I hope you all enjoy the fic. I am not an English speaker, so please be patient with me. If you wish to help me, please send me a message. I will be grateful for your help.

HarryPGinnyW4eva: Thank you so much! I sincerely hope that you also enjoy this one. Their relationship will slowly grow


Chapter 10: Truths and secrets

Hermione Granger stood outside the hidden cottage on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, her heart pounding in her chest. She had convinced Severus Snape to leave the safety of Hogwarts and move with her to her small London flat. It was a big step for both of them, but Hermione knew it was the right decision.

As she entered the cottage, she found Snape surrounded by boxes, slowly packing his belongings. Hermione couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness at the thought of him leaving the place he had surely called home for so long.

"Granger," Snape greeted her, his voice hoarse and filled with resignation. "Stop staring and make yourself useful."

Hermione nodded immediately, picking up some books without even looking at the covers and neatly packing them into the empty boxes that seemed to appear out of nowhere each time she filled them.

Snape sighed and continued packing. As Hermione grabbed a few more books, she couldn't help but wonder about something that had been bothering her for a while.

"Professor, did you lie to me?" she asked, her voice soft but filled with curiosity.

Snape paused, a troubled expression crossing his face. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Hermione took a deep breath. "When you proposed to me, you said it was to protect me from potential Death Eaters who could use every method possible to marry me and save themselves from Azkaban. But if you knew that the Destiny Knot would bond us together no matter what, why did you say that? Were you lying to me all along, just to convince me to marry you?"

Snape looked at her, his eyes searching hers for a moment before he answered. "I wasn't lying to you," he said. "I knew about the Destiny Knot and its powers. But apart from the annoying similarities we both possess, I also knew that out of all the people who could potentially marry you, I was the strongest one in terms of magical bonding. I wanted to protect you, just in case your other marriages did not work out."

Hermione was taken aback by Snape's words.

"Protect me!? If you never cared for me! For all I know, you always hated me back at Hogwarts!"

"Ungrateful brat!" Snape muttered, tossing one of the boxes at his feet with his foot. "Do you think I wanted all this to happen? Do you really think I wanted to realize that the only witch I could be bound to, for this ridiculous marriage law, was the one who helped to kill the Dark Lord and is so famous that nobody will stop talking about our arranged marriage for ages, because she's now married to a scoundrel like the traitor Severus Snape?"

"Does Minerva know about this, that I was destined to be your soulmate?"

"I never told her such a thing. All I told her was that the Ministry of Magic had discovered that I was alive and that my name had appeared in that blasted newspaper, so I had to marry like everyone else. She had to suspect it for some reason, Merlin knows why."

"Why would Professor McGonagall suspect that you and I are soulmates, Professor Snape? No offence, but you are older than me, grumpier than me, and clearly averse to any kind of human contact. Whereas I am a woman who cherishes her family, her cat, her friends, and life itself, and I am not always brooding in every corner, despising my existence like you do."

Snape chuckled cynically but she had to keep Minerva's letter to her a secret.

"Of all the women in the world that destiny could have bound me to, it had to be you, Granger, precisely."

"If I remember correctly, Professor, you decided to knock on my door with a bouquet of roses and a poem in hand. If I was the last person you wanted to be bonded with, why did you persist with that charade?"

She already knew the reason: to save the pitiful life he had to live now that he was alive again.

Snape opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He held his head with one of his hands and looked around as if he were desperately searching for something, but couldn't remember where he had packed it. Hermione eyed him curiously; he looked paler than usual.

"Professor, what is it?" she asked, now concerned by how much he was frowning and how desperate he seemed suddenly, softly but noticeably shaking.

He seemed to want to respond, but no sound came from his mouth, so Hermione swiftly decided to invade his personal space and take hold of one of his arms to guide him to the last unoccupied sofa she could find in the cabin.

For a moment, she worried that the man was about to faint, but he seemed to gesture something with his hands. She had never been too good at playing charades with her parents in the past.

"A square... no! That's... that's a cup, yes a cup!" She exclaimed proudly when Snape barely nodded. "A cup... filled with something? Tea? Water? Water, yes! Right!"

Lifting her wand, Hermione cast a searching spell around the packed boxes until one cup neatly floated to her hand, quickly filling it with water with her wand and handing it to the man on the sofa. A loud gulp was heard in the room, and Severus Snape appeared to regain the few colors his face had lost.

"Professor, is everything all right? You looked like you were about to faint for a moment."

"I'm not good with confrontations anymore," the man dismissed it as if nothing had happened, slowly standing back, but Hermione noticed that his hands were still shaking and his eyes darted around the closed boxes as if he were trying to remember something. "I'm not as strong as I used to be, Granger. I survived the bite of one of the most powerful snakes ever created, but that's a story for another day. There's still so much to do."

She wouldn't say a word, but she could notice how angry he looked for being seen like that and how much he wanted to avoid her worried expression.

"We should rest if you are not feeling well, Professor. The moving can wait until you feel sufficiently strong to continue."

"I'm perfectly fine! And stop looking at me as if I were an animal in need!" she heard him say from somewhere in the room, still looking for something that she suspected was the potion Minerva had mentioned that counteracted Nagini's effects on his body.

She simply shrugged and continued packing. A musty book slipped from a shelf and its contents scattered on the floor. Among them was a folded parchment, which intrigued Hermione. When she unfolded the parchment, her eyes widened in surprise-it was the fabled recipe for Snape's life-saving potion.

Without hesitating or considering the consequences of her actions, she pocketed the recipe and continued packing. Snape did not seem to notice, as his attention remained focused on organizing or searching for something.

"When will the Ministry of Magic come and assess whether I am controlling your life correctly, Professor?" she asked, simply to make conversation and act innocently.

"I suppose it will be soon, Granger. And soon our marriage will appear in every existing tabloid imaginable. So, prepare yourself for more hate from your friends and acquaintances like you have never experienced before."