Author's Note: First let me thank everyone who had reviewed, alerted, or put this story on their favorites it means a lot to me and keeps me writing.
On another note I made the video, the link is in my profile. The song is Far Away by Nickleback and when I heard it on Friday I knew it was meant for this story, if you listen to the lyrics it's almost as if they go together. It was unintentional, I hadn't heard the song in a while and if I had this story would have a different title;)
ghzowy: Thank you for your wonderful comments and your welcome. I want to wrap up a couple of things before I address the issues or Ginny and the wizarding world in general, but it is coming.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Do I really need to say that I don't own them? I'm just playing with someone else's toys and do return them in the same shape I have found them (well that may not always be the case).
It hadn't taken long the next day for Luna and her to find the dress, it was a beautiful floor length dark green and sequence dress. Soon as Hermione saw the dress she thought it would be perfect, Luna agreed that it would be the perfect dress for a Christmas wedding. Next was a shawl to wear as the ceremony was outside and the dress had no sleeves. They finally decided on a dark green shawl to match the dress and black lace fingerless gloves to complete it.
By the time Hermione arrived home that evening she was wore out, the last two days were the most she had done since the surgery. Then there was spending the night with Severus after their talk, he kept wakening her to pull her closer to him like he was afraid that she was going to disappear if he didn't keep a tight hold on her.
All these little things told her more than anything he could say to her, him holding her close to him. The remorse she had seen in him over what he had done to her. She knew he craved her forgiveness, but hadn't accepted it fully yet.
She laid down on the sofa with the remote flipping through the channels until she found an old or maybe it was a new Doctor Who episode, didn't someone say they brought it back? She watched as a man who bore a striking resemblance to Barty Crouch Jr. run around on the screen with some blonde girl.
Hermione wasn't really paying attention to the show as she closed her eyes, the next thing she knew someone was shaking her. When she finally opened her eyes to see Harry over her she asked,
"What's wrong?" she asked
"Nothing, I flooed and you didn't answer and I started to worry."
"Yes mother, I just fell asleep here watching TV."
"Are you okay? You don't ever watch TV, well hardly ever."
"Yeah, I'm fine I just was a little tired from dress shopping with Luna and spending the night at Hogwarts that I just wanted to rest."
"Is everything okay?"
"Yes and no."
"What does that mean?"
"Yes we are doing okay, but no as in he won't forgive me for things I've said and done. He brushes it off like he deserves what I did. I punched him, thing is I can't for the life of me remember why. He brushed it off like it was nothing."
"What did he do?"
"Nothing, he's so use to being beat down for nothing that he thinks that he deserves it."
"I'm sorry Hermione, I can see this is bothering you."
"Well I told him that he needs to learn how to accept forgiveness, how to forgive others, and himself. I just hope he really does think on it."
"He loves you, of course he will listen to you."
"I hope so, I need him to forgive me or we are going to go nowhere."
~~^~~SSHG~~^~~
Severus came home on Friday, Hermione didn't need to ask how the rest of his week was if the look on his face was anything to go by. She more or less stayed quiet and out of his way until he asked her if she would sleep in the same bed as him.
When they woke up on Saturday morning Severus made coffee before showering then bringing her a mug before he said,
"Hermione is there anything else that I did to you?"
"We covered; cooking, cleaning, anger, cutting remarks, silence, not talking, ignoring, you not being there on important dates, miscarriages, me being led to think that you were out with whores, calling me a whore and a slut, and that I'm not Lily."
"I'm sorry for all of it, from the cooking to the comparing you to Lily. If I had it all to do over I would and treat you the way my wife should have been treated."
"What brought all of this on?"
"I've been considering a lot of things, I knew you forgave the cooking remarks when you had supper ready the first time. Some are not as easy to know that I'm forgiven for, I find myself questioning if I will ever be forgiven for calling you a whore or worse. They were words that should have never left my mouth in regards to you, but then it comes back to being angry which I….."
"Severus." Hermione interrupted him, "Comments about my cooking were easy to let go of when you eat anything I cook now and though you never say a thing one way or another you clean your plate, I have figured out if you like it you always are for seconds. Have you not noticed that some food has been cooked repeatedly?"
"I… yes."
"So let it go. You apologized, I have forgiven you."
He nodded at her, then she said.
"Cleaning, yes you never said you noticed that I had, but that's not really that bad of an infraction and one I should not have carried with me for this long. Yes I know it caused words between us that time, honestly I have no idea where that came from either but I'm beginning to think it was just other issues comeing out that way. We both need to just let it go and forget about it."
"I can do that, but I do have a question to ask you later."
"Okay, silence you've more than made up for now. You talk to me now, you listen to what I have to say. It has shown me that you are trying. You don't ignore me anymore, you address issues that I have or we wouldn't be talking about this now. So yes I have forgiven you for both of those."
He nodded again.
"Forgetting important dates, I'm just going to have to take it on faith that you won't ignore them in the future. I'm sure you will be bound to forget some of them sometimes, but you know the one thing that above all that brought about my forgiveness in that, you remembered the date," she took a deep breath this was always hard to talk about. "You remembered the…."
Severus sat down on the bed with her saying,
"You don't have to say it, I understand."
"That meant more to me than you'll ever know. It led to me forgiving the other three times also."
He took her hand in his squeezing it.
"The anger, I'm still working on forgiving. But I believe that when all the other things are done then it will be also. The others are tied to this one and when I can forgive them it will be all together."
"So I'm not in as bad of a position that I had led myself to believe."
"No your not. Though I will say that we are always going to have tiffs between us, we are two different people with a different set of driving forces, but I also think that if we overcome the past then there will be nothing that can not be overcome."
Severus leaned over kissing her on the lips, it was just a small meeting of the lips then he pulled back saying,
"How about breakfast?"
He took her hand leading her down stairs to the kitchen, when she stopped in the doorway gasping at the charmed roses sitting on the table she turned asking,
"What are they for?"
"An important date." He whispered in her ear that sent a trindel of heat down her spine she turned back around wondering what she was missing, he leaned down behind her saying,
"Don't tell me, you don't know what today is."
Hermione turned a shade of pink, she was racking her brain trying to come up with what today was when he finally said.
"Four months ago today you allowed me back into your life." Then he pulled her back against him whispering into her ear, "This is where I want to stay, always."
Hermione leaned her head back against his chest before turning her head up to him, he lowered his head to hers capturing her mouth with his. She slid her tongue across his lips, he deepened the kiss sliding his tongue around hers then into her mapping out the feeling again. She turned in his arms, her arms going around his neck so she could thread her fingers through his hair. He allowed her the same as she ran her tongue across the roof of his mouth making him moan before he broke the kiss saying,
"Let's eat, I have a surprise for you."
Author's Note: Comments really do make me smile and brighten my day.
Also I wanted to let you know that I have a couple of Severus/Hermione videos on youtube, the link is in my profile.