AN: CW for Miscarriage. I wasn't sure whether I should include this chapter, because I'm aware that it's a difficult subject. I wrote it to process some of my own feelings at the time. If you're unable to read it because you have lived through it - I'm so sorry, I feel you, and I hope you're okay. If you want, you can skip to the bottom where I've added a note at the bottom with what happens.

19. SCARS

The slow burn of morning light illuminated the golden threads of Hermione's curtains. Severus lay deep in sleep beside her and Hermione watched the rise and fall of his chest. He stirred between the sheets and Hermione lay down into the bed to be closer to him. He roused and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light of the room.

"What time is it?"

"Nine thirty", she said and let out a melodic giggle when he groaned.

He had been much less regimented of late, but he was still an early riser. Hermione wasn't sure she would ever get used to it. Severus pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the nose. She wrapped her leg around his hip and as though by instinct, he used the momentum to move her on top of him. When they had both met their temporary happiness, Severus gently rolled Hermione off his naked body and sprawled across the sheets beside her. He had one arm around her shoulder, and she ran her hands across his chest, tracing the trail of dark hair from his pecks to his navel, then followed it down further still.

"If you would like to go again, just say so", Severus said raising his eyebrows.

"Not right now", Hermione answered, although the fleeting thought had come to her.

He nestled his hand between her shoulder blades and kissed the top of her head. He was feeling tender this morning, and she would revel in it. She nuzzled into his chest and breathed in his familiarity.

Snape cleared his throat and when he spoke, Hermione realised that she may have underestimated just how tender he was feeling this day.

"Hermione, I would like to ask you a question of a personal nature."

She stiffened."Go on..."

"It is about the scars on your abdomen. I noticed them a long time ago, but I hadn't dared ask, lest it upset you. If it does, I don't need to know. I just wondered..."

"Right", Hermione said, "you want to know how I got them?"

"Well... yes. If that's okay?"

Hermione nodded."I expected that you would ask eventually, and I will tell you," she said, "... on the assumption that you will not repeat the sorry tale to anyone".

"Of course."

Hermione sat up on the bed and patted next to her, indicating that Severus should do the same. He placed a hand of reassurance on her knee.

"Is this a cup of tea kind of talk, or a shot of Firewhiskey kind of talk?" he asked.

"It's a whole bottle of Firewhiskey kind of talk, Severus, but it's Sunday morning, so I will make do without. You know I was with Ron for a long time after the first battle?"

Severus shot his eyes to the scars on her stomach."If you tell me that he has anything to do with-"

Hermione took his hand and squeezed it."No, not like that. Are you going to let me tell the story or not?"

"My apologies. Please continue."

"Ron and I fell together, literally, in the middle of battle", she said. "When it was over, it was simply assumed that we were an item. Ron lost Fred that day and it affected the entire family. You were there, you saw what that loss did to them. I sort of, picked up the pieces, I guess, and I filled the role that Mrs Weasley had vacated."

"You looked after him?"

She gave a single nod of her head and continued.

"Yes. I looked after them all, really. Ron was pathetic and needy, which is understandable I suppose, because he had lost so much, but he relied on me entirely. At some point - I couldn't tell you exactly when - I realised that I had not done a single thing for myself for well over a year. My entire life revolved around taking care of Ron's needs. I expended all of my energy anticipating what he would ask of me next. When he pulled himself out of his grief it was too late. He expected me to do everything. He didn't know how to do any basic adult tasks. It was like taking care of a small child, except that he took me to his bed every night and he had his way with me. I let him."

Hermione had a fleeting feeling that she had begun to make the same mistakes in her relationship with Severus. She could have lifted Ron right from that story and replaced it with Snape and only the minor details would change. She let the feeling pass, as it always did, and got back to the matter at hand.

"After a while, my life had become a routine. I was so used to arguing with Ronald about our innumerable differences, that I began to create my daily schedule around our fights. I could predict them. He was as regular as a lunar cycle. They were of varying degrees of severity of course - some worse than others - mostly, however, they boiled down to one simple fact that neither of us was willing to accept."

"Which was?"

"That we made each other miserable", she said. "I'd been thinking about leaving him for the longest time but I always made an excuse. 'He needs me today' or 'it's too close to..." whatever holiday was around the corner. Then the news came from Romania that Charlie had died, and he completely fell to pieces. I couldn't leave. He had lost two brothers in as many years."

"You were trapped?"

"Yes."

Severus nodded and urged her to continue.

"We rubbed each other the wrong way on a daily basis. Harry and Ginny were living with us at the time at The Burrow, but they soon holed up at Shell Cottage to get away from us. That meant it was just the two of us, which was worse still. We got into an argument one night - a really sore one. I told him that I was tired of doing all of the work and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was a useless squib. I stormed out of the house with the intention of being anywhere but in the misery of our home."

March 11th 2000The Burrow

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me... ever since the battle you've been running around here like a bloody muggle. It's like you're afraid of magic!"

"Aren't you? Are you not terrified by what it can do - by what it has cost us?"

"No!" he yelled "I'm not! Because I'm not mental."

Hermione slammed the mug she was holding onto the table and made for the door."Where the hell are you going?" he called but she did not turn back to answer.

She yanked the door closed behind her, and marched through the long, snowy grass. The sky was a dark blue, streaked with black clouds and the moonlight illuminated their outlines with brushed silver. She wanted to be anywhere other than where she was. She couldn't stand to spend another moment in Ron's company. Who could she turn to now? Harry and Ginny were bound to take Ron's side - Harry was his best friend and Ginny, his sister. How could she compete with that? She considered heading for Hogwarts. Since leaving school, she had bonded fairly closely with Minerva. Perhaps she could go to her? She wouldn't turn her out. Hermione decided that she would go there later, and she snatched her wand from her pocket, focusing on the only place she wanted to be, or rather, the only two people she really wanted to see.

All she wanted was her parents. At her absolute lowest, all she ever wanted was a hug from Mum or Dad, but they weren't 'Mum' and 'Dad' anymore, they were Mr and Mrs Granger. Hermione was alone in the world. Where she really wanted to go, was home, but it was someone else's home now. Instead she settled on the Forest of Dean. She and her parents had gone camping there years ago, and it held such wonderful memories for her, that it seemed the most logical place to go to be near to them. As she focused on the forest, everything faded to black and Hermione was pushed and pulled and molded from all angels as she apparated. For a fraction of a second, her thoughts drifted to how she had left things with Ron. Just a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction too long.

The world stopped spinning and Hermione screamed as she crashed to her feet and regained feeling in her body. She clasped her hand to her stomach in a fit of agony. Her knees threatened to give way and she held her arms out in a bid to steady herself. That was when she saw it. The blood. Her hands were slick and sticky. She looked down at her stomach and saw that the light grey wool that covered it, was thick with her own blood. She lifted her jumper to find multiple, lacerations deep into her skin in a pattern like shattered glass. Hermione felt her head fill with air, as she staggered and dropped to her knees. She allowed the momentum to take her to a lying position. Her body was so heavy, she felt as though she carried another person on her back. Her eyes closed, and she thought she could easily curl up into the blanket of snow and fall asleep, but the pain screamed under her clothes, its harrowing pitch a reminder that she had to stay awake.

As Hermione lay helpless on her side, the cover of snowy leaves and branches above her served only to make her feel more hopeless. She was lost, trapped and she didn't have a chance in hell of healing herself if she couldn't remember a single healing spell. Then a thought came to her that hurt more than any physical pain could have. She cradled her stomach, then wrapped her arms as far as she could around her body, as though she could protect them both.

Hermione's chest heaved as she fought to keep her thoughts away from the reality she knew she was living. As the trees of the forest blurred into one another, all that she saw was a grey buzz. She had no way of getting out of the situation alive unless she managed to use her supposedly brilliant brain for something other than silent, maniacal cursing.

She had to act. She didn't need to be clever right now, she told herself, but she did need to be smart. She had to make it out alive- that was her goal.

Do not die.

She needed help, that much was obvious, but there wasn't a person in sight. Her only other option was to apparate somewhere else to find the aid she needed. She didn't trust herself to focus on her destination when it was all she could do to stay awake. If she apparated, she ran the risk of doing more damage. If she stayed, she would bleed out.

How do I get out of here in one piece?, she asked herself. What do I need?

1. I need to be able to see.

The only source of light was of the moonbeams breaking through the leaves, fracturing playfully on the ground beneath her. She needed her wand - she needed Lumos. She could remember Lumos, but not a single healing spell. There was one on the tip of her tongue. Lupin had used it in her third year. But what was it? Lumos was second nature, but a healing spell would have to be recalled from memory. She remembered then that she had dropped her wand when she'd apparated. She needed to find it, and to find it, she had to sit up.

If she could just sit up, she could do anything, she told herself. If I can sit up, I can survive. All she had to do was move herself from her pathetic, broken pile on the ground, to an upright position. Easy enough, she thought and she urged her body to cooperate, but it, like her mind, failed to comply. She seethed as she managed to will her arms to move and she placed her hands flat on the earth. With every ounce of her energy, she began to push herself upwards until she was in a hunched, seated position. She traced her hands across the snow and dirt and finally, her rigid fingers curled around her wand.

2. I need to stop the bleeding.

Hermione shrugged off her jacket and wrapped it tightly around her waist, securing the knot at her side. Her breath became quick and shallow as she put pressure on the wounds. All she had was hope, and so she hoped against hope, that it would be enough. She sat in just a thin jumper and her jeans. The wind rattled through her bones as she sat, crumpled and exposed to the cold.

3. I need to get warm.

She sat with her legs straight in front of her. The frozen earth underfoot burned her as though it was fire, not ice, and damp was spreading through her jeans. She needed to get out of the cold, or at least warm herself up, but she had no solution, neither muggle nor magical. There was a warming spell, she was sure of it, but she couldn't locate the information in her brain.

It devastated her that her mind was failing her. It had never done so before. This was not the time for her memory to desert her. She couldn't trust herself to be rational and she was acting now on impulse; a wild beast, fighting for life. I need to move, Hermione thought. I need to stand up, and I need to start moving.

4. Yes, I need to start moving.

When Hermione pressed her hands to the ground and pushed herself up, a shot like a bullet ripped through gut. Her thoughts drifted back to the reality she was ignoring and all at once it hit her. She felt her knees depress but she had done so much work to stand, she would not allow herself to crumble back to the floor. She had to do this for both of them. She forced herself to walk, one foot painstakingly placed in front of the other. Her feet slipped as she moved over ice and thicket and broken branches.

5. I need to figure out where I am.

The forest in early March was a different world to the one she recalled from her camping trip in the height of summer. She was lost. All around her was eerie silence, except the wind that whipped through the trees and a humming that she couldn't place. She prayed that the sound was a rush of traffic. If she could find her way to a road, she could flag someone down and get help, but the more she walked, the more lost she became. The humming did not grow louder, nor did it dim. After walking what may well have been miles, but was more likely just a few hundred feet, Hermione wondered if perhaps the humming was coming from her ears. Exhausted, overwhelmed and thoroughly dejected, she gave in to her body's wish and dropped to her knees. She kept one hand firmly on her tourniquet, and used the other to gently pat her stomach, before pulling out her wand.

6. I need to live.

She re-evaluated her choices. She could keep trying to walk until she eventually found someone to help her, if she found anyone at all. And if she did find someone, would they be able to do anything at all to help? She would surely only come across muggles out here. Would they call an ambulance or drive her to a hospital themselves? Would she even make it?

Her second option was to stay still. She could wait until someone found her- surely somebody would have to show up. How long would it be until she was found? An hour? Days? Longer? Were there animals in the forest? Her only other option, she knew, was to apparate, but to do that right now would be complete idiocy. She would surely do herself further harm. More so, she was afraid to do it. This was not the first time that she was frightened to use her magic, but it was the first time she had refused to try.

There was something else she could try, she thought, and it would allow her to apparate safely, but it in itself was dangerous. It was the first potential solution that had occurred to her, but it had seemed ridiculous - just too reckless. But the situation she was in already was worse than anything that could come next, surely? It was a spell she had cast many times in her life. One she did by instinct; almost subconsciously. It was perfect, because all she had right now were her instincts. Still, she remembered what McGonagall had said years ago in a Transfiguration class. "It can be used to repair almost any inanimate object, but you would be desperately foolish to attempt to use it on yourself."

Hermione Granger was no fool, but she was desperate. You know what they say about desperate times. She lay flat on the cold ground and every inch of her body ached. She didn't need to make it out well, she decided, but she needed to make it out alive. If she gave herself a chance to survive then she would always be at peace with the decision she had made. There was no other way. She told herself over and over- this is the only way, this is how you survive. She tugged up her jumper and seethed; her entire body tensed as she pulled out her wand. She pressed the tip to her stomach, ignoring the blinding tears and blistering cold and whispered - because that was all she could manage - "Reparo".

If she had thought that the pain had been excruciating before, nothing had prepared her for what came as her body tried to heal itself. The 'Reparo' spell had taken her butchered body and glued it haphazardly back together. Hermione wiped her bloody hands on the back of her jeans and removed the tourniquet. She felt, despite her desperation, considerably less awful than she had. The pain had dulled to a cruel ache. She lifted her jumper tentatively, and it caught on something. She tugged it quickly and yelped. The fabric had fused with her healing wounds and although she felt a wave of nausea, she was pleased to know that the wounds had at least closed. Hermione grabbed her wand and focused on where she wanted to go; St. Mungo's, she decided. Hermione disapparated, and then appeared directly outside the abandoned department store that disguised the hospital. Any number of muggles could have seen her but she didn't care. She pushed through the door, made her way to the help desk and as her entire body flooded with relief, she collapsed to the tiled floor with a crash, and everything went black.

Severus held Hermione while she cried, clutching her to his chest, without saying a word. He let her say what she needed to say and feel what she needed to feel. When he did speak, he did so without judgment.

"You said 'both of you?'

"Yes."

"You were pregnant?"

Hermione stared through the window, without settling on anything beyond the glass.

"Yes."

"Oh, Hermione."

He kissed her forehead and pulled her deep into his arms."I'm so sorry", he said.

"I sometimes wonder if it was a kindness, in a way. Ron and I should never have tried to bring a child into our relationship in the first place. I still think about it, though. I wonder who he might have become, if the universe had not been so cruel."

"He? A boy?"

"I don't know, I wasn't very far along, but when I think about the baby, I imagine a little boy."

"What else do you imagine?"

"He's about four years old; tall for his age, with red hair and freckles like Ronald. He's got his sense of humour and his logic too. He's whip-smart, but he's gentle and kind. He's not boastful or rude. He likes wizard chess and magical creatures and Quidditch. We liked the name Hugo - it was the only one we could agree on, so that is the son that I imagine - the boy who could have lived - it's silly isn't it?"

"Not in the slightest."

"It was the hardest thing I've ever been through. It took me a long time to forgive myself. I still blame myself, but for the most part, I have made my peace with what I have done."

"You blame yourself? Whatever for?"

"I shouldn't have apparated while I was distracted. That's the first thing they teach you in Apparition lessons, is it not? You need to focus."

"And that is why you are reluctant to use your magic?"

"Yes..." she said, "... in part. I was already afraid of it. After the battle, I truly became aware of what it could do, but I still used it if there was no alternative. But after that night in the forest... I hardly use it at all. If I don't think too much about it, sometimes I use it by instinct, but there is some magic I am unwilling, or perhaps, unable to do. I... I've not apparated since."

"I've seen you use magic... and you have apparated with me."

"I feel safe with you."

"I'm so glad", he said. "Thank you for telling me. It must be said, I don't think you ought to blame yourself, although I understand that logic does not readily apply here. For what it's worth, Hermione, I think you are brave; braver than I could ever fathom."

AN: Hermione is afraid to use her magic because she apparated while angry and distracted, and she splinched herself. She almost died, and was traumatised by it, basically. You can guess the rest, given the content warning.