued pulling and shoving at him as he grimaced through his effort to focus.

Then, suddenly, relief – Hermione entered the kitchen and scooped the twins off the floor and into her arms. 'There you are, you rascals!' she said, as they started pulling at her hair, fascinated at the way it bounced back into its tight curls. 'You shouldn't interrupt Snape while he's brewing,' she reprimanded them, 'naughty boys! And what have I told you about touching my hair!'

She carried them from the kitchen without exchanging a word or a look with Severus, but he felt her actions bloom in his chest. She may not have forgiven him, and her use of his last name stung, but she still cared enough to save him and his potion. Despite her coldness towards him, he knew she was a good person, a kind person, and the knowledge satisfied him. He was glad to see her goodness and brightness unchanged, even if it was so rarely directed towards him, and he wanted to see her happy.

And then came the fatal day. Everyone had decided that a day trip to Hogsmeade would make a perfect addition to their celebrations. Severus could not but go with them.

The morning had gone horribly. They had divided into groups to walk down the high street, shops had finally started opening again after Voldemort had fallen, when Severus heard Hermione and Sirius talking in low tones. He heard his own name and froze.

'It's a shame that Severus never met much with the Order,' Sirius was saying, 'we would all have liked to hear more directly about what was going on at the enclave. And Tonks was really keen on him, for a while, and we all thought she should have married him rather than Percy. Percy can be so irritating, sometimes, and Severus has a lot more sense and would have been so much more helpful with everything. You know, alongside all the spying, he brewed almost every healing potion the Order needed.'

'Tonks?' Hermione sounded taken aback, 'Tonks wanted to be with Severus?'

'Yeah,' Sirius replied, and Severus had to move closer to them in order to catch what they were saying as they moved away from where he had been lurking, 'it would have been so much better, we all like him a lot more, even if he is a bit quiet.'

'But why didn't he?' Hermione asked, and Severus' heart beat faster at her obvious interest in the matter.

'Dumbledore, I suppose,' Sirius replied, 'he wanted to keep Severus separate from the rest of the Order, would barely let him join the meetings, was paranoid about his cover being blown. And I suppose he thought Tonks was too much of a wild card, that she might lead Severus astray. I think Dumbledore persuaded Severus against it. He has always had such a strong influence over him.'

'When was that?'

'Oh I can't remember, a couple of years after the war started, I guess, two years before she married Percy.'

Hermione was silent for a moment, and Sirius seized his chance.

'I would never let myself be so persuaded against being with someone, if I was determined to have them. Once I know what I want, nothing and no one can stop me from gaining it. I, for one, fight for the things that are important to me.' Clearly, he recalled her words from the quidditch match.

'And that is just as it should be, Sirius,' Hermione said softly, 'I respect you for that.'

And they walked off arm in arm as Severus stood there, stunned. She had made her choice, then. It would be Sirius. And she thought Severus persuadable and weak. He had never considered Tonks, had thought her lively and charming the few times he'd spoken to her, but had never even contemplated entering into a relationship with someone he already knew he could not love. Not that he could ever have had the time to pursue a relationship alongside his spying duties. He had let her down gently when she'd asked him out after cornering him after one of the rare meetings he'd been allowed to attend.

Severus left the shadows and turned in the opposite direction from the pair. He made for the bookstore where he perused the potions section for a while without taking in a single title.

In the afternoon, he re-joined the group as they gathered at the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer. The pub was crowded, full of Hogsmeade's residents who were still celebrating the end of the war, and those who recognised them lavishly provided the Order with free drinks in thanks. Rosmerta greeted them wholeheartedly. She had been a constant ally of the Order, providing them with those bits and bobs of information she had been able to overhear from various customers. She had fallen wildly in love with Alastor Moody several years before, and the couple had had a long engagement before Alastor had fallen in the final battle. She was more subdued now, a gentle sorrow often seeming to hang over her.

Severus didn't know it, but his own looks had much improved in the last week. The time spent outdoors, the lack of war-related stress, and the regular meals had all done wonders. His face had regained some colour, he had put on a bit of weight, and the creases on his forehead had lessened somewhat, making him look less severe.

While he didn't notice it, a beautiful redheaded woman sitting at a table across from him certainly did. She smiled at him sweetly, her interest clear in her gaze. He smiled politely at her in return, pleased at the rare attention, before turning back to his conversation with Hagrid, who was telling him all about his search to find a mate for Fang. But the pretty woman didn't give up. She went to the bar and ordered him a drink, and Rosmerta brought it to him, adding 'for you, from the young lady over there'. Hermione took notice and looked sharply at the redhead, before looking back at Severus, her gaze lingering on his features with something like admiration for the first time in almost a decade.

Severus met her gaze and what he saw in it made his heart stutter. He had seen that look before, a long time ago. She liked what she saw. She looked away again soon after, her attention diverted by Sirius' flirtatious nudge, but the warm glow that had spread through Severus' chest remained there as he drank his butterbeer.

After several rounds, the group was just starting to get ready to leave the pub, standing up, pulling on their cloaks and gathering their purchases, when an older drunk man suddenly stumbled up to Hermione and leered at her.

'You look like you've got a pretty pussy, princess', he slurred, eyes bright with liquor and lust, and his hands reaching towards her to paw at her breasts. Severus' lip curled in disgust and Hermione had her wand whipped out in a second. She was well on her way to dealing with the problem, the man had already taken a step back in surprise at the sudden sight of her wand, when Sirius intervened, hotly pushing the man in the chest.

"Sirius, don't!' Hermione cried, but Sirius didn't listen and punched the man to the ground with a sickening crack. The man was sprawled on the floor, holding his bleeding nose. Sirius turned to Hermione and triumphantly grinned. 'Told you I would fight for what I wanted, didn't –' Sirius started saying, but before he could finish, the drunk, bleeding man had pulled out his own wand and sent a cutting hex at Sirius' throat, and then Sirius was lay crumpled on the ground, blood spurting violently from his neck as the people around them started screaming and panicking.

'Oh god,' Hermione cried, falling to her knees and grabbing at Sirius in obvious despair, 'someone do something!' She had never excelled at healing charms, a complicated, nuanced kind of magic.

Percy was shouting and Remus stood frozen to the ground, standing stock still at the unexpected sight of so much blood, such an immediate reminder of the horrors of the battle.

Only Severus moved swiftly, stepping forward in two long strides before crouching at Sirius' side. He ripped a strip of fabric from the bottom of his shirt and pressed it tightly to the gaping wound as he pulled out his wand and started murmuring a series of counter-hexes and healing spells in his deep, smooth voice.

Everyone around him was still frozen or panicking, but Severus held back his horror at the bloody mess before him and calmly but firmly commanded, 'someone, go fetch Poppy from her lodgings, be quick.'

Hermione jumped up quickly, crying 'yes, of course!', grateful to have been given a task. She moved as if to go, but Severus stopped her.

'No, not you, Rosmerta should go, she knows where Poppy lives.'

So Rosmerta rushed off, and Severus continued attending to Sirius. The bleeding had mostly stopped now, as a result of his spells, but Sirius was still unconscious, his face pale with blood loss. A pool of blood had spread over the floor, and the knees of Severus' trousers were damp. There was not much more Severus could do for him. He conjured a damp warm cloth and smoothed it gently over Sirius' forehead.

He looked at Hermione. She just sat there, looking stunned and distraught. She looked up at Severus then and just sat there, watching him, a couple of tears running down her face. As their eyes met, the noise surrounding them seemed to fade away, a mere rushing at the back of his mind. Severus held her gaze for a long moment, his soul suspended. He felt as if she was seeing him again, like he'd not been seen since they'd parted such a long time ago. It was a beautiful, painful sensation, and though he knew it could not last, he wouldn't have given it up for the world.

And then Rosmerta pulled him back to the present, having just returned with Poppy. 'Right, move him to the back room, there's a bed there where he can rest and recover for as long as he needs to, come on!'

And Sirius was levitated away and into the back, Poppy going after him to attend to her patient, leaving behind them the stark pool of blood which Severus quickly evanescoed. Everyone just stood there, silent, and shocked. The other customers had been cleared from the bar, and they were alone. After a short while, some aurors came to take away the perpetrator, who must have been contained by one of the others, but Severus barely took notice of it. He was watching Hermione. Her face was ashen and she was crying, clearly devastated. She was standing next to Minerva, and kept muttering 'stupid, stupid!' and 'why did he do it?' and 'I told him not to, but he didn't listen,' and then, 'god, it's all my fault, my fault.' The last phrase seemed wrenched from her, her voice tight and choked.

A while later Poppy came out and said, 'he's going to be fine, most probably, but he will need to stay here for a while. He's still unconscious, he lost a lot of blood. The room is small and we need one person to stay here with him to watch over him. The rest of you should go home. We'll send you updates as soon as possible.'

Some of the Order started leaving, while others stayed to discuss who should stay with Sirius. Severus overheard a heated discussion between Hermione and some of the others, and what he heard held him fast in seat and set his heart to fluttering.

'Severus should stay,' Hermione was saying, 'no one is as capable as he is. He was the only one of us who didn't panic, who reacted, who is so skilled at healing. He saved Sirius' life. No one else is as suited as he is to stay and take care of him.' As she finished this, her eyes sought and found Severus' and they seemed to glow at him through her remaining tears, full of gratitude and warmth. The impact of her look left Severus temporarily unable to breathe.

Arthur and Minerva seemed to agree with her, but Remus was so insistent that he would be the one to stay, because he was, after all, Sirius' best friend, and Severus was no one to him, that Hermione eventually, and reluctantly, relented.

There was nothing for Severus to do but to leave, his shirt torn and spattered with blood. He took a long last look at Hermione who returned his gaze with a forlorn, broken expression, and then turned to leave.

But for a long time after he felt warmed and gratified by her words, her faith in him and his abilities. But he equally couldn't forget her distraught expression when Sirius had fallen to the ground, and her obvious anguish after. Severus could no longer doubt that she cared deeply for Sirius. He only hoped that Sirius would pull through.

Back at Grimmauld Place, it appeared that the others agreed with Severus' assessment. As soon as they had all returned, Hermione had grabbed some supplies and gone straight back to Hogsmeade.

'She's so desperate to get back to him,' Minerva commented, 'I suppose I owe you now, Arthur,' she added, recalling their bet and trying to lighten the mood in the heavy atmosphere of the living room.

As the others conversed, it became clear to Severus that they all assumed the same, that Hermione and Sirius were committed to each other, in love. And so, he supposed, it was.

He suppressed his pain as best he could, and retreated to the kitchen to start brewing the potions he was sure Poppy would need.