Chapter 11
Chapter 11 of 16
SubversaAfter the fall of Voldemort, an inexplicable illness plagues the surviving Death Eaters. Albus Dumbledore has a plan to save Severus Snape—but how, exactly, is Hermione Granger involved?
This Time
Chapter 11
I can't give you what you want
And it's killing me and I, I'm starting to see
Maybe we're not meant to be
Not Meant To Be - Theory of a Deadman
Madam Pomfrey allowed him to leave the hospital wing at curfew on Sunday night, and he returned to Gryffindor Tower with a heavy heart. Stepping through the portrait hole, he was relieved to see the round room deserted. He crossed to the boys' staircase and was brought up short by the sight of Hermione, sitting on the floor before the sofa, with Crookshanks and Bother tangled up in a mass on her lap.
When she looked up at him, he steeled himself, but her look was clear, direct, and amazingly intimate.
'Welcome home,' she said with a smile of painful sweetness.
'You're speaking to me,' he marvelled, and at the sound of his voice, Bother rose from the feline heap and arched her back before stepping delicately off Hermione's lap and sauntering over to him, circling his ankles and meowing piteously. To silence her, he bent and picked her up, never looking away from Hermione.
She pushed Crookshanks from her legs and stood, presenting her backside for one moment, and when she bent to retrieve her books from the floor, he saw the gryphon tattoo in flight. She straightened up and turned to saunter, with much the same insouciance Bother had shown, to the girls' staircase. At the bottom step, she looked into his eyes.
'Why wouldn't I be speaking to you?' she asked rhetorically, a tiny smile upon her lips. 'We've slept together, haven't we?'
'Fuck yeah, we have,' he muttered, watching the undoubtedly exaggerated swing of her hips as she climbed away from him. His libido, which had been slumbering beneath the influence of narcotic potions, came to life with a roar, and he turned to climb to his own dormitory, his mind a confusion of lust and longing.
'I am so doomed,' he said aloud as he opened the door to his room, and Bother preceded him inside, meowing as if she agreed with his assessment.
The next morning, Severus woke from a dream of Hermione, in which the two of them were lying safe and warm beneath the covers of his hospital bed, face-to-face, in blissful peace. Unlike the other dreams he had had about her, there was no sex in this one, only a devastating warmth and overall harmony, filling him with an emotion so powerful he could scarcely draw breath.
He gathered his things and headed to the shower, thinking about the dream. Did it mean he really wanted her for his own? Or that he trusted her? He couldn't work it out, exactly. He puzzled over it as he dressed, the residual tendrils of the dream's powerful emotion lightening his spirits. He grabbed his bag and headed down to the Great Hall.
The sight of Neville at the breakfast table pricked his conscience as he remembered Luna's anxious request.
'How're you doing?' he asked Neville, sliding into the place beside him.
Neville looked gratified to be addressed by the hero of the Quidditch team. 'I'm fine, Adin...but how are you?'
Severus shrugged. 'Madam Pomfrey patched me up,' he said. 'Listen, Neville, I never asked you about the Halloween Ball...did you have fun?'
The round face lit up. 'I snogged three girls!' he whispered, darting a look over his shoulder as if to check for eavesdroppers.
'Do you fancy any of them?' Severus asked, carefully studying the toast he was buttering.
Neville shifted nervously. 'I dunno,' he admitted. 'I mean, having any girl like you would be cool, right?'
Severus shrugged. 'Not necessarily,' he said, turning to Neville with a smirk. 'Have you ever met Romilda Vane?'
Neville blanched. 'She's scary,' Neville whispered, darting an anxious look down the table, where the fifth-year in question was queening it amongst her contemporaries.
'But what about the girls from the ball?' Severus asked, bringing Neville back on point.
Neville murmured something indistinct, stabbing his scrambled eggs repeatedly with his fork.
'Sorry,' Severus said, watching Neville with amused exasperation. 'I didn't quite catch that.'
'Bulstrode keeps talking to me,' Neville responded, still speaking quietly, 'but she's a bit of a bully ... I don't think I could like her.'
'You and every male in Slytherin House,' Severus said dryly.
Neville grinned at him, seeming cheered by his words. 'And Susan is going out with Zacharias Smith,' he added.
Severus made a face as if he had just bitten into a lemon. 'I suppose there's no accounting for taste,' he said, 'but any girl who would prefer that prat to you probably isn't worth your time, mate.'
Neville's grin became even wider. 'Thanks, Adin,' he said happily.
Severus waited for a moment, but Neville had stopped stabbing his eggs and begun to eat them again. Severus' stomach rumbled, so he began to eat as well, and they chewed in companionable silence. When Severus had cleaned his plate, he said, 'And who was the last girl?'
Neville choked on his pumpkin juice and had to pause a moment to cough. Severus waited patiently as Neville wiped his mouth and finally admitted, 'It was Luna Lovegood.'
Severus nodded. 'She's nice,' he said. 'I danced with her at Club Night.'
Neville glanced surreptitiously over to the Ravenclaw table. 'I kind of fancied her once, after we were both injured in the last battle, and we were in hospital together...but nothing came of it.'
Severus followed his gaze and saw Luna, sitting all alone in the midst of the other Ravenclaws, reading the Quibbler. 'I never knew you were injured,' he said truthfully.
Neville shrugged. 'It was no big deal, just a broken leg. But after we left hospital ...'
'How did you show her you fancied her?'
Neville blinked. 'What do you mean?'
'Did you ask her out, hold her hand, what?' Severus asked patiently.
'No...I didn't tell her or ask her out or anything,' Neville admitted, seemingly fascinated by the concept. 'She didn't seem interested.'
'Well, you hadn't snogged her then, mate. Girls like snogging...she might feel differently about it now.' She might have been up for it then, if you'd done something about it! he prevented himself from adding. Rising, he grabbed his bag. 'Gotta get to Potions,' he said, and left Neville chewing a piece of toast and mulling things over.
At lunchtime, Severus caught up with Luna in the entrance hall. 'Do you have a minute?' he asked her.
'Of course I have a minute, Adin,' she said blithely, turning her silvery-grey eyes on him. 'How can I help you?'
'Remember that question you asked me?' he said.
'About Neville?' she responded.
'Yeah,' Severus said, wanting to complete this assignment so he could get on with his life. 'He says he fancied you when you were in hospital together.'
Luna blinked. 'He did?'
'He thought you weren't interested.'
'Oh no,' Luna said earnestly. 'I was just ... unaware.'
'Right,' Severus said. 'Well, that's all I had to tell you...good luck.'
Luna gave a bright, happy smile. 'Thank you, sir,' she said softly.
The 'sir' brought him up short, and a thought occurred to him. 'Luna,' he said, lowering his voice, 'did you, by any chance, know who people were on Halloween...even in their costumes?'
'Of course,' she said. 'You looked very nice in your wig and knee breeches, and I think Hermione really fancied you...you really should tell her who you are, you know.'
Checking to make sure no one was listening to them, he said, 'Please be careful what you say, Luna.'
'Yes, Adin,' she said serenely.
'Look,' he told her, eager to end the conversation quickly, 'I'm going to eat now.' And leaving the spooky Miss Lovegood behind, he followed his nose to the steak and kidney pie.
Severus could not help but notice the change in Hermione's actions during the next weeks. Her challenging behaviours towards him lessened, and it seemed that Jared's attempts to engage her affections now fell on infertile ground. In some manner, without comment or ceremony, she had enveloped Severus in the ranks of her closest friends, and no matter what he did, she treated him with affectionate acceptance.
It was a filthy tactic and one that was difficult to counter.
Her devious scheme came to a head one night near the beginning of December, when Severus was stretched out on his bed, reading Dickens, with Bother curled up on his stomach. A firm knock on the door brought him out of the fog of nineteenth century London, and he said, 'Enter,' thinking Neville must be dropping by for his now nightly consultation on how to woo Luna Lovegood.
('She knew who you were before she let you kiss her. Just ask her out, mate, you're golden,' Severus had told him, but Neville's response was always a variation on, 'But what if she says "no"?')
On this night, however, it was not Neville, but Hermione who erupted into his room in a flurry of bushy hair and crackling excitement.
'Adin!' she blurted, her face shining. 'Grab your Lovegood notes and come quickly! I think I've found...I'm almost sure...'
Ejecting an indignant Bother onto the floor, Severus surged to his feet, thankful that he was completely dressed.
'What is it?' he said, standing stupidly by his bed, trying to make his mind function when the only thing he could think of was the fact that she was in his room.
Hermione rushed impulsively towards him, a welter of parchment clutched to her chest. 'Quick! Get your notes...I have to show you...come on!'
'Where are we going?' he asked, sitting to push his feet into his trainers.
'The Room of Requirement,' she answered, turning to his desk, where his school things were neatly stacked. 'Which one of these has your notes?'
'The top notebook,' he answered absently, bending to tie his shoes. Sometimes, she was a fascinating, alluring creature, but other times, Hermione Granger was nothing but a bothersome girl.
She snatched the notebooks on top of the stack and whirled back to the door. 'Hurry up!' she said and raced back into the corridor.
'What time is it?' he asked, following behind her, taking care to close his door.
'Almost curfew...come on!'
They attracted little attention as they hurried through the common room and out the portrait hole, and she did not speak again until they had successfully entered the Room of Requirement.
The oil lamps flared to light as they entered the classroom, and true to its purpose, the Room had provided the chalkboards from their last class meeting, complete with the Arithmantic equation Hermione had chalked on one of them.
Severus was torn, partly exasperated by Hermione's overblown excitement, partly intrigued by her air of knowing, and partly afraid of what she had found. What if she had solved the problem of the Dark Mark Curse? He would be able to turn his back on his ridiculous farce and resume his proper existence ... and he was not altogether sure he was yet prepared to pick up the threads of his old life.
Pushing the anxiety which accompanied that thought away, he slouched indolently into one of the squishy armchairs, lacing his fingers behind his head with a smirk. 'Well?' he challenged. 'Dazzle me with your perception.'
In her element now, Hermione neatly arranged her parchment on a work table, stacking Severus' notebooks to one side, and then she turned and wiped the blackboard clean.
'Oi!' he objected. 'Did you write that down first?'
'Oh, forget that!' she said, snatching up the chalk and beginning to scrawl a new equation on the board. 'I was all wrong.'
He snorted. 'I told you so,' he said, but she ignored the taunt, an unusual occurrence.
She wrote an Arithmantic string, then grabbed up her notes, consulting them before continuing. As she wrote, Severus sat a bit straighter in his chair, abandoning his nonchalant pose. Though he would never admit it, he sometimes had difficulty following Hermione's line of reasoning in Arithmancy. She clearly surpassed him in her understanding of the subject, and although his own marks in Arithmancy were better this time around than they had been on his first go, he still was not her equal. There were leaps of logic she made, the geneses of which were incomprehensible to him.
Standing now, he frowned as he worked through in his mind the steps she was delineating, and although he lagged behind her frantic scribbling, he found that he could follow her reasoning from one element to the next. He was still scowling at the board with fierce concentration when she had been finished writing for several minutes; she waited impatiently for him to comment, shifting from one foot to the other like a small child in need of the toilet. When at last he turned his eyes to her face, she giggled, bounced, and clapped like a little girl.
'Do you know what this means?' she asked, her voice rising with excitement.
He crossed his arms over his chest and sneered at her. 'It means I was bloody right!' he all but shouted. 'The time release component does come before the intent adjustment!'
'Yes!' she cried, hurling herself at him jubilantly, 'but it also comes after, to preserve the outcome!'
'Know-it-all,' he muttered, but he caught her in his arms, infected with her elation. She flung her arms about his neck, her face raised invitingly to his, the union of her happiness, her proximity, and her overwhelming desirability combining to throw him into a mass of confusion. His stomach swooped, his heart raced, and his sheer want of her pounded in his head, drowning out the roaring of his adult self.
So, for the first time in nineteen days and untold hours, he kissed her, with her unmistakably unprincipled collaboration. She showed no sign of hesitation or reluctance, simply pressing against him and opening her peppermint laced mouth to his, breathing in his every exhalation as if they had been born to complement one another.
Their activities soon had them rather too overwrought to continue standing, and they retreated wordlessly to the armchair he had lately occupied. It seemed to have enlarged in his absence, as if the Room were accommodating even their adolescent drive to kiss and caress one another past the point of reason.
At last, when he had the fingertips of one hand down the back of her jeans, gently exploring the upper curve of her buttocks, and the other arm beneath her jumper, with his hand on her tummy, inching up to her ribcage, the oil lamps flickered and went out, leaving only a single candle burning on the table by the door. Severus broke their kiss, regretting it even as he pressed his forehead to hers, her whimpering sigh of protest a caress to his ego as well as his libido.
'I think that's a warning,' he said, his voice sounding uncharacteristically rough.
She seemed to struggle to control her breathing, trembling in his embrace like a leaf in the wind. 'I'm sure you're right,' she agreed, sounding a bit drunk.
Having no wish to be thus discovered by the Headmaster, he urged her to stand, keeping hold of her hand as she did so, and smirking to himself when she moved away towards the work table, her fingertips trailing along his palm until she was forced to break contact with him to reach her goal. He remained in the chair, enjoying the sight of her, rumpled and disordered from their frantic snogging and petting. She began to shuffle her parchments back into some semblance of order, and slowly, her interest was caught again by her intellectual breakthrough. Accepting the loss of her undivided attention, Severus stood and straightened his clothing, making the necessary adjustments to facilitate his ability to walk back to the common room.
He was surprised when the oil lamps flared on to light the room again, and he looked up to see Hermione, wand in hand, now intently perusing his notebook. He approached her, puzzled to see his copy of the Lovegood Notes upon the tabletop, whilst Hermione read another of his notebooks...
Bloody fucking hell.
'Adin,' she said, looking up into his face, her eyes unreadable, 'why do you have classroom notes for Professor McGonagall's seventh-year Transfiguration class through June of 1978?'
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Latest 25 Reviews for This Time
560 Reviews | 6.76/10 Average
This story is so bloody perfect, Adin Prince may just be the man of my dreams!
I was looking for a story to read from among my favorites and this is the one I chose, AND I'M VERY HAPPY I DID!!! I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this before and how much I fell in love with Adin. The is how I imagine SSHG to always be. Thank you for sharing your wonderful gift with all of us.Sending hugs and warm, heartfelt wishes for happiness and good health to you and SubHub. Beth
Response from Subversa (Author of This Time)
Thank you, Beth! I still really love this one, too. I'm so glad you enjoyed reading it again. I give thanks for your friendship.
I'm re-reading stories from my favorites list, and I'm happy to have rediscovered a favorite. I'm always a sucker for happily-ending stories for this man, so I'm always ecstatic to find them. Thank you again for sharing your story with us!
This was lovely
I've enjoyed this story very much. I was a bit sad that you killed Lucius, but was very glad to see that Severus got a second chance. Best of all, he realised that he deserves to be happy with Hermione.Wonderful tale!
Response from Subversa (Author of This Time)
Thank you so much for reading my story! This one has a special place in my heart, because I grew to love Adin SO MUCH. Severus was terribly sad that Lucius was dead, too. And he almost lost it when he found out about Draco. I am so pleased to know you enjoyed it!~sub
WHY D'YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO KILL LUCIUS???
Sorry. That was aggressive. Sorry.
Love your work, otherwise. Been working my way through chronologically since I stumbled upon the Master of Enchantment series. At quite some speed, actually; your writing is awfully compelling, I've barely come up for air.
STOP KILLING LUCIUS!!!
Response from Subversa (Author of This Time)
LOL! Yes, I have killed Lucius a time or two, I will confess. At leat in HDODP he got to have a hero's death. I think one reason why I kill him so often it because it pisses off Shiv5468.Just wait until you read For Hogwarts: A Regency Gamble. In that one, I write him a lovely life!
Response from Subversa (Author of This Time)
LOL! Yes, I have killed Lucius a time or two, I will confess. At leat in HDODP he got to have a hero's death. I think one reason why I kill him so often it because it pisses off Shiv5468.Just wait until you read For Hogwarts: A Regency Gamble. In that one, I write him a lovely life!
Draco?! That hadn't even occurred to me! Madam, you are too cruel. Can we please have some nice, happy things happen to the Malfoys at some point in some story? I do love them so- they might be terribly self-centred and snobby but they'd do anything for each other! They remind me of my own family!
This story is bloody brill, though.
An amazing story! I liked the choice that Severus made. With the life he had led, who wouldn't want to rewrite their own history. Thank you.
I love how even though he says, "no," he still can't keep his hands off her and vows to take care of her. Damn romantic.
Hi Subvrsa. I just wanted you to know that I enjoyed this story just as much the second time around as I did the first. I fell in love with Aiden too. An unblemished Severus Snape would be hard to resist.
This story has everything; romance (sigh), angst galore, a mystery to solve, and of course lemons.
My favorite Severus. Not easy to deal with but perfect.
Very emotionally satisfying.
Sorry I didn't review the first gazillion times I read it but in reccing it on LJ right now, I realized my lack. Thank you for creating this, Subversa!
Excellent story! I enjoyed every bit of it. Keep up the good work!
Waiting for Hermione to put two and two together. Waiting for Dumbledore to stop insisting that Severus not "interfere." Waiting for Severus to grow a pair and shag Hermione senseless in spite of self-restraint. Goodness, I am so glad this story is complete... I'm racing through, very much enjoying your exploration of Severus/Adin.
Poor Severus, having to endure a Sorting twice! But this result was most amenable. And man, Harry was hostile right quick. Glad he's mostly sorted out. And I'm still excited to see why Hermione got that tattoo, and what her role in the prophecy is (shag him to salvation, perhaps?).
Besides, the gold was his to do with as he wished, and there was a savage sort of satisfaction in the knowledge that he was using it to rewrite his own personal history. - this says it all, doesn't it? I realized after our song-swap that I'd never read this piece, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. Absolutely ~fascinated~ by the not-Time Turner way of putting them in school together. And dare I guess that Hermione has the gryphon tattoo? ;)
Love this whole story - one of my all time favourite ss/hg fanfictions. I am esspecially enthralled with how you wrote the masked ball sence and your wonderful character development throught the story. Look forward to reading more of your work.
you put jk rowling to shame
This is a great story!! I liked it very much =] Congratulaions and kisses!!!!
That was so AWESOME! I absolutely loved it from beginning to end, though I am sad that it's over*sniff* You write really well, and I just wanna say THANK YOU, for uploading such a wonderful story^^,
BEAUTIFUL! I teared up at the end it was so wonderful.
I loved it, I couldn't stop reading it to find out what happened next. I'm so happy for Adin "Severus" for getting a second chance at happiness. I giggled at the last bit about Severus being sighted with Elivs lol Well done, I'm adding it to my favorites.
In a word, amazing. You have created a timeless story of hope and love that transcends the Harry Potter universe.
I knew Hermione would want to help cure Severus, she is so sweet.
I found it interesting that the sorting hat thought he should be in Gryffindor the first time he was at Hogwarts. I think he had many reasons to listen to the sorting hat this time.
He and Hermione are hitting it off well so far, I can't wait to see how she saves him.
I hope this time at Hogworts will be a better experience for Severus , he deserves it.