Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to Rowling and Gato Azul. I just had the privilege of sharing it with you.

42. The Beauty and the Beast

Snape stands up from the floor and watches them; none of them is still alive.

He raises his head; the roof is perforated, they got in through that hole, but the sky is no longer black. He can see beyond the gaps an orange extension, full of clouds. He lowers his gaze to the hole where he entered, firing bolts with those two who aren't moving anymore. They seem to be in a muggle bar, a seedy bar, maybe abandoned, surely abandoned; he knows it by the old, dusty colour of the furniture and worn wood. He supports himself against a bar and feels something crushing his ribs and lungs; he sinks his nails in the table's edge and stays there, half of his body on the table. Close to his face, the machine still exudes a smell of alcohol that makes him sick. He can't hear anything, just his own body inhaling air with an animal-like sound, something he finds strange. He sees an amber drip coming from the machine and extending like an eye, then falling on the floor's dirt. Everything smells like piss and beer; he himself has a penetrating odour too.

He doesn't know how much time has passed, he doesn't know where he is. He separates himself from the bar and holds his weight with just one hand grabbing a chair. He disappears.

He falls like a rough lump, then vomits. If Hermione sees him like this… well, she may not come back. He still thinks about the last thing she said, that he had never shown whether he loved her.

He drags himself through the floor a bit and gets dirty; he tries to think, but his brain is going through a murky path that is taking him nowhere. No, he really can't remember ever telling her a clearly affectionate word; he was always surrounded by ambiguity, always keeping a certain level of uncertainty. He stays still and breathes; air gets stuck halfway and Snape snorts, growls, again he hauls himself, but his arms are getting weaker and he has to stop. Why does he behave like that? Why did he never tell her? He smiles to himself ironically and spits, but it turns out contaminated with a brown, thick liquid. Well, maybe it's time to talk honestly; deep down he knows damn well why he behaves like that. He told himself, when Granger stopped being his mere irritating former pupil, that it didn't matter what he may feel for her, Granger would never accept him, but Granger did. Then Severus told himself that she might pretend to love him for some time and that she'd finally leave, but Granger didn't. Finally, Severus told himself she was embarrassed by him and that she'd end up leaving; actually, at that point, he doesn't know if the girl has finally gotten tired of his bullshit.

He turns on his back to catch his breath, now he can smell something humid, like a room locked for too long; he recognises the dripping, grey roof. What the bloody hell is he doing there? He definitely is not thinking clearly, appearing in his parent's house, in Spinner's End. He has nothing to do there, maybe it's just a habit. After his drastic meetings with the Dark Lord, he always ended up on that floor, looking at precisely that roof, then he had to cope alone and in secret.

Hermione…

If Hermione were there, maybe he would finally stop being a liar, maybe he'd finally stop pretending he doesn't care about her. He closes his eyes; he feels he's falling asleep and pain slips away, floating out of him. He never told her the truth because he doesn't want her to know, he doesn't want her to know how desperate he is, he doesn't want her to know how vulnerable he is in her hands.

He can't let her mock him, take advantage of him, feel disdain for him… He smirks to himself again; Hermione wouldn't do that, stupid Severus Snape.

The same thing had happened with Lily, that mistake is on him, the fact he's alone in that instant is his responsibility. Truth always hurts. He can't lift his lids, suddenly he can't do anything. No one will look for him in Spinner's End, no one will suspect he's there. He knows what caused that and he laughs again, but it sounds suffocated. He coughs, something wet and warm drips from his mouth. Who knows, maybe if he saw Hermione again, he would tell her the sentence he has never said, that he promised himself he wouldn't say. It doesn't matter if she plays with him, it doesn't matter if she doesn't really want him. He never let her touch him, he never let her see him, he never removed his masks and mirrors.

If he doesn't move, he will never see her again. He lays on his side, wanting to stand up.

Fear, that is what has filled him with scars, what has enveloped him: fear to see he is a failure. He holds himself against the wall, pulls to stands up, stays hugged to the wall. A failure… he will be a failure if he allows it to happen again, if he lets Hermione turn into Lily.

He extends his cloak and inhales. If he doesn't split in that apparition, he will do what he had to do so many years ago: he will change, despite himself, even if it hurts to face all the bitterness he has accumulated over the years. Even if it hurts to finally understand that James Potter wasn't the main person to blame for the fact that Lily hadn't loved him: it was him.

Luna guided them to an old bar scarcely illuminated, light entered through two holes in the roof. In that corner smelling of yeast, they had found two Death Eaters who had clearly smashed through the building's roof, but there wasn't anyone else apart from the dead. The atmosphere was heavy, dense, watered with persistent smells. Hermione sat on the floor, almost under some of the worn tables; her cheeks were wet again, she'd thought for an instant he'd be there. Luna and McGonagall surrounded both Gryffindors, and the blonde girl also sat on the dusty, cold floor.

"Severus wanted me to tell everyone what was happening, he wanted us to stop hiding, but I didn't listen to him, I wasn't sure I wanted people to know…" She covered her eyes with a hand. "I should've talked, now I can't find him, he didn't say goodbye, he didn't tell me anything about this mission because he thought I didn't care enough to face you." When she raised her eyes, Luna was staring at her with her blue gaze. McGonagall's shoulders were still, as if she was holding something really heavy. Harry was looking forward, tightening his jaw.

"The professor couldn't have vanished; he has to be somewhere and I think he was here, we have to keep looking," Potter stood up and started to look around, getting in a small cellar standing on the back.

The women stayed under the table. Lovegood put a hand on her shoulder, a warm, light hand.

"I didn't have any idea, Miss Granger; you could've told me. Severus is a good man despite everything, I guess we don't have any right to judge you. You're an adult now," McGonagall murmured, eyes shadowed and brows joined in the centre of her forehead, signalling worry.

Hermione didn't say anything; she looked at her hands and feet, eyes absent.

"I thought I didn't love him enough, I thought I just felt companionship or compassion, but I'm understanding now I won't be able to live without seeing him."

In the emptiness, a lump of black clothes appeared, a whirl of shreds that turned out to be a man; a nurse yelled before she recognized him as an Auror. He walked strangely, with much effort; he looked at the woman in white with threatening eyes and mouth open like a wet hole.

One got close to him, walking between the others, hesitating, raising a hand but without having the courage to touch him.

"Who are you?"

The women in white walked in the hallway with light feet; the patient's collective breathing blew like a pacific wind of many voices, as the hospital's own whisper.

A group of four people penetrate the room's quietness, they come in silence just like the women in white. The people forming it has stiff, inexpressive faces, they're tired. Potter walks forward and talks to one of the older nurses; the woman looks at him with such happiness, Harry doesn't understand it and doesn't answer it.

"We don't know where the Head Auror is, I guess—"

"He's here, Mr Potter," she interrupts him, tilting her head and smiling.

The green-eyed boy stops for a moment, widening his eyes, seeming to grow a bit.

"Here?"

"Yes, Mr Potter. He arrived this afternoon on his own feet."

"Oh," the man exhales.

There, sharpened by the windows' light, a long, brief frame stands still; the sullen man's eyes are watching him, Harry could recognise him anywhere. Behind him, he heard Hermione's voice expel a shrill, short yell. He looks at her and feels the air of her trail when she runs next to him. Harry watches her reach the man who is holding a gauze against his shoulder, who let go the bloody cloth as Hermione surrounds him, as Hermione, right in front of everyone, kiss him right on the mouth.

Some Aurors, woken up by the noise, watch them and half-smile, surprised to see their bitter boss holding with his healthy arm the small woman, burying his face in her long hair and caressing with an anxious gesture — that they had never seen nor imagined in him— the curly threads that formed the brown mane.

Next to the door, Potter stays static, fighting against himself, gobsmacked, happy and somehow uncomfortable. One thing is to hear there is something between her and Snape, and another one is to see so abruptly, so absolutely the constant kisses she gives him and how the Occlumens holds her head against someone with so much force for the first time, touching someone, looking at someone with such fiery eyes.

The lovers soften their hands and stand in silence for a moment, turning their eyes to the others, waiting to see what they have to say. Snape sank his eyes defiantly on Potter, firmly. Harry looks at the couple alternately, still not believing it; McGonagall stays in a prudent silence. Luna was smiling weakly.

"Hermione…" he shrugs, looking at them again. "If you… I won't do anything against you, I'm your friend and professor Snape's."

The girl smiles at him and the man stands still, still watching Harry with wariness. They are still in silence when a spark blinds them; several nurses try to stop the photographer and the woman dressed in gaudy green behind him. Severus makes a crude grimace and Harry feels the urges to get out of there, but it's too late. Next day, Snape and Granger unfortunately appear in one of the Prophet's articles; the headline has an annoying title, something like "Hermione Granger, gold-digger" where they talk about her as a little seductress who, unsatisfied with her affair with Potter, the boy who lived, is going for her next victim, the Head Auror.

David Granger finds that newspaper in front of his door like every previous day and sees his daughter in one of the pages, there, with bright, widened eyes by the flash's spark, holding that man's hand, Snape's, who he never truly liked.

In the Burrow, a ruckus unleashes, printed pages flying everywhere, initiated by Ron Weasley. The redhead's family explosion ends up with young Ron tied against a chair by his brothers and father, hearing a long, frayed chatter from Molly.

In Hogwarts, the faculty started a series of rumours about reinforcing the prohibitions of establishing 'professor and pupil' relationship beyond academical business; the gossip reached such a level, even Albus Dumbledore's portrait had to intervene in a Professors' meeting, saying he was sure Snape and Miss Granger had never established any kind of contact while the man was her professor and that they should all stop being such prudes and be glad for their colleagues' luck.

Hermione wasn't the same in the eyes of other people; who would've imagined Gryffindor's prefect with a former professor of hers, almost twenty years her senior? Even the Slytherin paid attention to her when she walked by, some with curiosity, others with some implicit mocking.

Granger never seemed apologetic; she walked through the hallways as if she didn't know anything they were saying about her, or as if she didn't care. She'd soon graduate and be free of teenaged gossip. Hermione is not the same as eight years ago, she's not going to hide in a bathroom because other people make fun of her, no. She's going to go to the Great Hall to show her Prefect's badge and fearlessly face anyone who turns to see her. There were people who she owed explanations, but not them, none of those who stood watching her with that smugness and mean-spirited smirk.

Hermione thought—when she had to replace her parent's memories—that she would never have to be apart from them, that if the war ended and she survived there would be no reason to stay away like that, and yet that night came, when David felt betrayed by his daughter and it was, in fact, the second time. Hermione's mum, Jean, had flown for hours to reach England after her husband had called her. Both were there—David and Jean—watching her glum daughter and that sombre man sitting next to her.

Mr Granger said many things; he started to talk furiously, then he stopped next to the wall, sweeping his fingers through his hair as if he wanted to attack someone but had to contain himself. He pointed Hermione and that bastard with a finger, started to raise his voice, moving quickly in the small room, putting his finger again in front of the grieving man's eyes. He felt desperate by his long silence and his face's severe expression that didn't change; he didn't want his daughter, his only child, to end up with a man like that, maybe only three or four years younger than him. He stood in front of the presumed wizard, talking to him harshly. Hermione intervened, raising her hands and trying to calm him down, putting herself between them as if to protect the wizard, and repeated over and over again to David to calm down, that he didn't know her professor.

In the disappointment and rage's conclusion of David Granger, the lovers left the living room to the hallways holding hands. Hermione was crying as her dad went to stand against a window, mumbling bitterly. Jean, standing in the threshold, divided between the two, talked to one and the other to see if she could stop her daughter's departure and David's isolation.

Jean walked forward and managed to grasp the man's cloak; she could vaguely remember his last name: Snape. She watched him straight in the eyes for the first time: too black, clouded like a blind man's, and yet she understood, or started to understand, what had been Hermione's reason for falling in love with him. Nonetheless, she felt something akin to fear, like a breeze that extinguishes a candle.

"Be good to my daughter."

His frown and tense jaw loosened; something like a nod crossed his expression and Jean understood that Hermione wouldn't back down. That idea comforted her somehow; that man exuded a disturbing aura around him, but his eyes were also full of some kind of strength, the same strength that moved Hermione. Maybe, deep down, they were the same.

"Hermione…"

The girl looked at her hopefully, hands holding the black cloth.

"Take care, both of you. I'll talk to your father."

The man and the girl disappeared in a wind of black scraps.

She appears in the middle of the living room with her luggage; she hadn't expected to leave her house that way, she hadn't expected to see herself thrown out and having to meet her mum in some clandestine coffee shop so David won't see them and initiate a cold war of retaliation against his wife for turning to the enemy's side.

Severus watches her from the other corner and senses—even if he can see her clearly from there— that her eyes are wet.

Now Hermione will live with him; he can feel her still debating, luggage in hand, with her long, limp and worn sweater on her. He knows she's not happy and some guilt climbs his throat like worms. Hermione looks at the empty walls with a certain depressed air and finally, her gaze's dull path ends upon him. Snape fears that look, he's afraid the girl's disappointment will stay there over his face as she watches the man for whom she decided to leave her house. He's afraid she'll regret it, but Hermione's eyes lighten on him; it seems like a firefly appeared inside her. She opens her hand and the case falls, causing a heavy noise. Her eyes fade when she sees him there, expectant, a bit uneasy for receiving her in his house.

"So, here's where I'll live."

Her face is soft and fragile, half-painted with joy, half-transparent with unhappiness; she has paid the price of quarrelling with her father, some of her teachers, and collapsing almost irreversibly with Ronald Weasley. She knows Ginny and Molly still love her, but there's an awkward silence full of reproach forming between them every time she meets them somewhere.

Severus watches as a tear falls from her eye and she cleans it quickly, shrugging it off. She walks towards him, covering herself with his arms and breathing against his neck. She kisses his scar in the hallway's threshold.

"Here's where I'll live with you."

"I'm sorry for what happened."

She hugs him; he barely smells like herbs, he barely smells like anything, but he's warm, she feels the core of his heart throbbing against her hand and she tells herself everyone can repudiate her and it won't matter, it won't matter for her. She's not afraid of loving Severus Snape, even if she knows the rest of them doesn't understand it.

"I'm not. Whatever has to happen, so be it."

He hugs her and they stay intertwined, hands flying on the air, squeezing each other. A faint fight starts, she loves him when he sinks her in his body's warmth, when they tenderly wrestle and end up smashing against a wall or fall over something. Sometimes they stumble against the stairs and they end up sitting on the cold floor; they let go slowly and then leave to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, or they go to the sofa and dive deeper. His hands wander like two watery shadows; she knows him with her eyes closed. She detects him by his faint perfume, kisses him in the darkness of her lids. She feels him moving; it's like a swell of dunes, shifting dunes, warm, smooth, firm. Then she opens her eyes and there are no dunes or geography; it's just him, with his eyes like a pit. No one could understand that she loves him, because no one looks at him like that, as she learned to look at him.

Both hesitated at the beginning, but they're there, in her graduation ceremony. She naturally had to go; her mum was the only one of her family who chose to go with her; he was invited for his years of service in the school. Somehow, it seems like part of the crowd is morbidly waiting to see some scene with them involved; Rita Skeeter's tabloids managed to attract general curiosity.

Those boring speeches finally end; the multitude stands up from the chairs, relieved. Granger and Snape meet between the crowd; they notice some eyes watching them; they gaze at each other eyes, holding their hands like an old marriage. Hermione faces the Weasleys again, who came for Ginevra's graduation; she feels Severus' arm hold her tightly, she feels the redhead's eyes on her, and she hugs his cloak. The day will come where the rest see them as a normal couple and stop those murmurs and reproachful gazes, but it won't be today. They're still staring down at them.

The half-blood takes her chin and kisses her, a purposely long and deep kiss so everyone can see it. Some watch them with reproach, Molly sighs with disillusion, Arthur chokes with a cheese biscuit. The girl watches the Potioneer's eyes and knows he did it on purpose.

"They're not going to make us feel ashamed or leave this place. If they don't like it, don't watch, or put a complaint in the Department of Transgressions against morale."

Granger tries to smiles and hugs him in the edge of the dancing floor; when she was younger, she couldn't have imagined her last day in Hogwarts would pass with her, covered by Snape's arms. She guess it's some sort of miracle, that the incurably neurotic professor of the Dungeons and the bossy Gryffindor girl managed to find a way to reach each other, that they could pass every wall they had to tear down and which hurt. No one could judge them until they understood the patience it took to create just a bit of trust, to build some sort of bridge between them.

They dance as they did in Harry's wedding; Hagrid is watching them and sometimes claps at Hermione from afar; she smiles to herself. Snape steps on her foot and she tangles a bit with his cloak, they still spin; Granger hides her face in the man's neck and there she laughs a bit, dampening his skin as they stumble and find out they may never learn how to truly dance, at least not together.

Hermione repeats to herself, it has to be a miracle.

No one could believe it at first, to see you holding his hand, kissing him, kissing Snape! To see how you pulled his hair behind his ear, to see you getting between him and Weasley that day where they almost fought again, how you screamed at everyone and defended him against Hogwarts' professors, who were still talking about you, and you fought against the Weasley family and your own father, who finally had to grudgingly yield.

To see you, Hermione, had to scare everyone else, because you and Snape couldn't be together, no one could imagine that, no one thought it was possible; they expected him to grow old alone and you, get full of redhead kids. And yet you're there, standing up with your face clear, with your formal suit and hair pulled in a professional Ministry worker's bun, waiting for him every day, precisely him; you wait to see him exit some of the elevators, cling to his arm and walk like an old marriage.

Sometimes, when he has a dangerous mission, you can be seen in the lobby, persistently touching your bangs without managing to calm your hands down, twisting some handkerchief, glancing around, and one understands you're looking for him in the crowd. Then, when he appears from them multitude, you stand up and someone seems to lighten up inside you; you hurry to reach him, forcing your heel's strides and when you met, you stand on tiptoes to cling to his neck and dampen his mouth with a deep kiss.

Time, despite everything, still passed between you, and people weren't outraged anymore when you hold hands, no one is stunned to see Hermione Granger hugging the Head Auror, no one is stunned to see you've been turning into a different woman, that he had softened his resentment once directed to them, that he yells less, that he doesn't hurt people with his words or eyes.

Your friends were taken aback when everything started, they couldn't completely understand the vision you and the half-blood made when you entered some meeting holding hands, they shook when you addressed him by his given name; even Harry shifted and pull his shirt's collar with some clear uncomfortably.

It didn't seem real, to find them hugging frantically behind a door, it didn't seem real to notice Snape whispering things to you that made you smile with complicity. At the beginning, no one could avoid feeling perplexed. And yet they have come to be, with months and years, part of the Ministry's natural scenery. You once told your story, that day everyone was looking at you carefully and some seemed to soften at you and your love for the Occlumens. Luna mumbled that day that you reminded them of an old muggle story, and you smiled because you thought it was true. You remembered you read that same book in your days in the house arrest, and you found ironic you didn't know you were reading the story of your own life.

Harry, you have to give it to Hermione; even you doubted sometimes, even you, who thought you'll never doubt him. You mistrust them, you thought he'd be bad for her, maybe he was, surely… but she was set on not saving herself, of going with him until the end of the line; she told you once everything might end between her and him, because Severus was lost, because deep down he was too vulnerable, like a creature beaten too many times. You shouldn't have doubted Snape, you shouldn't do it again; at the end, it seems like his iron will always makes him stand up, and he had, without a doubt, the will to change for her, or maybe for himself.

You find them in the Ministry's hall. Granger is asking him something as she fixes the collar of his cloak and caresses his cheek; you remember clearly the days when she helped you prepare for the O.W.L. You hear the man's voice like murmur between grass, and Hermione holds his arm. You enter the Ministry as they exit; Jean manages to see you through the crystal gates and she smiles at you like she did when you were children, and you know it's a genuine smile. In the end, Granger was right, she always is. She was the one who discovered that Snape was the half-blood prince, she was the Beauty who had the patience and strength to go into the Beast's black labyrinth, just to finally realise such thing never existed at all.

Translator's Note: This is it, folks. Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. As the author was explaining, the relationship between the fanfic and the original story (both the storybook and the Disney movie) was this, in case it wasn't too clear:

1.- Bella has to stay with the Beast: the house arrest.

2.- In the movie, Bella is attacked by some wolves and the Beast rescues her: Snape protects Granger from a Death Eater.

3.- In the original story, the beast asked Bella every night for her to marry him, but she refused and she felt guilty for not being able to love him despite his ugliness: Snape kisses Hermione and asks her if she can love him; she answers yes, but it was initially a lie and she just does it out of pity.

4.- Bella abandons the Beast to visit her father: Hermione doubts if to stay with Severus.

5.- When Bella comes back, she founds the Beast dying, realizing she loves him and tells him they're getting married: Hermione fears having lost him when he disappears, and she finally decides to tell the others.

Remember to PM me if you want the original story in Spanish. Once again, thank you very much.

Fanfic written with love by Gato Azul.