AN: TRIGGER WARNINGS - RAPE / Non Con discussed in this chapter.

Alexander had spit up rather spectacularly over his shirt and, reluctant to use any cleaning magic so close to his son, he'd instead opted to remove the shirt and clean it in the sink. In his distraction, he'd not heard Hermione enter the room and it was only the sound of the tea service crashing to the floor and the sharp gasp that escaped her that notified him, as he whipped around to see her staring at his shirtless figure with unbridled disgust and horror.

oOo

He quickly moved to cover himself , but she was quicker, striding across the room and he froze with his shirt midway up his arms when he felt a warm and gentle hand upon his back. Standing as though petrified, there was no sound or movement in the room other than their soft breathing Hermione's gentle hands stroking across his back.

"Severus…"

The tone was gentle, saddened, caring and more than he could stand. He didn't deserve her sympathy, or her care and he was far too disgusting, dirty and disfigured for her touch.

"Why didn't you tell me it was this bad" She whispered sadly "I would have worked harder, done more to get you out - "

He shoved the damp shirt on, and flicked a drying charm over it, before turning to face her. Wanting to put as much distance between his back and her gaze as he could.

"You did more than anyone, Hermione, you have no guilt in this. You single handedly got me out of there, of that I have no doubt, without you I'd be dead or still wishing I was."

She looked like she disagreed, and though he'd covered himself back up, she still held a gentling hand on his arm, as though she feared he might disappear if she let go. And he wasn't going to lie, even to himself, he'd certainly considered fleeing the second she saw him.

"I helped tend you in the hospital wing after the shrieking shack Severus, I know you have scars, we all do...but half of these are new, why didn't you tell me it was this bad for you in Azkaban? I know you had a bad time there...but this? I know Fenrir's work when I see it, I'm intimately familiar after all"

All the fight and defensiveness drained out of him then. She was right, he had no real reason to hide this from her, she'd been through as much as he had...more so even, if anyone else in the world could understand, it would be her.

For some strange reason , words seemed to babble out of his mouth like had no control over them. Verbal diarrhoea the likes of which was more fitted to a first year hufflepuff who'd been caught raiding the kitchens.

"It wasn't just Fenrir" Escaped him quietly. "None of the other inmates touched me, because he'd laid a claim on me and they were all too afraid to incur his anger. But the Aurors, they fucking hated me Hermoine and with good reason. Half of them are warped from working with the dementors for so long, and a handful of others had family and friends who were hurt or killed by Voldemort and the Death Eaters, well I was his right hand man and they wanted their revenge. And what should I do? Beg for mercy from a man who's 13 year old hufflepuff daughter killed herself after she was raped by the Carrows, while supposedly under my care as Headmaster? If anyone deserved to take a pound of flesh it was him, and if anyone deserved to be punished it was me.."

She pulled him into a hug then, despite her diminutive stature compared to him, she managed to pull his head down to her height until his face was pillowed against her soft chest and their arms wrapped tightly around each other, one of hers gently stroking his hair, so comforting that he wanted to weep.

"But not your flesh Severus, never yours. You are not responsible for that, and everyone with half a brain cell knows how much worse it would have been if you didn't keep the Carrows in check, but you couldn't be there all the time. What happened is dreadful, horrible but we were at war and you were a spy, you had to keep your cover or countless others would have suffered the same or worse fate. it's not on you. And don't think I didn't miss you taking them both out, the first opportunity you got."

"They deserved worse, they didn't deserve the mercy of a quick death, fucking disgusting paedophiles the both of them"

His words were mumbled against her chest, and she rubbed his back soothingly. Noting how after his initial reluctance, he'd sank into her embrace and was holding her back as tightly as she held him.

"I'm just thankful they're gone. I understand why you would feel the way you do, but you did not deserve to be hurt, you especially did not deserve to be raped and abused because of what someone else did! Not now, not then, not ever. Besides have you ever heard the saying, 'An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind?'. Even IF you were at fault, which you're not at all, believing that others have the right to take their pound of flesh from you is wrong Severus. I know that they forced you, you couldn't defend yourself in there, you had no choice in the matter in Azkaban, but you can choose that at least. Don't belittle yourself, don't do yourself such a disservice as to convince yourself that you deserved what they did to you, or how others treat you. If you let damaged people use you as a punching bag, they will. Trust me, it's not a road you want to go down."

She held his face in her hands, made him look her in the eye and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and he broke, whatever restraint held him together dissolved like salt in water, and that's all it was now, salt water dripping from his face, buckets of it as he fell to his knees and buried his face in her stomach, arms wrapped around her waist as he told her all of his sins like he was a supplicant at her alter and she was a Goddess who could cleanse him of his wretched past… but after all ,wasn't she just that? Hadn't she pulled him from the gutters and risen him up, like the patron saint of the downtroddenn and desolate, with selfless plans to do so for as many others as she could?

And he was crying, weeping and choking and gasping as struggled to get words out through his tears , but it was like once he started he just...couldn't...stop.

"Oh gods they hurt me Hermoine, they fucking hurt me so much I wanted to die"

"I know love, I know, you're safe with me now" She whispered gentle platitudes, stroked his hair and held him close to her, as though she welcomed his presence even as his tears and snot covered her shirt as he wept and cried endlessly.

"The Aurors were worse, because I didn't expect it. They got to me first and I wasn't prepared for it. I know Fenrir is a monster and the second I was let in the courtyard and I saw him I knew what to expect, but the fucking aurors... I knew they'd hurt me, as soon as I got there I knew they would and I fully expected them to kick me half to death and maybe knock out half my teeth but when they dragged me into the showers and...and"

The more he spoke the more she tightened her hold on him, until it felt as though she was trying to take him and anchor him under her own skin to protect him from the world and by gods he would have gone willingly if he could.

"They r-raped me Hermione, and they did it again and again until I wished they'd just drown me in those showers because it was preferable to sucking their cocks, and taking the beatings and the rape, c-crying while they laughed at me and took pictures of themselves buggering me and when I was finally allowed with the other prisoners I fucking pissed myself when Fenrir came for me, I was so stupid to think they wouldn't have him with the others, but I pissed myself like a fucking child and I wanted to sneer at him and fight him and I just fucking couldn't, they already knew the guards hated me and I was so afraid, so fucking afraid and weak I pissed myself in front of him in fear when he grabbed me and the fucking shame of it was almost worse than the rape, at least the aurors didn't want to fucking look at me but he fucking stripped me and r-raped me in front of them and no one gave a fucking damn. And all the while I'm wishing he'd just fucking kill me because I couldn't bare the pain and the shame was choking me. I was exposed, naked and fucking bleeding in the courtyard in front of all the worse death eaters while he did what he wanted to me and the Aurors I knew would sooner spit in my face and join him than help me. I wanted to die Hermione, I wanted to fucking die, I just want to - "

His words broke up into Hiccoughing and she summoned the waste bin to his side just in time as he pushed her away and vomited into it.

She said nothing, but she never let go of him. Letting him purge all the anger, shame and fear from his system as he sobbed and cried and vomited until he eventually keeled over onto his side laying in the foetal position with soft sobs escaping him still.

Instead of leaving him, she sat on the floor beside him, stretched her legs out and pulled his head into her lap. His own hands clawed at his face, covering his shame, wishing he could just rip it away and become someone else entirely.

She wouldn't let him though, she pulled his hands from his face with a gentle shushing noise and she held one of his hands tightly in hers, threading their fingers together and he held onto her as though she was the most precious thing in the world. Her other hand stroked through his hair and she rocked and shushed him and whispered gentle promises of care, protection, friendship and even love.

He stayed there in her arms until blackness took over his vision and he surrendered to it like the blessing it was, thinking to himself in his most shameful of thoughts, that perhaps if she were to keep holding him like this forever, he wouldn't be so disappointed to wake up again.