The flashback we've all been waiting for is here. We're going to learn some important things, including where 'that' word from Chapter 5 came from… Wrapping things up now, three chapters to go! If you need a refresher for the flashback, skim the beginning of Chapter 14.

FYI – I cannot reply to reviews, this site is having some issues and we can't view them. They're being counted though, so they are registering on each fic, just not viewable at the moment. Don't let that stop you ;-)

Chapter 17

Enough with the harshness of the world,

come.

I need you always by me.

Kadhim al Saher

Severus watched as his wife weaved among the guests, her hands full with a glass of wine for each of them. Hermione was making slow progress; for each step she took, someone or other would kiss her cheek or squeeze her arm, mumble a greeting or attempt to talk her ears right off.

He stood at the edge of the garden, one hand in his pocket and the other hanging loosely at his side. It was warm and his shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows in deference to the heat, though not to the other guests. If most gave him a wide berth due to the faded, dull grey tattoo on his left arm, then that was an expected boon.

If he were a sentimental man – or if he acknowledged that he was, indeed, a sentimental man – then he would have seen something in those that had decided to attend the party that was for Hermione in all but name. Helen and Richard were sitting at a table with Arthur and Percy, who was shooting furtive glances towards Lavender Brown, currently conversing with Poppy Pomfrey near the drinks table. Minerva was rolling her eyes in response to a comment made by a laughing George Weasley, and the sky was filled with shrieking redheads on brooms, along with a scruffy haired Potter.

He was surrounded by Gryffindors. Bloody typical, though it didn't feel as annoying as he had expected it would.

Severus suspected that his lukewarm emotions were a result of the young woman now only a few feet away from him. How was a man supposed to maintain severity when a beautiful woman was winking and batting her lashes at him, after all? He ducked his head and grinned when he finally looked back at her; Hermione was glaringly obvious. She was acting like she had eyes only for him.

Not that he minded.

Somewhere above him, Ronald Weasley was glaring at the spectacle they were making, but for all of the boy's moping, even he had not managed to redirect Hermione's attention. Severus' smug smirk that he wore was juvenile at best, but try as he might, it would not go away.

He had got the girl. And not just any girl – no, Severus Snape had snagged the most intelligent witch that Hogwarts had seen for hundreds of years. A witch that had seen battle and lived through it, that had fought bravely and lived fiercely, and still wore a smile upon her comely face.

And above all, he had married her. That ring on her finger, the thin golden band that complemented her simple cream coloured sundress – it was a ring that he had put on her finger.

Severus withdrew his own hand from his pocket and stared at the silver ring that adorned his finger. This, too, was a mark of her. More substantial than any greying tattoo, it marked him as a kept man – but voluntarily so. And he knew that now – with all of his heart, he knew that he wanted to keep what he had.

He was a married man, and now that he truly understood just what came along with sharing his name and bed, Severus was damn well going to make sure that he stayed that way.

"You look happy," a thin, chirpy voice remarked. Startled, he looked down to see Lavender at his side, covering her mouth in an effort to stave off giggles.

"Congratulations," he drawled, his eyes still on his wife, who looked even more amused than the Healer. "You have managed to sneak up on your old Potions Master. Are you proud?"

"Oh, immensely, sir!" the blonde replied with a titter. "I shan't forget it. Now will you take pity on me and tell me why you are looking so well?"

In response, Severus merely cocked an eyebrow and the witch sighed. "I thought that would be the case. Not one to brag loudly, are you?"

"Of course not."

That set her off again, and he rolled his eyes in Hermione's direction.

"'Of course not!' he says. And yet you're standing here," Lavender gestured around the garden, "with the biggest self-satisfied smirk that I have ever seen. Less people would've noticed if you walked around, proclaiming your happiness with a Sonorous charm!"

She did have a point. Even Potter had raised two eyebrows almost to his hairline when Severus and Hermione had walked in together, the witch with a demure smile on her face while Severus' arm encircled her shoulders.

To answer her unspoken question, Severus shrugged and said slowly, "I am."

I am happy.

"Are you? Truly?" Lavender's smile became a friendly one, as opposed to the professional expression that she often wore out of habit. "You deserve it. You and Hermione deserve it, sir. More than anyone."

"Oh, I don't know," he drawled silkily, jutting a chin towards Percy Weasley. "Don't be obtuse now. I remember you as slightly more observant than you're currently being."

"Once a spy, hmm?" The witch eyed the thin, lanky redhead, her blue eyes softening under the weight of the wizard's eager grin. "I need a break from the Weasleys. But when that break is done… who knows?"

"Indeed." Sensing a way in, Severus remarked, "You never did explain why the divorce occurred. You seemed happy in the early days."

"I was," Lavender agreed quickly. "Oh, I was. Ron and I are more alike than… well, more alike than other possibilities, I suppose. And he was very charming. But he's very young, Professor. And don't look like that; I don't mean his age. He's immature. He fixates on things, and he wasn't fixated on me. They all knew it, which made it worse. Molly tried to push him towards me, and Percy used to walk around the house mumbling about making the most out of what life gives us. Bunch of bloody tosh if you ask me. By the time the Law was finally thrown out, I'd had enough of playing second fiddle. I want to be somebody's first, Professor. Their first choice."

He might have been uncomfortable with such personal revelations, but there was no denying that Severus felt protective of Lavender Brown in a very strange way. More than likely it was due to all of those years that the Healer had tended to his wife, never allowing her personal life to interfere. He had admired her dedication, and he was sure that the trials never would have gotten anywhere if it wasn't for her assistance.

Feeling as if he owed her the chance to speak her mind, Severus muttered, "You made the right decision, then. Who was he mooning over?"

Lavender laughed again, a lighter, more tinkling laugh than the breathy, amusing chortles that often spilled from Hermione's mouth. "Isn't it obvious? Don't frown so. You've known it from the beginning. He's the one that kissed her during the Battle, after all. She was too polite then to slap him one, but she should have. It didn't mean anything, but from the way you've been grinning from ear to ear today, I think you know that."

It might have bothered him in the past, but to know that Ronald Weasley had ruined his own marriage by fawning over Severus' wife really did not put a dampener on his mood. It was new, this feeling of surety.

He liked it.

"Yet you remain unperturbed," he commented, referring to the friendly manner that his wife had always been treated with by the Healer.

"Unperturbed?" Lavender tittered again. "I can't stand the git, personally. I'd hex his bollocks off if I could, for wasting my time like that. But I could never hold that against Hermione. I think… now, don't go cold on me and clam up after this, but…"

"But what?" Severus shook his head. "Spit it out."

Between laughs, the witch managed to sum up his own feelings in an uncanny turn of phrase that went straight to his heart. "She's a woman that is very easy to love."

Severus was speechless. He stared at his wife, now on the other side of the garden, though his thoughts were far away.

Was it true? Was Hermione Snape easy to love?

Did he love her?

His fists clenched and he barely noticed Lavender pat his shoulder and murmur something soothing before leaving to get him a much needed drink.

Was that what it was all about? The conflicting feelings that had plagued him from the moment they stepped inside the cottage together to now, attending functions? Was that - the mixture of affection, longing, respect and desire – was that love?

It was not something Severus had ever wished to really analyse, because then there was the possibility of realising that he may have cared for her long before it was ever appropriate. When she was a student – did he follow her figure with his eyes? When she was wearing school robes and eating her meals in the Great Hall, did he notice the way her school blouse highlighted the smooth curves of her breasts?

Lavender took his hand and wrapped his fingers around a tumbler. "Drink," she commanded, her order coming as forcefully as if he were under the Imperius.

He drank, and returned to his brooding. The Healer stood silently in front of him, looking somewhere over his shoulder but shielding him from the view of others.

Did he care for her even then? Yes, of course, Severus decided. It was only natural – he was tasked with her protection, ergo of course he would feel some semblance of feelings to that end. Even that moment in his office during the hardest year of his life, when she had Apparated and shocked him to the core with her trust and understanding…

Did he love her then?

It filled him with the purest relief to recall that the answer to that was a resounding no.

But after…

When Arthur had deposited her into his arms, when he had shouted down St. Mungo's in search for an available Healer for his wife, when he had sat beside her prone figure on the bed and cried for the first time in years…

Did he love her then?

And when he had visited every morning, bearing witness to her moments of lucidity and kindness, her fragile hope and wishful thoughts… did he love her even then? When he had worn the insults from Weasley and Minerva, when he had, for the first time in his life, put his personal life before the safety of the students and turned up late for work more often than he could count, purely because he had wanted to hold her for just a moment longer?

It hit him like a bludger to the stomach. Like a collision with the Hogwarts Express, like emerging from the water after that one disastrous attempt at teaching himself how to swim.

Severus loved his wife.

He loved her.

At the very least, from the second that he had held her lifeless body in his arms and felt the pain that he knew now was his heart threatening to break… from that second, he loved her.

He had loved her while he sat vigil at her bedside.

He had loved her when she ranted and raved, when she threw books at him, when her insults were enough to make him drink long into the night in the privacy of his chambers.

He had loved her when he brought her to the cottage, to their home. When she had looked around with eyes so wide and trusting; when she had professed that it was perfect.

When she had kissed him on the kitchen floor, her mouth tasting of salt and white wine… he had loved her.

And when he had touched her, entered her, moved within her – when she had demanded that he love her…

He had loved her.

He did love her.

He had never stopped loving her.

…

He did not know how long he stood there as if he were a statue of ice or marble, but the sky was darkening by the time he was able to collect himself enough to walk inside.

"All right?" Lavender asked, surprising him again.

"You stayed?" He shook his head. "Foolish witch. What a way to waste your afternoon."

She scoffed, "Oh, please. I summoned a magazine and had a good read. Do you really think I wanted to socialise? I only came because Hermione chose to attend – it's a big thing, making her way back into society. She'll never admit to needing me, even if she truly did, but I wanted to be here for her, all the same."

"Right."

At some point, those in the sky had returned to the home. No one else was in the garden, though as they began to make their way inside, he heard a low murmur of voices coming from the front of the house. Later he would wonder how on earth he'd managed to detect Hermione's voice along with the annoying, pleading tones of the youngest Weasley male, but at the time he was perturbed enough to stalk around the side and jerk to a halt as he took stock of the tableau.

Beside him, Lavender sucked in a quiet breath of surprise. "Whatever it is," she muttered, "it won't be what it seems, Professor."

He hoped she was right.

The two sat together on a log closer to the edge of the property. They made a pretty pair, he thought with a sneer. Hermione's curls, having grown out over the months, cascaded over her shoulders. Oh, it was a bushy mess to be sure, but after being the only man to thread his fingers through the mop of knots, Severus knew the strands to be as smooth as silk.

That head of hair was resting on Weasley's shoulder. His arm was looped around her back. His freckled hand moved for a moment to touch her shoulder, bare thanks to the sundress, before it returned to its place at her waist.

With their back to the older wizard and the bristling Healer, neither Hermione nor Ronald were aware that they had company.

He couldn't decipher enough to really understand the conversation, and for some reason, the anger he thought he might feel wasn't there at all. Instead, he merely felt a curious mix of disappointment and a burning desire to make himself known.

Words and phrases like, "You need to…", "But don't you see?", "I've made a…" and "Surely you don't…" washed over him.

Unsure of what on earth to do, Severus merely looked at Ms. Brown long enough to smile tightly. Her grimace pissed him off – why should there be pity in her face? Why should Lavender fucking Brown see something in the pair in front of them?

Should Severus see something?

Suddenly, sure of what he now needed to do, Severus gave her a gruff nod and briskly strode back to the garden. Without a sound, he turned in one sharp movement and disappeared.

…

An hour later, he stood and admired his handiwork while Mog purred at his feet. Yes, he decided. This will do.

…

1998

The crack! of someone Apparating into his private quarters made his hands shake with fear.

The fear dissipated, quickly replaced by a sickening, twisted hope that made his heart hurt as he shoved the covers away and sprinted to the door, throwing it open to see-

"Hermione!"

…

"I won't hurt you," Severus repeated, the conviction in his voice enough to make his wife relax in his arms. Her tears fell freely and he held her tightly, knowing full well that this moment could free him or confine him later, if he ever managed to survive. After having no one for so long, his wife was here. Even by being here, if anyone managed to find out later, she could be thrown into Azkaban alongside him. But he was too selfish to order her away. The wave of affection and something that he couldn't quite understand that almost crippled him the minute he took her into his arms was so strong that he had no hope of ever telling her to leave.

He did not want to, and he wouldn't. And the lure of being able to tell someone, anyone, her, of all that had transpired was not something he was able to ignore.

In his arms, she felt thin; breakable. Her hair was dirty and the oil at the crown of her head was enough to rival his own. Her clothing stank. He could not move away.

"Tell me you're all right," he demanded uselessly, stumbling with her to the couch. "Hermione!"

The weeping only intensified. It was all he could do not to weep along with her.

Severus closed his eyes and tried the only thing he could call to mind. "Miss Granger!"

It did the trick.

Hermione stiffened and sniffed. Even through his grey plaid pyjamas, he could feel the heat of her blush from where her cheek was pressed against him. For a fleeting moment, she burrowed her face further into the warm fabric; he almost chuckled with an unfamiliar sense of fondness when he realised that she was attempting to wipe her nose on his clothes.

"Wife?" he pressed, his voice tender despite the inappropriate amusement he was feeling. "Hermione. Let me get you a handkerchief, at least."

…

She had calmed enough to accept his stilted offer of tea. Hands alternating between clutching the cup and tugging at loose hems on her jumper, she sat in one of the wingback chairs by the fire.

From the chair on the other side of a small coffee table, he observed her quietly, trying to decide just what he was going to tell her. Because the questions would come – he had no about that. Besides, he had his own questions; the trio had been on the run for months now, and though Phineas had reported their movements whenever possible, it wasn't the same as knowing just why she had ended up here, of all places.

"Hermione," he began firmly, "coming here was a reckless and stupid decision. What on earth made you think that it was a viable option? Where are Potter and Weasley?"

She held up a trembling hand and said wryly, "One question at a time, if you please."

"How the tables have turned," Severus remarked. He bowed his head in acquiescence, satisfied by her hoarse laugh that she was at least able to function enough to converse. "Why did you come?"

Hermione sighed. "I just… I don't even know why I chose to come. But I needed – I need a break and there was nowhere else… there was… there was no one else," she said eventually, staring firmly into the fire, avoiding his gaze.

Severus remembered when he had left her with the Lovegood girl in his office, how she beseeched him to take care, to be safe. She would have seen the look in his eyes change, from concern to blankness as a result of the shutting down of his mind, yet still she worried for him.

And now here she was! In the office of a murderer.

"Why?" he implored her, leaning forward to rest elbows on knees. "Why did you think that I, of all people, would…" He shrugged.

"Would keep me safe?"

Severus nodded once, glad that her focus was still on the fire. It gave him the chance to study her, to mentally kick himself in the stomach for allowing his wife to get into such a physical state. She swallowed thickly and bit down on her lower lip, a sign of hers that he recognised. As she worked to find a way to express herself, he dismissed the dearly missed sense of peace that was threatening to worm its way into his soul, much the same as when she would soothe his migraines or sit beside him as a quiet pillar of much desired company.

Hermione drew in a long breath. "Because, Severus Snape: you're a good actor, oh – a very, very good actor. Almost a consummate one, I might say. But you didn't fool me."

…

He sat and waited while she showered. Tink was summoned, and the eager-to-please elf was given the task of sourcing clean clothes and as much food as would fit into Hermione's seemingly bottomless bag.

The water stopped and started many times, as if she would turn it off then decide that she wasn't quite clean enough. Severus smiled to himself as he heard the sound for the fourth time. How many nights had he returned like this – unclean and shaking from the horrors he'd seen? Too many to count. It wasn't amusing – he could kill the old fool Albus once more for putting his wife in such a despicable situation – but he managed to shrug off the morose emotions for the time being.

She'd needed him. She still needed him.

He didn't quite know how he felt about that. He crossed his legs in the chair, one socked foot peeking out from the warm robes he'd thrown on while she had explained herself.

And he had thought himself successful! Severus should have thought about Hermione Snape, should have realised that she, out of everyone, would have been the one to analyse his actions instead of react to them.

He had underestimated her – and he was glad of it.

…

"I want to go somewhere with you," she said quietly, her hair still damp from the shower. It looked aflame from where she sat in the firelight. Severus tilted his head.

"Where? Nowhere is safe."

She chuckled and looked down at her lap before glancing up at him from beneath her lashes. "I've just proved that as your legal spouse, I have the same Apparation rights as you. So we can both Apparate anywhere in the castle. Anywhere at all."

"The castle is about as safe as out there these days," he dismissed, waving a vague hand to the windows. "You have no idea how bad… how bad I… What I've…" He broke off. "I don't want to talk anymore."

"You don't have to," replied Hermione simply. "Remember, Severus – you can say whatever you want or as little as you want with me. Isn't that the point of having each other?"

"I don't think that was what the Law originally intended…"

"Ha!" she scoffed. "No, of course it wasn't. But I know you. After all this time – I know you. And I think you're as happy as I am, happy because we're sitting here."

Her words turned his stomach. His head fell forward and his hands reached up automatically to cradle it, hiding from her eyes. "I don't think the word 'happy' can be applied here, wife. What if you'd Apparated into a meeting with the Carrows? What if anyone else had seen you? And even now – suppose the Dark Lord decides to pay me a visit… I can't… I don't want you to… I can't imagine what would happen if – I don't want to imagine what would happen –"

"But it won't! I'm here now, Severus!"

A gentle pressure on his wrists alerted him to her nearness. Carefully, almost shyly, he removed his hands and looked upon her. She was kneeling in front of him, her brow creased, her lips forming a timid smile. For what felt like the first time, he noticed how soft they looked – how the lower lip was plumper, pinker, than the upper. How they glistened, proving that she'd wet them before approaching him.

He noticed how close those lips were; how they framed her warm breath that hit his cheek each time she exhaled. He could taste her in the air – taste the mint and tea on her tongue.

Severus drew back and hunched over in the air, away from her, away from her lips. If she was disappointed, she did not show it.

"I'm here," she whispered with a small smile. "Let's go somewhere, sweetheart."

Sweetheart? Oh, how long had it been since someone had cared enough for him to let endearments tumble from their mouths? How long since his mother's voice had murmured 'my dear' or 'my boy'? And now this – this 'sweetheart'.

He knew his eyes had widened with foolish hope, one not unlike a boy's expression, a boy's longing. And for one tiny second, Hermione's eyes softened with understanding then she opened her arms and guided him to her, holding his head to her chest. She rocked his body, crooned nonsensical things, but every few breaths there was that word – sweetheart.

Was his heart sweet? Did there remain anything within the organ that wasn't black and shriveled?

Did he deserve sweetness? Lightness? Happiness?

Severus did not weep, though he wanted to. Instead he closed his eyes and breathed slowly, barely able to process the fragile comfort that she was providing. His cheek sat between her breasts; the bud of one covered nipple was not far from him, and it would have been an easy movement to close his mouth over it, suck, and look for even more comfort to commit to memory.

He cleared his throat and, difficult and painful though it was, extricated his body from her arms. She let her hands trail away as he did so, and her smile was warm and welcoming when he finally found the strength to look right at her.

Suddenly he knew just where she would want to be.

"I'll take you somewhere," he mumbled, rising to stick his feet into his boots. "Let me get my cloak for you."