Hermione was having trouble keeping secrets.
No, that wasn't right. She was keeping the secrets just fine, it was only that she was beginning to feel the need to intercede when she knew she shouldn't, couldn't.
When Mr. Weasley had been attacked, Hermione had dithered around Grimmauld Place for days. She kept rationalizing it to herself, first for sharing information and then against. In the end, she had been in contact with that idiot potioneer from St. Mungo's and brewed a dozen different variations on common antivenin bases and acquired half a dozen bezoars; they'd been chatting about her made-up project when the call had come down and they'd both been rushed upstairs. The Healers had thought it was just so wonderfully lucky she happened to have been by that night with those particular potions and in that quantity, ready for quick experimentation. And they'd used four of the bezoars.
Dumbledore had shouted at her for just shy of an hour. He'd made it very clear that she wasn't supposed to do anything like that again, no matter who was in danger. He'd spent the rest of the morning alternating between trying to get her to tell him what the next few months would bring and railing at her about how important it was for her to keep her secrets.
And then she'd retreated to Severus's office and took a potion for her damned headache because Dumbledore's curiosity was a son of a bitch.
The worst part was that he'd swirled into his office looking like the great black bat of the dungeons the students liked to say he was, but ruined the whole thing by holding a teacup to him like a lifeline. He'd been frowning fiercely, but then he saw her and he… unclenched. It was the strangest thing.
She knew he told her about the Marauders and Harry because he was trying to calm her down, to help her drop her Occlumency, but it ended up giving her more of a reason to try to keep her thoughts to herself: Lily and Lily's eyes. Was she an idiot? He had this perfect childhood sweetheart, and she'd seen pictures of Lily Potter before…
Hopeless.
\\
On the evening of January 13, Hermione held her tongue. In fact, she'd avoided anybody related to the Order since Christmas. The closest she'd come to contact was a kitschy Muggle birthday card sent to Severus on his birthday, and that hardly counted because she hadn't even put a personalized message in it, just signed it "H."
She hadn't been able to sleep, so she'd just kept drinking. It was her usual practice to have a few drinks before bed to slow herself down, to dull the persistant thoughts and memories. She'd had a sweet vodka-lemonade cocktail until she'd run out of the vodka, then it was her standard whiskey and water. She nursed the drink, flipping through the pages of and old Healing textbook.
Hermione tossed back the last of her drink and got up to pour herself another. Her legs were unsteady, which actually made her smile. It had been a long time since she'd been properly drunk. That was mostly Severus's fault, actually. She'd been spending time with him, chatting or brewing, or just sending letters back and forth. He liked to send her long missives telling her how awful she was as a student, how over-long her essays were, how obnoxious it was that she memorized the assigned readings, how ridiculous her hair looked that day.
She hadn't been drinking as much lately because Severus didn't like it when she got drunk. His father had been a drunk. And she didn't need to distract herself from the memories with drink when he distracted her from the memories with conversation and thought and… just being in the room, whether it was physically or just on paper.
Severus Snape was damned distracting.
Hermione poured herself another drink, leaning her hips against the counter and twirling her tumbler slowly, watching the amber liquid move.
She missed him. She hadn't seen him in more than a week. That was a good thing, since it meant he hadn't dragged himself, bleeding again, to her flat. She wished she had an excuse to see him, though. She already wrote him too often; the headmaster had noticed, and while he hadn't talked to her about it, he'd given her one of those looks.
It was two in the morning and she'd gone from standing by the counter to sitting on it, sipping absentmindedly at her drink and wondering how much longer it would take for her to feel tired. She was exhausted, mentally, but whenever she began to think about sleep she remembered that Bellatrix Lestrange was no longer in Azkaban. Fenrir Greyback. Eight other terrible excuses for human beings. She wondered if Severus had been Summoned for the event, if he'd been called after the escape to brew them restorative elixers and feed them chocolate bars.
The key rattled in the lock and she looked up, but didn't draw her wand. Dumbledore had a key, and Severus had a key. Dumbledore wouldn't come at two in the morning, he'd send her a Patronus to call her to him. Severus, then.
He wore his frock coat but no robes. His hair was shiny with the brewing grease he wore when he brewed complex potions. He looked… shocked. He wasn't Occluding, not anymore, but he had the look of a man who was about to catch up to himself and knew he wouldn't like it.
"You knew?" he asked when he saw her sitting on the counter. The door clicked shut behind him, the lock snicking into place automatically. She raised her tumbler to him, glad that her hand didn't shake, and took another sip.
"It will be all over the papers in the morning. Of course I knew."
"Why didn't you say anything?" He stood in the doorway to the kitchen, eyes narrowing. "What the fuck—"
"Because Dumbledore tore me a new one when I brought antivenin to St. Mungo's before Mr. Weasley was attacked," she said, interrupting him, glaring. "Because he forbade me to breathe a word of anything before it happens. Hell, Sev. It's why he taught me Occlumency."
"But…" he started, then stopped. He ran a hand through his hair, giving it a disgusted look when it came away greasy. He wiped it on his trousers.
"Don't," she said. "I know. I… tried. I begged him to let me give warning, to at least tell him when something big was about to happen."
"He said no."
"He said no." She nodded, swallowed more whiskey. "He said absolutely not. He said that forewarning could change the outcome entirely. He said better the devil you know."
Snape took two quick steps and plucked the tumbler out of her hands, tossing the last of her whiskey back and grimacing. She'd stopped adding water around midnight; she wasn't drinking for the flavor, anyway.
It was difficult to think when he was standing so close, just beside her knees, and when she was, she suddenly realized, quite drunk. She still managed to pour him another drink without spilling any.
"You're drunk," he observed, taking a sip and staring down at her.
"Quite," she said, looking at his shoulders instead of his face. She didn't want him to read her thoughts, not tonight. She didn't have control. There were too many things that could get to him, too many things that would be bad for him to know—not even just things about the war, but… other things.
Things like how much she wanted to touch him. How badly she wanted him to touch her. Not even in a sexual way, though that was certainly present. She just wanted a hug. She wanted him to bump her elbow with his or for him to rest his hand on her shoulder when he reached past her for the bottle to top off his drink.
She'd gone and fallen in love with him, and it was terribly inconvenient. She could never tell him. He didn't think of her like that—hell, she wasn't even sure if he thought of her as a friend half the time. And even if he did, or if he could, they could never do anything about it. The war, the fact that she was still his student in a very real way. And the lecture she'd gotten about not giving away what happened in the future would be nothing compared to the lecture they'd get if the headmaster ever even thought they might be lovers.
Oh, hell, she thought, rubbing her eyes. I don't even care. If he wanted me, I'd be his no matter what the consequence.
She laughed, but it was a pitiful excuse for a laugh, and took the tumbler back from him. She gulped down a few swallows, carefully looking away from him. He took it back and finished it off, refilled it. He held the tumbler to his chest, looking somewhere to the left of her head.
"I thought Black was mad after Azkaban, but he's hale and hearty compared to the Death Eaters they broke out tonight," he said. She noticed that the hand holding the whiskey was shaking. "Most of them were… zealots, at best, before. Devoted in their hatred.
"When I joined the Death Eaters, they were still pretending it was a political faction. They didn't start torturing Muggles on the weekends until… well."
She took the whiskey from him, setting it next to her on the counter. Her hand wouldn't be any steadier than his.
"Bellatrix Lestrange was the worst of them back then. She's in love with the Dark Lord; it's sickening. She cried when she realized the Dark Lord's—new?—body, this reincarnated abomination that he's become… he's not up to the task, if you catch my drift. She'd just been reunited with her bloody husband and she wept for the unfairness of another man's dysfunction."
"That is one thing I never thought about," she said, lips twisting into a frown. "Thanks for that."
"Why do you think I brew so many damned kinky potions?"
"Honestly? I hoped you had a deviant streak propped up by your chosen field of mastery."
He laughed, and it was a nice laugh. Surprised.
"In my misspent youth, perhaps," he said. She could hear his smile, but she was still carefully looking away from his face so that she didn't look him in the eye. She wanted to, though. She liked his eyes. "It's his system of reward, you know. You've seen the results of his displeasure. When we please him…"
"You really don't have to tell me." She felt a little sick to her stomach, actually. She hadn't been jealous in a long time, and she found that she still didn't like it. This was worse that Ron with Lavender, though. This was Severus.
"He sends us to a private room," he said, a strange tension in his voice. It almost sounded like he felt he owed her an explanation, though she couldn't imagine why. Maybe he did consider her a friend? Maybe he didn't want her thinking he enjoyed sex with poxy Death Eater whores? "I give them—her, Marcella; always the same damned witch—a hallucinogenic sort of thing. She thinks we… well. And I don't have to touch her."
I'd rather you were punished than have another woman even imagine that she got to have you when I can't.
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to every deity she'd ever heard of that she hadn't leaked her thought to him. Embarrasing, humiliating. A weakness. And potentially problematic at even continuing being friends if he heard, since he could never want her. She might not be his student, but he saw the younger version of herself, the one that was still his student, more often than he saw her. He didn't think of her as a woman; not like that. He hadn't even reacted when she'd been so forward at Slughorn's party; she'd practically shoved her breast in his hand, and he'd apologized.
She tilted forward accidentally, and her forehead came to rest on his shoulder. She didn't remember him being close enough for that to happen, but she figured he was being gallant and not letting her fall off the counter.
Then he stepped into her a bit, wrapping an arm around her. Hugging her to him.
"Severus." It escaped. She hadn't meant it to. She'd been so careful.
He held her closer, the other arm finding a place across her shoulders. He was warm and broad and perfect. His coat smelled of warm metal and cauldron fumes with undertones of chocolate.
"Our lives are so fucked up," she said after awhile, and, though she didn't hear him laugh, she felt it in the movement of his chest. He didn't let her go.
\\
"This has you written all over it," Severus said when she saw him in mid March. He was holding the Quibbler and smiling.
The smile changed his face. He was usually severe, his angular face practically made for grouchiness and brooding. When he smiled, he took a decade off and she could see the brightness of him.
"What is it?"
"Don't play dumb." He tossed the Quibbler down on the table next to her elbow and pulled up a chair. She tried not to think about the fact that this was the third time in a month he'd come to visit her when he wasn't hurt. He stopped by just to see her, to talk. "How did you pull this off?"
"Blackmail." She picked up the Quibbler and skimmed the article, unable to keep the smirk off her face.
"You blackmailed Rita Skeeter."
"No, Luna Lovegood."
He took the magazine from her, slowly rolled it into a tube, and swatted her over the head with it. She laughed.
"Yes, yes, fine. I blackmailed Rita Skeeter to get a credible author attached to the piece. And, yes, I know how ridiculous it is that Rita Skeeter is a credible author." She poured him a cup of tea since he was sitting. "And I suppose Umbridge has already made it contraband. They'll be reprinting it tomorrow, you know. The most popular issue ever."
"Can't imagine why," Severus said, deadpan. "The usual issues are chock full of interesting things."
She grinned, drank her tea, and tried to think of something to talk about. Since she'd had her little epiphany, she hadn't been able to talk to him the way she had before. Conversations about articles in Potions journals or half-arguments about the odd bit of theory was all well and good, but she wanted to ask him what he wanted to do with himself after the war and if, maybe, she could do it with him. Forever.
"How are the Occlumency lessons going?" she asked, even though she had a good idea what the answer would be.
Severus rolled his eyes, slouching in his chair a bit as if having his shoulders up by his ears would protect him from an impromptu lesson. "Horribly."
"I probably shouldn't tell you, but they don't get any better." Harry had never told them just what ended the lessons, but she knew that he did something to piss Severus off so badly that he summarily threw him from the room. Not only that, but whatever it was was bad enough that Dumbledore had agreed to let the lessons end.
"That does not surprise me."
"He was always driven by his emotions. Knowing what I do now about Occlumency, it isn't a surprise that he doesn't have the knack for it. Especially not—and no offense—but especially not when he's getting the lessons from you."
"I tried to explain that to the headmaster, actually. They would have been much better received if the lessons came from Dumbledore. He refused."
Because he's beginning to suspect the connection and he's worried that if Voldemort thinks Harry has special insight into Dumbledore's actions it will only get worse.
"Yes."
"I suggested you teach him, too. Even under Polyjuice or some such. He wouldn't hear of that, either."
"Hm." She didn't know what to say to that. She wouldn't have minded it, actually. It might have worked, not that it would help if Harry truly was a Horcrux. "To my knowledge, Harry did not meet a mysertious new witch during his Occlumency lessons. Mostly he just spent a few hours thinking about how much he disliked you, then returned to the common room to tell us how much he disliked you."
"Time well spent, then."
Severus rubbed at his forehead tiredly, and Hermione had a thought. "Do you want to borrow the Time Turner? Would that help? At the very least, you'd be able to get some sleep. I'm not using it much anymore, after all."
He looked at her strangely for a long moment, then blinked and shrugged. "I wouldn't know how to use it."
She reached around the back of her neck and drew the long chain out, over her head. She let the chain drop and simply held up the Time Turner itself so that he could see it, then explained about the rings of it, how she adjusted each and spun the hourglass in the center.
"Fascinating," he said, eyes intent on the little thing.
"Well?" she asked. "Would you like to borrow it? I'd need it back; Dumbledore does have me use it occasionally."
"He does?"
"Not for the long Turns like he used to. Now it's mostly going back to the beginning of the day to conveniently show up at St. Mungo's when an Order member is going to need discreet treatment or observation. Or doubling up on my time so I can attend an Order meeting and act as back-up for Lupin in a sketchy part of town."
"He's sent you in after the werewolves?"
Hermione touched his hand before she thought better of it, just briefly, reacting to the panic in his voice. "Just a few times, and nothings come of it. It's never during the full moon, and I'm always Disillusioned. I Silence my shoes and mask my scent. Lupin doesn't even know I'm there."
She'd actually wished she could do the same and follow Severus around more than once, but he went too many places that were layered with wards specifically designed to keep people like her out. Muggle-borns. Those without Dark Marks.
Severus sat back, his grip a touch too tight on his teacup. She wanted to touch him again, offer some sort of comfort. It was… nice. It was nice that he didn't like her going into danger, that he was concerned for her.
\\
Tea became a regular occurance. It was wonderful and awful. She loved seeing him so often, and him not bleeding. But she hated the tension. He surely didn't feel it, or he would say something. But she felt it. The ache. She wanted him. She had nightmares about the faceless Marcella, who at least had a potion-induced fantasy. She felt like an absolute idiot; this was the last thing that she should be hung up on.
And he came around for tea at least once a week, usually on Thursdays. He'd tell her how atrocious Harry was at Occlumency, how obnoxious Umbridge was in general. Occasionally she'd get stories about other members of staff—Minerva seemed to actually be a dear friend (if she was interpreting the stories right), and he held both Poppy and Pomona in good esteem. He sent her letters twice a week—Saturdays and Mondays, more often than not—in which he told her that her essays were too long and her infatuation with Ronald Weasley was hilarious.
She lived for the letters, the visits. In between, she did her calculations for the Order and she attended meetings. There were regular gatherings to exchange information, though not everybody attended each meeting. (She wasn't sure if that was by design to limit the information each member had, or if it was just a matter of schedules.) She brewed the usual stock of potions for the Order and a few for her own cupboards. She worked on her projects at her office. She read books, tried to think of banal things to write back to Severus.
When Dumbledore left Hogwarts, he stopped over at her flat. He didn't leave a forwarding address, but he paced for a bit and visibly restrained himself from shouting at her for not telling him what was going to happen.
And then came the last Occlumency lesson. Severus arrived directly after it, furious. The windows actually shuddered when he entered the room.
"Quite the week, hm?" she asked, aiming for offhand, just shy of flirtatious. He was magnificent in a temper, at least when it wasn't her he was angry with.
"Quite the week," he snarled. "Do you have any idea what Potter just did? Did he tell you?"
"No," she said, watching him pace. "He actually seemed embarrassed about it when we pressed him. At first he tried to tell us that you'd decided he had a good enough grasp on Occlumency that he could figure the rest out on his own time, but then Ron caught on that he was still having the dreams. He never told us what exactly took place."
"He thought it would be a good idea to poke his nose into my Pensieve," he said, jaw tight, clipping his words. He stalked towards her. "He saw you. I had to Obliviate him."
"Obliviate him? For seeing some random older witch who looks a bit like his friend?"
"Hermione." He was so close. She was in an armchair, and he'd leaned down over her, his hands on the arm rests. And she couldn't remember him ever saying her name, not like that.
"Severus?" She could barely breathe. The tension was back. The ache. He was so close.
"I put… secrets in the Pensieve. Embarassing moments, defining moments, things I wanted to hide. To keep for myself." He was doing a remarkable job of not quite looking at her while he was dominating her personal space. "He cannot have you." The last was barely a whisper.
What? What does that mean?
"Severus?"
He finally met her eyes, and his face was so open, so helpless, she reached out to him. She lost her nerve before her hands reached his chest, so she settled them on his wrists instead.
"You are… I don't have friends, Hermione. I don't get to have friends. Nobody can keep secrets." His eyes bored into hers, dark and intense. He wasn't Occluding and neither was she, but for once they remained in their own minds. "You are—precious—to me."
"Severus."
He tried to stand up, to pull away, but she held him in place with her hands on his wrists. It wasn't much of a struggle; he didn't try to pull away when she didn't immediately let him go. He closed his eyes, hung his head.
"Potter can have the sodding fallout. He can have the Marauders. He can have Lily." He opened his eyes, looking at her. Naked. "He can't have you."
"I'm yours," she whispered, since she was lost anyway. He might as well know about it.
She couldn't seem to remember how to breathe, and from the sound of it he was having trouble too. He gaped at her, as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. She looked away, embarrassed. He'd confessed to being a friend, a close friend. She'd… Well.
He made to move his right hand and she released both his wrists, closing her eyes. This vulnerability in front of him was worse than the jealousy she felt for the faceless Marcella, worse than the jealousy that flared to life whenever he mentioned Lily. She hated to be exposed; she had too many secrets for it.
To her surprise, he didn't leave her to her humiliation. His fingers closed gently around her chin, turning her head back toward him. He held her there until she opened her eyes. His face was close to hers again, eyes in line with hers.
"Do you mean it?"
She blinked, bit her lip. For the flash of a moment, his eyes flicked down to her lips but then they were back on her eyes.
"Yes." She barely had the breath to whisper it. You are precious to me, he'd said. Potter can have Lily. He can't have you. "Yes, Severus. I'm yours."
"Sod it."
He kissed her. It wasn't a nice, gentle kiss—a first kiss, a beginning. This kiss was passion and discretion-to-the-wind abandon. She grabbed him around the shoulders and held on, helping him when he lifted her out of her chair and held her to him. She put everything she'd been holding back into the kiss, one hand tangling in his hair to keep him close while she clung to him with her other arm around his shoulders.
They broke apart, gasping. He had his hands all over her bum, holding her up. Her legs were wrapped around him.
Well that escalated quickly.
They clung together, breathing, for a long time. Eventually, though, it was silly for him to be holding her up. She dropped her legs, and he moved his hands to her waist. They stood close, circled in each others' arms.
"I could very easily fall in love with you," she said. She was blushing. "I—"
He put his fingers to her lips. She froze. She wanted to pull him closer, but she didn't dare.
"Hermione, I—"
She kissed his fingertips. She wanted to seduce him, to take the tip of one of his fingers into her mouth and let things play out from there, but she restrained herself. Not that it mattered; from the way his eyes darkened, she could tell the thought had leaked over to him.
His hand shifted, cupping her cheek, pulling her closer. He was tentative this time, lips just brushing hers in a series of feather-light kisses. She leaned into him, hands tracing across his chest to curl in his lapels and pull him closer. She kissed him back, nipping at his lower lip. He groaned; his hand left her face and traveled along her waist, pulling her closer, wrapping around her back.
"This can't happen," he said, his breath hot on her cheek. Despite what he said, he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the corner of her mouth, then rubbed his cheek along hers, burying his face in her hair, resting his lips against the pulse point of her neck. She gasped as his lips and tongue teased, his hands spreading wide against her waist, trailing up and down her sides.
"Right," she said, but it came out a gasp.
He released her abruptly, taking half a step back. He was breathing like a bellows, and she realized she must have had her hands in his hair; it was a mess. Her skin was humming.
"Right," he said, sounding just as breathless as she was.
"Because I can't—we can't," she said. "There's too much going on. There's too much at stake. We've worked too hard to—we've put too much into— Dumbledore won't let us—"
He cut her off with another kiss.
"You should know that I don't do things by halves."
"I know."
He kissed her again.
"We're fucked," she said, resting her forehead against his. He smiled.
"We're so fucked."
\\
It was by unspoken agreement that they stopped seeing each other. He didn't stop by for tea. She didn't tell him which evenings she'd be in Hogsmeade. They exchanged letters daily.
It was inevitable that Dumbledore would catch them. He would disapprove. He would forbid them from seeing each other, possibly even insist Severus go to Poppy when he was injured (and Umbridge be damned).
He sent her chocolates from Honeyduke's for Easter, but he didn't visit her over the school break. She sent him a cheesy Muggle card and signed it "Your H."
She didn't hear much from him when June rolled around. The letters still arrived daily, but they were shorter. He had fifth years taking O.W.L.s, seventh years taking N.E.W.T.s, career advice with his House, and Umbridge simpering at his heels.
Hermione ignored all the threats from Dumbledore (especially since he was nowhere to be found, anyway), and was waiting at St. Mungo's on the night Minerva was brought in. She was nobody to the Healers on duty—the potioneer on staff was the only one that would know her, and he wasn't in the building; she'd checked—and so she paced the waiting room. Her logical mind told her that Minerva would be fine, but ideas kept cropping up. Like what if she was meant to burst in and give her input? What if she'd always done it and just hadn't known she'd done it?
She was seriously considering forcing her way past the bored wizard in the security uniform when Severus arrived, billowing into the waiting room with his teaching robes loose around him, tossed on over his coat in his haste to leave the castle. She reached for him, meaning to brush against his mind as she always did, but her nerves released themselves on him. He was at her side in an instant, long fingers clasping her elbow almost too tightly.
"Severus," she whispered, and he crushed her to his chest, her head tucking beneath his chin like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"What news?" he asked, his hands clenched against her. She swallowed thickly before speaking.
"None. I'm not a relative. They won't let me through."
"Come."
He released her from his—hug? grip?—but kept his hold on her elbow, drawing her with him past the security guard with a glare. She fell in step with him, trotting along down the corridor while the guard blustered, quietly and ineffectually, behind them.
"Which room?" he asked her under his breath without breaking stride.
"Third on the left."
Two Junior Healers and a Senior Healer looked up when they entered. One of the Junior Healers leapt away from the door at the sight of Severus, and Hermione rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
"Well?" Severus snarled.
"Professor Snape, this is highly irregular," the Senior Healer said, eyeing the Junior Healer who had leapt away. Severus fixed his gaze on the older man, raising an eyebrow. He didn't release Hermione's arm, and she was glad for it; it steadied her.
Minerva was on the bed in hospital-issue pajamas, bony feet on display. She looked so small without her robes, without the sheer force of her radiating from her pores. She was pale and her eyes were smudged purple with exhaustion. The diagnostic that hung over her wasn't one that Hermione preferred, but she knew how to read it. The Head of Gryffindor would be fine given time to recouperate. There was some nerve damage radiating around her left hip, where it looked like at least two Stunners had impacted, but even that would fade with time and attention.
Hermione stumbled away from Severus, dropping into the chair in the corner and clasping her hands around her knees. She stared at the diagnostic, breathing.
"Well?" Severus asked again, this time rounding on her. He looked utterly beside himself; she'd never seen his face so naked with other people in the room. She couldn't speak, so she just nodded.
"She's going to be fine," the Senior Healer said, his tone annoyed.
Severus stumbled back a step, but caught himself, forced himself upright. He rounded on the Healers, sharpening his tongue on them while Hermione regained her composure.
They left together half an hour later. They'd been allowed to sit with Minerva's unconscious form, now covered by a thin blanket, until the Senior Healer had finished his rounds of the ward. It was very early in the morning by then, and Hermione could hardly keep her eyes open. The stress of the day had given way to pure relief, sapping everything out of her.
They walked out, carefully not touching. Hermione wanted to slouch against him, to lace her arm through his, to hold his hand. She wanted to press her face against his chest and wrap her arms around his waist. It was very difficult not to do all those things and more, knowing that he wouldn't mind if she did them.
The Apparition room was nondescript as most Apparition rooms, a plain square space with a few quirky details to make the room unique and memorable, reducing Splinching. She glanced at him, then took his hand and Side-Alonged him to Edinburgh.
They continued to hold hands as they walked down the hall to her door and through. She, at least, pretended that she'd forgotten her fingers were entwined with his. (As if she could forget; she could hardly focus on anything else.)
"Minerva will truly be alright?" he asked, using their attached hands to halt her in the kitchen. He leaned his hip against the nearest counter, bending his arm to draw her closer. He held her hand up between them, his thumb stroking her knuckles in the most delightfully distracting way.
"She'll be back at Hogwarts before the end of term," Hermione said, watching his thumb make its slow trek across her fingers. She would probably tell him anything he wanted to know just so long as he kept touching her. "A little easier to tire, and she'll need to use a cane for awhile, but mostly undamaged."
"I almost cursed Umbridge when she informed the staff what had happened," he said, tone flat enough that she glanced up at his face. It was perplexed, mouth pinched and eyes thoughtful. "She was giddy. Or at least more giddy than usual. Aboslutely tickled to be rid of a competing authority figure."
"That doesn't surprise me," Hermione said. He'd stopped rubbing her knuckles, so she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to the back of his hand. It took more will than it should have not to take that last step into him, to wrap her arms around him, to kiss him again. Her bedroom was only a few quick steps away. Her bed wasn't made, but she hardly cared. There (probably) weren't any bras hanging on doorknobs, at least.
"Hermione." She could hear him aching just from the tone of her name on his lips.
"This is so unfair," she murmured, half hoping he wouldn't hear.
"Life isn't fair."
"Please. I don't need empty platitudes."
"It isn't a platitude so much as a statement of fact."
"Would you like some tea?" Because she was British, and he was British, and goddammit but what else could they do?
"I shouldn't stay."
She whimpered, actually whimpered. It was pathetic.
He put a comforting hand on her cheek, and she leaned into it. His lips found hers a breath later, and he kissed her like he was drowning and she was the air he needed.
"And that is why I should really go," he said, but he had a tight hold on her. Their fingers were still clasped together from earlier, and now he had his other hand tangled loosely in her hair. "I love you. And you love me. We're both too invested in this damned war to… allow ourselves—to be able to be distracted. We can't do it. It isn't even about being caught out by Dumbledore. It isn't that he won't approve, even though he won't. It's that we've both given up so much already. That we have to keep going, to see it all through. And neither of us is selfish enough to set responsibility aside for our own… happiness."
It would have been a more effective speech if he didn't punctuate every third word or so with a kiss to some bit of her face, ending with a half-chaste kiss to her lips before the last word. And if he hadn't just told her that he loved her.
"Well if that's all," she said weakly, drawing their attached hands close to her breast and wrapping her other hand around his, too. "I think I'll just sit down and wallow in the pathetic drama novel that masquerades as my life."
"You do not wallow," he informed her, stepping into her so that she was practically leaning against his chest, their hands trapped between them, the hand he had in her hair holding her head against his collarbone.
"Oh, look at us," she said, half-amused but mostly not amused at all. "The spy and the assassin. Deadly. Powerful. Responsible. Bessotted. Mopy."
"I do not mope."
She laughed, but it was painful. He was so close—he was in her arms, holding her in his arms—but she couldn't have him.