Hermione flung herself at him, pushing him on to his back, straddling him and covering his face with kisses. Snape had his hands on her thighs, the sound of his laughter was the most glorious sound she had ever heard.

"I don't understand how this is possible?" Hermione asked in between kisses.

"If you let me up for air for a second, I'll tell you." he replied, picking up the stone from where she dropped it, he held it up.

"This is a horcrux." Snape said.

Hermione could barely believe it, how could he have done it, after everything that had happened,

"You made a horcrux?" she said horrified at what she was hearing.

"No, it was not me, Albus did." he revealed.

"What, Dumbledore made it?" Hermione sat up, still astride Snape, her hands on his stomach.

"Yes, he did. He came to me shortly after he asked me to be the one to kill him. He knew I did not want to do it, he knew he was asking too much of me." Snape explained, "He told me he had found a way of repaying the debt he owed me. I refused at first but that day in the forest I realised that I would proceed with his plan."

"Wait a minute, how could Dumbledore make it for you?"

"You know, of course, to make a horcux one must kill to rip ones soul. Well, what if the person to be killed knew it was going to happen, in fact what if they accepted their death. Albus was a great wizard, he had found a way to pull the piece of my soul into this stone at the moment of his death. I may have killed Albus but I killed him through love not hate, much in the same way Lily's love protected the Potter boy, it is old magic and Albus used his love to protect me. He carried this stone with him everywhere in the last few weeks of his life and when the time came and finally the stone had the piece of my soul, it transported itself to the container you received."

"Why did you choose that book, the one for Lily?" she asked.

"It represented my heart, I will always love Lily but she is my past. You, I hope are my future. To bring me back the stone had to connect with someone who loved me, as you know there was no-one to whom I could turn." Snape said. "Once on a particularly bad day, your failure to concentrate in class angered me, that I am afraid I entered your mind to find out what was so important to you that you risked yet another detention. I was surprised to find it was me."

Hermione blushed at the thought of him inside her head, seeing her thoughts about him.

"I have to say I was shocked that you could have feelings for me but it was also a relief. As I had found that my feelings for you had changed immeasurably too. I do not know when it happened, maybe it happened so slowly that I did not notice but I knew that I loved you." Snape sighed, "I also knew that it was wrong and that nothing could ever come from it, you were my student and I had a professional duty not to act on my feelings. So I buried them deep until the day in the clearing."

As he spoke Hermione hardly moved, she had never thought that Snape may have had feelings for her back then, he had managed to hide it very well. All the snide comments and deducted points, all the detentions he had inflicted on her were to cover up his feelings, it made sense to her now why he had been harder on her than the other students.

"When I told Albus that I had chosen you, he was shocked at how I felt and tried to talk me out of using you, he said you were too young and that it may just be a schoolgirl crush but I was adamant." He continued it was as if he had to make sure Hermione understood everything. "I could not come back to a life of living without the woman I loved, I had lived that life for too many years to endure it again."

"What about the tear? How could you have known that would happen? That I would be there when you died?" she fired questions at him.

"I didn't know you would be there, although it did not surprise me, you three had a habit of being in the wrong place. The tear was never in the plan, Hermione it was an accident. As it turned out for me, a very fortunate accident but an accident all the same." Snape smiled at her as he continued to explain. "When I first found myself in your mind, I could not work out what had happened, it took months of me watching your dreams to work out why I was there, eventually I saw what you had done for me as I lay dying and I realised that I could use the situation to my advantage. I just had to wait until you found the stone."

"Once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin." Hermione said wryly.

"Why change the habit of a lifetime." Snape chuckled.

"The stone on its own would have penetrated your dreams to make you realise you feelings for me but it would have taken months, maybe even years for the connection to be strong enough for you to bring me back with you." he explained "So I was able to join you, to show you the real me, the me with flaws and ego but also the man who could love you liked you deserve to be loved."

Hermione took the stone from him looking at it, it was such a simple thing that had brought the man she loved to her.

"Hermione, may I borrow your wand for a second please?" He asked "As I find myself temporarily without mine."

She leant forward, reaching for her wand from the bedside table. As she did so she was reminded that Snape was still naked, as she felt his stirring member between her legs.

Taking her wand, Snape pointed it at the stone, a soft golden light surrounded the stone as it floated from her hand. She watched as the stone began to change shape into a heart, snaking from the top a fine gold chain. Moving towards her the chain disappearing under her hair, she felt it join at the nape of her neck, the stone nestling on her chest.

"Severus, it is beautiful." she exclaimed, lifting the pendant to look at it.

"As are you, my love." he replied his eyes shining, he sat up and put his arms around her.

"I love you, Severus" she said putting her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss.

The End