Summary: SSHG, AU, All he asked for was one thing. Trust.
Beta Love: Dragon and the Questionable Sleep Schedule, Dutchgirl and the Highly Questionable Work Schedule, Flyby Commander Shepard Who Is Just Questionable
A Gesture of Trust
Trust opens up new and unimagined possibilities.
Robert C. Solomon
When she opened her eyes, he was there, his hand out to her, his brows furrowed as though everything hinged on what happened after her decision.
Maybe it was.
Maybe, everything as she knew it would end with her choice.
Maybe, everything would begin.
After all he had done, she had no reason to trust him.
But after all he had done, she wanted to believe she could.
"Please." His voice was a whisper. A plea.
Vulnerable.
She took his hand, and the moment her skin touched his, he engulfed her as a shiver pierced her soul and he—filled the wound.
His mouth covered hers, and she gasped as a torrent of pleasure passed through her.
Warmth.
Desire.
Need.
As he pulled away, she saw wisps of her soul trailing from his mouth.
What was he? Yet his embrace was warm, sheltering.
A heaviness settled on her, dragging her into the Dark.
Trust me.
Please.
She had set him on fire for less.
She had presumed far worse for less proof.
She had never seen her soul leaving her body—felt it being drawn away.
His eyes were so very black.
Black as the depths of space.
Black as the event horizon where no light could escape.
She touched his cheek, staring into his eyes, searching for the sign she needed.
A small droplet of fluid gathered in his eyes.
She closed her eyes as her body shuddered, her energy flowing into him—her magic.
Her soul.
She surrendered to him, her body going limp in his arms. She felt his presence surrounding her like a warm blanket nest upon waking. She wanted to burrow into that wonderful feeling and never, ever leave.
The deepest dark seemed to reach its tendrils out to her, moving into the void her soul had once settled in. Meanwhile, her soul seeped into him, nestling in that primordial dark that was Severus Snape.
She was safe. With him.
Her soul was safe in his keeping.
Hermione. His voice resonated with her body. She wanted him. It didn't matter what he had done, only what he would be with her in a shared future.
For she was no saint. No one truly was.
She felt him as if he moved through her body, his presence like an ever-present web of nerves that both soothed her and woke her to a pleasure she had never known before.
Tendrils—fibres of soul and Darkness, wove around in and into her, anchoring to her to him in so many ways
Did she trust him?
Yes.
Despite it all, she could not deny that there was something special that resonated between them—something that she had never noticed until after the war. It was soothing.
When he touched her, the lingering pain in her arm from Bellatrix' tender mercies eased. It felt—right. As if he had been meant for her all along. As if she—had been waiting for him.
And just maybe, it was the one thing she could be sure of. She had never felt anything like it with anyone else. Her crush on Ronald Weasley had been every bit as illogical as the one she'd had on Gilderoy Lockhart. And six thousand times more stupid.
But this—
This felt important as much as it was right.
Lily, no!
Don't do this!
Don't do this!
"You kept this from me? Your best friend?"
"This is not a blessing! It's a curse! Don't do this!"
Lily's face was covered in blood. "You'll be my fountain of youth right under their noses."
Suddenly, there was a flash of heat and flames, and Lily shrieked, as she was bound and chained in magical bonds.
Dumbledore stood over Severus, a look of horror over his face.
"He's mine!" Lily hissed. "I'll be ageless and immortal forever!"
"At what cost?" Dumbledore said, his head moving back and forth in disgust and horror. "Have you no care at all for the sanctity of your friendship?"
"He called me a Mudblood," Lily spat accusingly. "He deserves this!"
Dumbledore quickly poured a potion on Snape's fish-like tail, his obsidian rainbow scales marred where Lily had descaled and carved herself a chunk out of it.
"Immortality comes at an exceedingly high price, Miss Evans," Dumbledore said heavily. "A price that will eventually come to haunt you."
He knelt beside Severus, touching his forehead and weaving a spell over him. "I'm sorry, my boy. To keep her from your magical flesh, I must keep you human."
"No!" Lily screamed. "NO!"
Albus wove a great spell as he channelled Severus' Dark legacy into Black Lake—the water turned from light to dark—as murky as a bog. Severus' tail turned into human legs—trapping him in a human form, but he was alive.
Severus lay stunned, powerless on the shore, the blood from what was once his tail pooled beneath him.
Dumbledore turned to see James Potter standing there with Lily—having freed her from her bonds.
"If you take her away, you will die, James," Dumbledore warned. "All those that eat of the flesh of the merfolk are doomed to a cursed existence."
"I'll take care of her," James swore as the invisibility cloak covered them both, and they disappeared with a crack of a simultaneous Apparate before Albus could even move a muscle.
Hermione looked into Severus' eyes, her body heavy, but he cradled her against him even as he carried her to the water. She realised he was offering her freedom.
Both for her and for himself.
Freedom from the chains of expectation.
Of shallow love.
Of blind obsession.
Freedom from Hogwarts.
Freedom from being Hermione Granger, know-it-all-swot friend of the Boy Who lived.
Freedom from being Professor Snape, bastard teacher of Hogwarts.
Yet even so, she felt his desire for her.
His need.
Somehow to brave the ageless and fathomless Dark—together.
His mouth descended on hers, and she parted her lips for him.
She wanted to be his.
To be loved.
To be—cherished.
To be challenged—
Yes. This was what she wanted.
His mouth covered hers, and Hermione welcomed the pull of the Dark's rising tendrils into the water's primordial depths.
A sudden blast of a Patronus struck Hermione's body from afar, and she screamed as her body violently convulsed—but as the Dark dissipated into countless particles, so, too, did her body.
It was as if she had never been there at all.
Severus's head jerked up, his half-transformed body dripping in Dark water. A great twisting vortex formed over Black Lake, sucking out the water like a vacuum. The giant squid writhed on the exposed sand and stone. Grindylows flopped around in the flattened weeds. Fish gasped for both air and water to soothe their exposed gills. Scottish merpeople gasped and screeched, their voices nothing but the harsh and grating discord of sound never meant to be heard above water.
On the bottom of the Great Lake, the lake so many had simply called Black Lake for reasons unknown, was a pool of primordial Darkness, once concealed by the sheer depth of the lake itself.
"Finally!" a female voice crowed in triumph. "It's mine!"
Lily Evans—Potter—appearing just as young as she had been the day she had eaten the flesh of a merfolk's tail—had a look about her that was so very like Bellatrix Lestrange.
Crazed.
Dark.
Corrupted.
Bat-shite mental.
Severus could not even make a sound—his vocal cords paralysed as he was still half man and yet half of what he was transforming into.
"Come to me!" Lily cried. "COME TO ME!" she screamed.
And that primordial Dark rippled and shot into her, pouring into ever pore, ever cell, every last bit of what remained of Lily Evans Potter.
The woman who should have died so many years previously.
The immortal witch who had cursed her husband to death.
Cursed her own son to a pained childhood.
Cursed her more ardent friends—to death.
Or insanity.
Or both.
All for the desire to attain endless beauty. Ageless perfection.
All who loved her were doomed to become a mere shadow of life long before death.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" multiple voices cried out as a multitude of Patroni slammed into the form of Dark Lily, and her body rose and was suspended in the air as she screamed in impotent rage.
The sky seemed to shatter, eerily split between light and darkness. The moon, unscheduled, covered the sun as the world screamed with the unexpected Dark.
Harry stood, the Elder Wand in his hand. Focused. Angry.
Ron and the rest of the Weasley family.
The Hogwarts staff—
Kingsley—
The citizens of Hogsmeade.
And Lily screamed into the very corners of Creation.
And suddenly a skeletal, bestial face rose from amidst the Dark of the eclipse. Bone-bleached fingers that ended in claws. Bones that seemed to be both there and not. Shadows formed into tattered robes. Glowing blue suns set in the skull sockets as flames leaked out with malevolent ire.
"And what would you ask of Death, Master of the Hallows," the figure whispered, beast-like fangs gleaming as the bones seemed to move just as skin would.
"Release my mum from this curse and take your Hallows home," Harry said stonily as his mother screamed in fury.
"With pleasure, Harry Potter," Death agreed.
The cloak returned to his body, mending the tattered robes.
The stone fused into its proper place in his shattered rib cage.
The wand replaced a missing fang.
Death's hand enclosed around the screaming Lily Evans Potter. "You were never meant for immortality," he said with the coldness of the grave. "But you will not find reprieve in a quick and merciful death. Mortals will judge you. And Time will hold you in its keeping."
There was a flash, and all the Dark magic poured out of her and shot away as the vortex she had used to drain Black Lake abruptly shattered and burst. Water poured out, filling the lake once more, only its colour was now a deep, jewel-like turquoise. The sun came out. The moon returned to its natural path.
And the crumpled, unmistakably middle-aged and normal Lily Potter fell to the ground—free of her curse but also free of immortality and ageless beauty.
Death was gone.
And so was Severus Snape.
"Lily Potter, you are under arrest," Harry bit out, his green eyes staring unflinchingly into hers. "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in Wizengamot. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
Ron turned to Harry. "Was there someone else here?" he blurted suddenly.
Harry looked at him with concern. "You hit your head, mate?"
Ron rubbed his head uncertainly. "Must have— I just have this feeling like we forgot something really important."
"Help me get her to the Aurory, yeah?" Harry said with a gusty sigh. "I've had ruddy well enough of the Curse of Lily Potter."
They all walked off, some stopping to admire the beautiful turquoise lake.
"It's like I've never seen it before," someone gasped in wonder.
Dark Lady Lily Potter Sentenced To Life In Azkaban
Placed In Solitary Confinement In Maximum Security Wing
Shimmering phosphorescent kelp swayed in the deep ocean as Severus snuggled with his cuddly mate. His dark obsidian scales contrasted with her golden brown ones. Glowing runes shimmered across their bodies, flashing in patterns that corresponded to their mood.
Below their main nest, a large semi-transparent egg lay nestled in a tangle of seaweed and dark viny tendrils, a distinctly humanoid shape with a fish-like tail growing within.
Nearby, the forgotten, sunken temple of Poseidon found new life in lovingly tended underwater gardens, sculptures, libraries, and herds of grazing hippocampi. Great leviathans patrolled the area, their dark arms stretching across the depths no human could ever survive unaided. Ancient shipwrecks became gardens for the deep magical plants—a testament to humanity's hubris and that life went on without their blessing.
Here, they lived a simple life in devotion to the sea that sheltered and fed them. Here, in the primordial Dark, they lived a life of devotion both to the ancient gods and to their bond together as mates.
And they, and their future children of the deep, would carry the mark of the Hallows upon their tail fin—a glowing reminder that rebirth can only happen in the wake of Death, but Death was no cruel enemy to be feared and hated.
For Death had given them a new life in the Dark depths of the ocean's forgotten trenches.
And sometimes, brazen explorers in their deep-sea submersibles—daring to go into the deep, deep dark of the Mariana trench and beyond—would hear the siren-like songs in the great sea. They would rub their ears, check their screens, and wonder if they were going mad.
And sometimes, in the corner of their eye, they would see what they thought were great, glowing, growing gardens of life and creatures only spoken in myth. But when they turned their heads, they saw only the seemingly almost-barren mud-volcanic dullness of the dark, concealed world of the deep ocean far from the light of the sun.
For that was all there could possibly be.
Wasn't it?
And they lived oceanically ever after.
A/N: Merfolk bunny from Melphina. Hope you enjoyed.
