Stuff of Nightmares

66. STUFF OF NIGHTMARES

~June~

I grew up, his fucking arse.

"Brew," she'd ordered. "I can't focus if I know you're down here fretting about me," she'd said in a brittle voice he hadn't heard in months as she'd swept from the dungeons with jutting stomach and hair tightly restrained. She then proceeded to leave him with ingredients for a complex and tedious potion that would have taken him five hours to brew, had he not taken a phial from his stores and placed it on the workbench for her perusal when she returned from her History of Magic N.E.W.T. And thus she'd continued, exam by exam, leaving him things to do as if his being busy would make her task more bearable.

But as she'd moved from one exam to the next over the ten-day testing period, she'd become tightly-wound, proving that she might have cared more about her Arithmancy project than studying, but she most assuredly did not care less about her Nasties, as she'd taken to calling them with a sneer.

Her days of reprieve had been spent in a stupor of exhaustion, curled against him in bed, as others laboured through Care of Magical Creatures and Divination. But on each other day she left him with assignments, as if she were a fucking teacher and he the student, all in an attempt to stop him from fretting.

Fretting. That's what she called it.

Fretting was so wholly inadequate a word for what he suffered when she was in the Great Hall for hours on end, bent over a table with her quill flying or wand waving (and her back cramping and her feet swelling and nobody caring, nobody caring for her). Fretting was wholly inadequate a word for what he suffered when he considered how far she'd push herself, what risks she'd take in order to prove to someone...surely not him...that the Marriage Law and leaving school and the Dark Lord and the pregnancy that had been forced upon her would not cause her to miss a step, not a single step, when it came to how she left her education behind and moved forward into the world.

I grew up, in-fucking-deed. He felt a tender pang for the girl who had entered his chambers the first time with her innocence and audacity. It was a tired young woman's eyes that met his now, a wounded woman's eyes that had seen and understood more than she should and yet still managed to flash with innocence and audacity and be as offended as when she'd been twelve years old. She'd grown up, but that didn't mean she'd changed. Not in this way. Not in this most insufferable of Granger ways.

Oh, yes, she cared about her marks.

And so why on this day, on this last day when she was confronting the most difficult (though not for her, never for her) of them all...Arithmancy...had she left him with only a troubled kiss and distracted air? No assignments or duties for him to ignore or fake, only a sweetly fervent kiss that left him straining for more, straining to take her into his arms and hold her until the world fell away from them again and forgot they existed, and...

His wards quivered at the arrival of someone in the corridor outside, someone who was clearly attempting to find a way to contact him. He glared at the wall where a doorway would form, glared at the knowledge of his would-be interloper.

Potter.

He'd be fucking damned before he'd let him into his...their...refuge. He was too uneasy to ignore the prat, but chose to move through the office and into the classroom and finally into the corridor where he stood glaring, waiting for Potter to turn around and see him.

Which he did, almost immediately.

"Professor," Potter said, looking entirely too calm, mature and healthy to be the same Potter he'd watched over for almost seven years.

Severus gave a slight, sharp nod.

"Hermione said this would be a good time."

Oh, fucking hell. He should have known she'd simply found a different way to distract and annoy him.

"Good time for what?"

Potter's calm fluttered as his gaze jerked nervously away...but then back and more firmly than before. "Godric's Hollow."

"No." The word was out before Potter was finished. The answer, no matter what, was no. He whirled away and was in the Potions classroom with the door slamming behind him when Potter caught up with him.

"What's wrong with Hermione?" Potter demanded.

Severus froze.

"Or is it..."

Severus turned his head to see Potter's cheeks blush.

"The baby?"

He couldn't even think of her having a baby without acting like a twat? But still, he felt a clenching of unease. "Nothing's wrong. Why do you even think..." He stopped in mid-sentence as hollowed eyes, pasty skin and sunken cheeks appeared where before had been a disgustingly healthy Boy Who Lived.

Why was looking at Potter like looking into a mirror?

"Glamour? You're wearing a Glamour?"

"Yeah, well, you have an advantage over me. People tend to notice if I look like living death."

Again, Severus turned to leave but this time Potter grabbed his forearm. His left forearm. They both froze, and finally, Potter released it and stepped back.

"I need to go there," Potter said softly. "I need to go back. We did it together, you and me, and I thought...I think we both need to go back."

"She planned this?"

Potter gave his head a shake and his unruly hair seemed too tired to move. "She didn't know why I wanted you. Just that I wanted to talk to you. We can Apparate and be back long before she's finished."

"And why should I want to go anywhere with you? Especially there?"

"Because we're both having nightmares, aren't we, Professor? And no, she didn't tell me that, either, but it's plain to see."

The third time, he tried to turn away. But this time Potter didn't have to move to stop him. He just pleaded silently, his eyes so familiar and green.

It hit him hard, that the war was supposed to be over, how they both bore scars that refused to heal.

And that there were some things he would never tell her, never let her see.

Things that Potter already knew.

And so, he went.

XX

Potter pulled a bouquet of three stasis-held lilies from his jacket and knelt to put it on his mother's grave.

Severus hung back, torn between wanting to touch the headstone and even the earth that had sheltered his Miss Granger and wanting to go somewhere and drown his guilt in Firewhisky.

Lily's grave.

More guilt than he could bear, which was why he couldn't snarl and curse and had to stand there and endure.

And what was this supposed to prove?

After what seemed interminable but was mere minutes, Potter rose and dusted off his knees. "Come," he said hoarsely, not waiting to see if Severus followed him through the lychgate and onto the main road.

No.

He wasn't going back there. Wasn't going to where he'd...they'd...he'd...

The statue. It was there. It had been replaced.

His heart pounded as he tried to shut out the memories, the sounds, and the flashes of lightning and bolts of red and green and the screams.

Potter walked right up to it.

Again, Severus hung back.

"They restored it with the very same ore," Harry said, stroking the gleaming silver surface of his father's arm. "You did that. Amazing."

Not he. She did, she made it possible by loving him until he couldn't fight it, couldn't deny it, had to accept it.

Silver.

"You turned down the Order of Merlin," Potter continued, seeming to concentrate on the strength of the hand and arm that supported his infant counterpart. "I wish I'd turned down mine."

"And deny the people their hero?" Severus asked, unwilling to mask his sneer.

"It still twists in me, the knowledge that I could do that...could wield that kind of power. That kind of evil."

"Oh, fucking hell, don't tell me you feel guilty." His rage coiled within him. What could this boy possibly know of guilt?

"Not exactly. Not exactly guilt... but the knowledge is...it's crushing me. And I thought maybe you would understand, because for you it's even worse."

Severus's head snapped up.

"I felt it," Potter said urgently. "I felt it all. Everything."

He glared. Don't. Don't go there. Don't fucking go there.

And then, when Severus didn't speak, Potter added, "I know what you felt. I know about the guilt, the loss..."

And now it was Severus who couldn't meet the boy's eyes, who couldn't stand still, who attempted to step into a turn to Apparate, but felt the blow to his solar plexus and slammed into the road, gasping for air that wouldn't come as Potter pinned him to the ground.

A moment later, Severus's wand was at the little bastard's throat. "You'll regret this." But he found himself frozen in those emerald green eyes...eyes that were as familiar as they were desperate and determined...and without hesitation, he raised his wand towards Potter's temple and spat, "Legilimens!"

Take that, you little shit, he thought furiously, but then realised his error as he fell in...

Hurtled into the moment of his nightmares, the moment when he lowered his wand and felt the shield fall, the moment when the ore turned silver, the moment when his magic combined with Potter's and the Dark Lord fell...

The moment when his soul screamed with betrayal even as it soared for salvation.

Grief and guilt and pain, quickly subsumed by relief, by need, by love.

Grief and guilt and pain that he'd betrayed his Lord, his protector...

His father.

His horror and fury rose in his throat as he jerked himself free of the memory, flung Potter's body off his, and staggered to his feet with a roar of rage. "How dare you presume..."

"Me?" Potter spat, from his place sprawled in the road. "You invaded my mind!"

"You attacked me!"

"Fuck, I just stopped you from running away like a..." Potter broke off, heaving for air.

"Like... what?" Severus asked, his voice silk and threat.

Potter stared up at him. "Like someone who needs help. Someone who needs forgiveness. Someone like me. I know what you're feeling."

"No! You know what you felt, but not what was in my head, what I was thinking...you have no fucking idea..." Severus fell back against the low stone wall that edged the road. "What kind of pathetic fool do you think I am? How sick a bastard do you deem me, that I would feel loss at the death of the Dark Lord?"

Potter heaved himself to his feet and stood, eyes hollow and seeing way too fucking much. "And guilt for your part in it. And why wouldn't you? He might not have been what you wanted but if he was your father..."

"Are you insane, Potter? Not what I'd want? A vile, inhuman monster might not be what I'd want?" He shut the words off, but not the words in his head, the words that taunted and tormented him. And should I be comfortable with the affection he showed me? Affection that I didn't return... No, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't....

"I thought we could help each other. Nobody else can. Nobody else will understand what I feel, the horror and yes, the guilt, of what I did. And you may scorn me, but you're lying if you say you don't understand."

"What do you want from me? What else do you want from me? I've got to get back."

"It's not pathetic to feel. It's not sick to regret, Professor," Potter said softly, his eyes shadowed. "It's why you aren't inhuman. It's why you aren't a monster."

Potter rubbed his scar and groaned. "I thought that... I know that nothing I can say or do can change things, but if you knew that I...I just understand, that's all. I don't think you're pathetic or inhumane. And if you can...can understand for me, then... well, it's something we shared and something that maybe can finally take the nightmares away."

Did it still hurt, that scar? Or was it the memory of past pains that twisted Potter's face into a grimace? "If you need me to be a fucking priest," Severus snapped, "all right, then, I absolve you, Potter. I understand why you feel your insipid guilt, and I absolve you of it." He wished his voice had more venom; it barely managed sarcasm.

"And there's nothing wrong with you with you, either, sir. Other than being a greasy git and a nasty piece of work."

Oh, how he longed to slap the grin off that too-familiar face.

But the grin faded on its own. "You should have your Order of Merlin."

He felt his lips twist in a grimace. "There are some acts for which a man should never receive a medal."

"Professor Snape..."

He reluctantly met Potter's eyes.

"I felt the rest, too. The...the love." His cheeks suffused with colour. "Maybe if you just, just think about that now. Maybe the rest will fade."

As if he hadn't been doing that every waking hour...

Pompous, presumptuous Potter.

...and yet he felt a slight easing of tension in his neck, his shoulders, even his eyes. Maybe... just maybe.

He nodded, and without another word, he stepped into the Apparation, suddenly aware...

He'd been gone too long.

XX

Bloody, fucking, interfering Potter.

A crowd had gathered outside the doors to the Great Hall.

He saw Goldstein, Brocklehurst, both Patils... all seventh-year Arithmancy students. The exam must be over. He was in the process of spinning towards the dungeon stairs, but something...tension in the air...stopped him.

Weasley peeled away from a group of Gryffindors and loped towards Potter. "It's Hermione and Malfoy," he said. "They're both still in there...the last two."

The Ravenclaw Patil sneered, "What are they trying to prove? Education is not competitive sport." But the sour expression on her face proved it was very competitive indeed, and she was a bad loser. He wondered how long she'd lasted before she turned in her papers.

And felt a tendril of concern that Hermione was still in there. It had been over four hours. She was in no physical condition to keep going indefinitely, no matter what her swotty little heart might desire.

Draco.

He wanted to snatch the youngest Malfoy out of there by his lovely platinum hair.

If Draco weren't still in there, surely Hermione would have stopped.

If Molly Weasley hadn't taught her the pregnancy spells, she would have been unable to sit there so long without a visit to the loo.

He wanted to rail at the lot of them.

He wanted to go and fetch her out and say, "Enough is enough."

"How long ago did you leave, Miss Patil?" He kept his voice smooth, but the question itself must have alarmed her.

Startled, she tossed her hair. "Not that long ago."

"It's just been Hermione and Malfoy for about ninety minutes," Weasley said. "They're after some sort of record, I think, but if Malfoy wins, I'll..."

A fucking record?

Weasley continued to scowl, but stopped short of revealing whatever retribution he had in store for anyone who dared surpass Miss Granger's Arithmancy performance.

Severus was on the verge of snatching his wife by her horrid hair and dragging her out of there when the doors opened. Septima emerged with a basket of rolled scrolls floating before her...two notably thicker than the rest. "Finished," she announced and added wearily to Severus, "This has to be the longest Arithmancy N.E.W.T. in decades."

Draco walked out behind her with a wary look over his shoulder...

At Hermione, who almost exploded through the doors, her hair tumbling down from its charmed hair comb. "Your son," she announced, "is a Slytherin! He wouldn't let me concentrate to finish! I only..." She looked around at everyone who was listening to her, agape, and seemed not to even care, as she launched back into her tirade, "I only got to question number sixty-seven, and even then, he was pushing on my spine and making my back hurt like holy hell...it was bad enough in Potions, when I was sure he was trying to stop me from breaking your record, but there is absolutely no excuse for him to sabotage my Arithmancy scores!"

Her hands on her back, she snapped, "Well, are you coming or aren't you?" and headed towards the dungeon stairs.

He felt the shocked stares of everyone present focus on him, waiting for his reaction. He couldn't look more hen-pecked if he'd set it as a goal. Torn between exploding with relieved rage and following after her to make sure she didn't tumble down the stairs in her distracted state, he suddenly realised what she'd said.

And as he realised, so did everyone else.

"Hermione," he said, and something in his voice must have alerted her, because she stopped at the top of the stairs and turned back to glare at him. "What?"

"Sixty-seven?"

Malfoy's gasped, "Fuck!" rose above the mutterings of the rest of the seventh-year Arithmancy students, though most of the Gryffindors still looked confused.

"I couldn't keep going," she began, and he saw her frazzled nerves beginning to unravel. "I...I tried to get through, I could swear, there was only one more page, but I...I couldn't." Her eyes were filling with tears, and she winced and braced herself against the wall to dig her fingers deeper into her back. "If it weren't for this stupid..." She broke off, realising what she was saying. "But I want it. Of course, I want the baby, it's just annoying me, you see..." And then she burst into tears.

And Severus burst into laughter.

He crossed the entrance hall to catch up with her, Draco at his side.

"I was worried, sir," Draco sputtered. "She was so distraught, and working so hard, and I was afraid to leave her in there. But...but...sixty-fucking-seven?"

"How dare you?" Hermione said, as they drew close, and this time her ire was aimed at Draco. "How dare you taunt me, just because you were able to finish and I didn't, and I...I..." She then whirled on Severus. "And you! Laughing! I swear, you've been teaching your little Slytherin tricks in the womb, haven't you?"

Severus pulled her into his arms and fought it, but couldn't stop the laughter that still poured out of him, relieved laughter, though he glared at Draco despite it. "Didn't you realise she'd never stop as long as she thought you were still working?"

"I was just worried..." Draco repeated. "And after what she did for Father..."

By this time Potter and the Weasley pair were with them. The girl moved forward first. "Hermione, are you all right? Should I get my mum? Madam Pomfrey?"

"No!" Hermione almost shrieked. "No, no, no! I don't want them fussing around me!"

"Miss Granger," Severus said sternly, and finally had her wide-eyed, lip-quivering attention. "You did not fail the exam."

"How can you know?" she asked, sniffing indelicately.

He reached behind her and rubbed the small of her back, and felt her relax against his body with a shuddering sigh. "Because, in the Arithmancy exam, a student would achieve top scores with thirty-five correct answers. Thirty-five."

"But...but the exam kept going!"

"It's ever-extending. There will always be one more page, and twenty more questions. A top student needs only two pages to allow for errors and still achieve top scores. The extra questions are for those who are uncertain and need to keep going to improve their chances of getting an adequate number of correct answers. There's no reason to keep going unless..." He scowled at Draco, again. "Unless you're in some insane competition with another student, or on a quest to set a fucking record, which I'm quite sure you did. Mr Malfoy, how many did you complete?"

"Forty-nine. I got tired of it and just sat and watched over Granger in case she fell off her chair."

"I...I didn't fail?" she whimpered into his robes.

"I find it highly unlikely."

"Oh."

"Hermione," Harry sighed, "only you could set a new record by thinking you're failing."

"Bite my arse," she muttered, still clutching Severus for support.

"I think you need a lie-down," Severus said. But then her body tensed against him and she let out a soft gasp and once again, reached for her back.

"Fucking hell," she muttered. "He's driving me crazy today with all these Braxton-Hicks contractions."

Her stomach pressing against him felt hard as a rock. He supported her weight, his mind racing. When she relaxed again, he snapped, "We're going to Poppy."

"What is it?" Weasley demanded. "What's going on?"

"I'm getting Mum," Ginevra decided.

"No!" This time, it was definitely a shriek. "I just need a lie-down, like you said! I need rest. I'm fine and I don't want a lot of fussing about." The eyes she turned up to him were desperate, pleading. "I need to go to our quarters." But her heart was pounding, he felt it almost as if her pulse were his own. She was terrified, and they'd been apart too long, and he felt something in him leap to join with her, to soothe and be soothed...

"All right, we're going now." Over her shoulder he said, "Tell Poppy I'll Floo her."

He scooped her into his arms and whisked her down the stairs, down the dark dungeon corridor and into their quarters.

Albus leaped to his feet from his spot in front of the fire and gave two joyous barks.

From his spot on the bed, Crookshanks opened one eye in welcome.

But Miss Granger, his Miss Granger, merely wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled into him. "Thank you," she sighed, sending tendrils of peace through him, peace that erased Godric's Hollow and nightmares and fears.

And then, abruptly, she demanded, "Why didn't anyone tell me about the Arithmancy exam scheme?"

"I don't know," he said, suddenly guilty. "If you'd been in class or taking your tutorials, you would have known."

"I didn't need the tutorials."

"Obviously not."

"But I wish I'd known."

He settled her onto the chintz seat, and had to peel her arms from around his neck. "I'll be right back, I promise," he said, stepping away reluctantly.

He knelt in front of the Floo and attempted to call the hospital wing.

"No!" she said behind him. "I just need to be with you!"

But the Floo didn't open.

He tried again, and then the Headmaster's office.

"Professor..."

He whipped around to find her grimacing again. "I don't think...I don't think these are Braxton-Hicks. I think they might be..." Her eyes were wide with trepidation. "The real thing."

Fucking hell.

He took off for the door to the corridor...

That did not open before him.

With Albus galloping after him, he crossed to his office door...

Which remained closed and invisible.

He whirled again to find...

Albus whining with the expression that said, I need to take a piss, mate.

The cat leaping into Miss Granger's lap to comfort her.

And Miss Granger, staring at him, comprehension dawning.

"The fucking castle seems to have locked us in," he said.

And then, the insolent chit had the audacity to sigh and smile.

"Good. We don't need the rest of them, anyway."

She held out her arms to him. "Please," she said, "hold me."

He hoped Molly's pregnancy spell worked on dog bladders.

But what else could he do but comply? He pulled her into his lap.

She dug herself more deeply into his arms as if that would make everything all right.

Bloody, fucking, buggering hell.