Disclaimer: Nothing here belongs to me. Remember, I'm just the translator!

38. The Prelude

She stayed in Snape's house for a long time after dawn. They talked; she remembered everything vaguely. Severus was warm, she heard his voice behind her ear, his white hand walking slowly on her legs. They separated in the bus stop under a brolly and she waved through the window when it was leaving. She looked at him, standing on the wet pavement; he was pale, but his face was clear with something close to kindness.

She could barely look at her dad for the next days; she drank some contraceptive potions with shame. She had never thought she'd have to use them, not her. But whatever, she didn't regret it, or at least not most of the time.

She kept on meeting Severus every moment she could; they planned on going to some hidden coffee shop in the muggle side, where no one knew them. They met in some library and in the velvety darkness of the cinemas, where they kissed lengthily. Sometimes she thought she was in the middle of the best days of her life, that she would never be alone anymore. He leaked some pieces of his past when that aura of complicity extended between the two; the awkward, tense silences were non-existent. While they sometimes didn't talk, the distance between them had changed in face and shape; the difficult walls he created around himself were never interposed for Hermione. She could say and do anything without irritating him, he was always on her side; he seemed to have lost the ability to be angry with her. Hermione was truly starting to know him, to learn his habits, to get surprised by his existence, his life, his wonderful, wide gaze. She had to laugh at herself, at the instinctive urges to hug him while they walked on the streets, at the moments when she kissed him while he was drinking and made him spill half the cup.

Who knew what word could she use to encapsulate what the mere fact of finding him in some avenue or on the house's threshold meant. What she had lived in the past, what she was living, everything was justified by the mere freedom to caress his face or hug him from behind and cover his eyes so he could say her name. For her, it might as well be a miracle; it was, in so many ways, that he was alive, that she could've learned to know him, that they were capable of holding hands and walking, as if they weren't professor and pupil, as if they hadn't been enemies at some point.

The Great Hall of Hogwarts hadn't looked so cheerful since months. Flowers on every table, on every pillar, opening their petals, letting out the smell of roses and chrysanthemums. Her dad looked for the table they'd been assigned with some nervousness; his intelligent eyes fixed for some moments on the attires, for him quite bizarre, that some guests were wearing.

"Your friends are there, in table three," he said while leading her with his arms, and he fixed his tie again.

Luna's distant smile was the first one to appear in front of her; Neville's hand reached to shake hers and her father's. McGonagall bowed slightly and greeted David Granger with sharp courtesy. Hermione sat, always looking around; the Great Hall's candles spilt white light over the guests' faces. While her eyes were still wandering around the crowd, Harry's face appeared suddenly. His gaze was blazing and clear; she'd never seen him like that, as if his soul had expanded, as if his chest was full of breath, as if his eyes could grow and span the entirety of the room with his green gaze. He smiled at her from afar, and she knew he'd never been so full and so alive. He was going to marry Ginny Weasley. Women almost always cried in weddings, but Jean had no intentions of doing so before the ceremony even started, and yet Hagrid had to give her some tissues with his gigantic hand, wrinkling them accidentally. The giant's face was also wet, both his cheeks and his eyes.

"Weddings always make me a bit sensible," he mumbled, getting close to the Gryffindor. David was examining the floating candles, absorbed and curious.

"Hermione!"

Mrs Weasley made her stand up from her seat. After hugging her affectionately, she dragged her to the centre of the room so she could take a picture with the family and the grooms.

George Weasley was whistling so loud, the echo resonated in most of the room; the jovial crowd opened elf wine and corks flew with a trail of foamy liquid waving behind them. They were depicted in groups, alone, drinking, hugging each other; it seemed to exist the need of not leaving a single minute go by without capturing it. So long had been the war, they needed to cling with nails to their present happiness.

When she could sit back again, she carried a slight mixture of the perfumes everyone had been wearing.

"I didn't know there were such lively parties among the wizards, their robes made me think otherwise," her father commented while drinking moderately. Hermione breathed deeply and closed her eyes, trying to keep in her memory that day's smell, the constant, cheerful noise of the plates and the extended chatter around the room.

Ron was still in her mind, dampening her good mood a bit, making her feel anxious and guilty; so many redheads made him go back to her mind.

By the big door, Argus Filch entered, talking emphatically and with an expression close to irritation. Next to him walked a tall, grieving man. Hermione shifted positions on her seat several times, trying to contain the fiery smile that jumped to her face.

"I thought Professor Snape wouldn't come," she whispered to Hagrid, half strangling the clearly happy tone of her voice.

"Headmistress McGonagall insisted, and so did Harry."

"I see."

Snape was reached by Potter, who shook his hand in a unilateral gesture of familiarity; it was evident that, for the man with the big nose, that greeting was uncomfortable and annoying. Hermione sighed in her seat, thinking that those two couldn't be helped, and also hoping that the Head of Aurors could sit on her table, but he didn't even sit anywhere; he walked around the bar of drinks, ironically without drinking anything, crossing his arms, face serious and undaunted. Apparently, he hadn't even seen her yet.

"Severus will never change, look at him there all alone and bored," Mrs Weasley commented, who was going to every table, checking that no one was missing any cutlery. "Maybe I should go with him and make him sit here."

Granger smiled condescending and offered to go for the Potioneer herself; she didn't think anyone would suspect something deeper in such a simple action.

She walked to him, adjusted her dress discreetly and spoke as she watched him serve himself the first glass of the night. Snape was just now noticing her presence, his eyes wandered for a moment in the girl's appearance, in her blue dress and her tamed hair; he'd have smiled hadn't Filch been so close.

"Professor Snape, good evening, what a pleasure to see you here."

Something about that fake formality Hermione kept impeccably bothered him.

"Good evening, Miss Granger."

After a short talk, she made him accompany them to the table. There, a group of people who he wasn't interested in greeting waited for them; he'd have liked to make them all disappear and stop playing the respectful pupil and professor. Jean hadn't even shaken his hand to greet him, as if she feared that just by slightly touching everyone around them would sense what might be behind that brush. He was annoyed, he couldn't help it. He drank the elf wine, grimacing at Hagrid and his absurd, tender sobs. No man with any self-respect should cry in public. To his disgrace, he realized the man sitting next to Hermione was, in fact, her father; he had a muggle air hard to hide, and his way of looking around was that of a lost person. Besides, those eyes; that colour reminded him of the precise shade of Granger's orbs. His stomach turned.

McGonagall rose her solemn face and, with that analysing gaze of hers, she was glancing at them all, everyone on the table, the floor and the precocious drinkers crowding around the bar.

"Then, war is over, Severus," she told him while a grimace close to a smile bloomed on her face. McGonagall rarely smiled openly.

The man cleared his throat.

"The end of one is the beginning of another."

The woman didn't say anything, grimacing with soft eyes. Snape liked to make disturbing comments; she was too old to fall for that.

The ceremony was short. Potter's made a speech; Mrs and Mr Weasley cried plentifully; some went to congratulate the grooms; they made a toast; the vows were said. Hermione shifted inher seat when Harry said, "Together from now on, until the dusk of our lives." With that phrase, Snape's gaze had reached her from the other side of the table, and for a moment it was like he or she had said that. She didn't know if she was happy or scared about it.

The party began after the Potters' kiss. The floor was full of witches and romantic songs. David danced with his daughter; Hermione spun under the floating candles, spun until the Great Hall repeated in front of her and she saw the same faces over and over again. Harry and Ginny kissed in the middle of the dance, Hagrid ate cake cheerfully. Snape was still in his seat and looked like a ghost, pale, his face not softened by the smile that was the guests' common fixture, in everyone but him. It was as if he was waiting for something, something from her. David talked a lot, about marriage and magic society and Ron Weasley. She wished he didn't speak so much, she wished Severus' face stopped multiplying as she spun on the floor.

"Dad, stop, it's Harry's wedding, I don't want to talk about Ronald."

"I thought he'd be here, I thought you wanted him to be here." She shook her head. The song was ending, the last piano notes faded away, still expanding on the room's vault.

The next song she danced with Harry; the boy had insisted that Snape and Ginny danced together, to show his recently found appreciation for the professor. And so, Hermione had the vision of Severus mixed in a waltz with a redhead woman. It was to watch a scene that never happened, it was to watch Lily Potter with a wedding dress and him. Hermione felt a pull in her stomach, for what hadn't been, for what should've been, for what might not be between her and Snape. She did love him, she was considering staying with him, but that was as true as the resistance the crowd would show, as the resistance he showed and that she sometimes couldn't manage to destroy completely.

Severus Snape was Severus Snape and loving him wasn't easy (it actually wasn't easy with anyone).

Sometimes she wished she could give him what he wanted, to be able to give him Lily and stand aside. Which one did he prefer over the other? Sometimes it made her angry to look at Harry's green eyes and realise they had something hers didn't, to realise they were beyond anything she could achieve. No one stared like Harry. No one stared like Lily.

Potter whispered in her ear. "I had hoped that Ron would show up, but he's late."

Hermione couldn't nor wanted to answer.

"I thought it was good for you to know, so you can prepare if you have something to tell him."

Snape's long cloak dragged on the floor next to the bride's veil. Granger's eyes were wet with ashy lights.

"You don't seem happy."

"I am, Harry, it's your wedding, I'm happy for you and Ginny, but you're my best friend and I can't hide from you that I have a… complicate situation to solve."

"With Ron."

"Not just with Ron."

"Not just with Ron…" Potter repeated, pensive, and they let go after the song ended. Ginny stopped being Evans' projection and Hermione could see her brown eyes when she hugged her. To dance a song with Snape seemed like a good idea when they met on the edges of the dancing floor. They were acquaintances of years, professor and pupil, house arrest partners. There was nothing wrong, nothing peculiar, but she never met his face; even when they moved their feet according to the violin, she didn't look at him. Everyone could realise, by the mere way she watched him, everything had to change, it couldn't be invisible, what they'd done couldn't be invisible. Even her way of moving should give her away; she wasn't touching a respected, former professor; she was touching someone that had reached much deeper. It couldn't be the same.

"You're avoiding me." His voice was barely audible, and it sounded bitter.

"Ron is coming."

They made a mistake when turning and the girl stumbled, stepping on his cloak with her heels.

"You'll be very happy."

"You're so cruel, even with me."

They kept on dancing in silence, with some lack of coordination. Snape really didn't know how to dance, and Hermione never had any fluidity. The girl kept her gaze stubbornly on one of the buttons of the man's cloak.

"Tell him you're with me. Tell everyone."

"Not here, not today."

The bloody waltz was making her dizzy; she raised her eyes, and Snape was watching his shoes. They probably looked like a pair of bland puppets trying to reproduce a correct move.

"Do it."

"No."

She looked at the corner of her eyes as the Auror shook his head with impotency; the room was still spinning like a carousel.

"If you don't…" He shut himself down and squeezed her hand.

Hermione felt some relief at being sure he at least wouldn't try to blackmail her tonight.

"You're afraid. Don't be afraid," she whispered to him, hearing herself; it was as if someone else had talked for her, she couldn't believe she was saying that. Severus didn't talk again for the rest of the song. She went back to the table, and he went to the bar to growl next to Filch as they got full of alcohol. In his way, Snape was suffering that night. Hermione knew it.