Chapter 4 - The First Night
Severus spent the day in a deep sleep. Hermione used the opportunity to catch up on all the reading she had not had the luxury of doing in their months of horcrux hunting. She magically levitated her favorite, most comfortable chair out of the living room upstairs into the corner of the bedroom. As Severus rested, she curled up under a blanket and tried to lose herself inside her dog-eared copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration: Professional Edition. While she usually had no problem disappearing into a good book, she found herself getting distracted. She found herself reading the same paragraph for the third time, instead focusing on the even sound of Severus' breathing.
After a few hours of fractured attempts at reading, she glanced up at his still-unconscious form. Screw it, she surrendered silently to her inner id. Picking up her wand without leaving the chair, she used another levitation charm to scoot the chair from the corner of the room next to the bed. She took another stab at reading, but still found herself getting lost in thoughts of the man next to her. Slowly and without looking up from the book, she slid one hand across the arm of the chair and back into his outstretched palm. She held her breath for a few seconds, praying she didn't disturb his rest, but slowly exhaled when she heard the uninterrupted rhythm of his continued breathing.
Feeling the reassuring warmth of his hand, her mind disappeared without further resistance into the familiar escape of a good read. She only left his side to change books. Finishing her transfiguration book within the first few hours, she switched to the much more appropriate Emergency Magical Medicine: From Scrapes to Breaks, a thick tome detailing the A to Z of every considerable magical health emergency and how a trained mediwizard should approach each one. She learned to her great relief that the more dark magic was used to create an injury, the longer the recovery time would naturally be.
This came as a great consolation as, a full day later, Severus had not roused from his sleep for any considerable period of time. He had fallen back asleep almost immediately after accepting Hermione's offer to stay with her and disentangling himself from the enchanting smell of her embrace, during which he had finally determined that the intoxicating aroma of lavender which had distracted him every time he walked by her desk in his dungeon potions classroom, back in what seemed like a previous life, was in fact due to the lingering shampoo wafting out of her still slightly bushy hair.
When the afternoon light began to fade, about 12 hours later, Severus stirred for the first time. This came as a relief to Hermione who, despite the warning in her books, was beginning to worry about his extended unconsciousness. He opened his eyes with a look of terror on his face, but as soon as her eyes caught his in a reassuring gaze, gently squeezing the hand she was still holding as she read, the fear faded as quickly as it had come. They remained there, eyes locked in a wordless communion for a few minutes more, until sleep reclaimed him.
And thus the pattern was set. Hermione read peacefully in her armchair next to the bed, Severus waking every few hours. Each time he woke with fear that ebbed quickly away as soon as he saw her sitting by his bedside. Even through the night, when he woke he found her face, bathed in the light of her wand as she read. She was grateful that she didn't seem to feel tired, still feeling the lingering adrenaline from the massive battle the night before. She could not come to terms with the idea of releasing Severus' hand and going to sleep in another room, and though a voice somewhere deep in her head clamored for her to do so, she was nowhere near brave enough to occupy the same bed as her former potions professor.
He stirred again the next morning. Glancing at the digits on the overly-large muggle clock in the corner, he saw that it was almost seven thirty. Without moving his head, he looked in the direction that had previously held Hermione's face, but saw nothing. In a panic he began to sit up when he felt the resistance of her hand still in his. Turning his neck in an agonizing move that stretched his newly-mending wounds as far as he dared, he traced from her hand, up her slender arm, to the mass of curls that was her head unceremoniously resting on the face of the book she had been reading. From the light that was still needlessly glowing out of the wand in her other hand, now outstretched across her lap, he guessed that she had fallen asleep involuntarily some time in the dark hours of the night.
He managed to sit up the rest of the way without too much discomfort, pleased at the progress that his body had made in just one night. Still holding her hand, he wondered what to do next. This was definitely uncharted territory for him. Severus Snape did not sleep holding someone's hand. He did not have to worry about rousing someone with his movements. He did not take care of young witches while they slumbered. Yet these were exactly the things that he found himself doing. He carefully slid his hand out from hers and gingerly stood up to walk around to her side of the bed. He used the levicorpus charm to move her from on top of her book, over to the still slightly made side of the bed in which he had not been resting. He cautiously pulled her wand from her hand, the tip dimming as soon as it lost contact with her fingers, and placed it quietly on the bedside table next to her. On second thought, he marked the page in her book upon which she had been sleeping, and placed the book neatly next to her wand. Not wanting to disturb her further, he quietly picked up his own wand and tiptoed from the room.
She awoke with a start. Her eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the bright light, but when they did the pit of her stomach dropped. Where was he? She fumbled for her wand. Finding it on the bedside table, she racked her brain for what had happened the past night. The last thing she remembered was sitting in the chair, reading (like normal) and holding the hand of one Severus Snape. How could I be so stupid? She began her internal tirade against her past self. I should go find him. She was about to leap from her bed when the thought hit her like a brick. He left because he didn't want to be here. Of course. Why would he?
Pulling her knees up to her chest, she quietly began to sob. Why did she do it? Why did she save a man whose dark secrets she could only fathom? She knew why. Even her most self-pitying inner panic could not shake her conviction that it had been completely and unarguably the right decision to do what she did to save Severus. But why did I bring him to my house? Because you had nowhere else to go, reasoned whatever was left of her voice of reason. Why did I hold his hand? Why was I unable to leave his side? Why am I so devastated that Severus Snape of all people is no longer in my house? Crickets. Her voice of reason didn't seem to have an answer for that one. Having exhausted what remained of her inner control, she collapsed into a ball, closed her eyes, and finally allowed herself to feel the wave of emotion that had been building inside her for months.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Severus heard the first of Hermione's sobs. By the second the teakettle he had been filling was back on the counter with a clatter, by the third he was already halfway up the stairs, and by the time she took her first deep, tear-filled breath, he had burst in through the door and was cradling her gently in his arms. Feeling his arms draw her to his chest, she looked up in a mixture of surprise and fear, but already having opened the floodgates she could do nothing but dip her head against his chest and let him hold her as she let go of the last six months. He gently stroked her hair as she sobbed out the frustration of living from tent to tent, never knowing who was dying at home or if you were to be next. He rocked her back and forth as she cried for all the good friends, teachers, and fellow students she had seen slaughtered before her very eyes. Neither spoke as her sobs slowly began to dissipate, but he didn't let her go even as she dried her eyes on one of her sleeves.
"You're still here." She said matter-of-factly into the folds of robe on his chest.
"I was making you tea," he replied into the curls on the top of her head. "I awoke to find you slumped over a disturbingly thick medical textbook I can only assume you were reading for my benefit, so, seeing that there is nothing wrong with my legs, I figured it was only fair for me to take care of you for a change. It seemed only fair given what you did for me."
"I thought you left," she stated without emotion.
Usual Hermione would have elaborated. Usual Hermione would have overanalyzed the situation and tried to hedge her words so that he knew how much she wanted him to stay yet her precise words did not cross any boundaries of propriety or show too many of her cards. Usual Hermione was far to tired to put thoughts together, so the new Hermione pulled away from his body enough to glance up into his eyes, waiting for whatever came next.
She was pleasantly surprised to see a ripple of kindness cross his face, first into his eyes and spreading to his mouth. That was all she saw, as he quickly pulled her back into his chest. He again mumbled into the top of her hair, "I already told you I'm not going anywhere. By your actions you demonstrated that I can trust you with my life. This puts you on a list of exactly two people, one of whom is no longer living. There is quite literally nowhere I would rather be. In addition, I have found myself quite massively in your debt. While I have no idea how I am going to rectify this situation, I figured that tea was an acceptable place to start."
With every word, he felt the rigid muscles of her body begin to relax. By the time he finished talking, he felt her calm and relaxed against him. After a moment of silence in which he relished the feeling of her warmth in his arms and she let herself be calmed by the steady beat of his heart by her ear, she exhaled a deep and heavy sigh.
"I think tea might be exactly what the doctor ordered."
Smiling, Severus disentangled himself from her various limbs, stood up, and offered the still seated Hermione a hand. Seeing this old fashioned gesture, an involuntary smile crept onto Hermione's face. Seeing her reaction emboldened him just enough to keep hold of her proffered hand, intertwining his slender fingers into hers. As they started down the stairs, she pulled just close enough to him to rest her head delicately on his shoulder as they walked.