Errata

IV: Errata

“You… you did what?”

“My shoe,” Hermione sniffled loudly. “I hit him with it.”

“Oh…” The corner of Molly’s mouth twitched. “Oh, my.”

“Don’t laugh, please.”

“Of course not.” But her mouth twitched again, and she couldn’t help chuckling. “Your shoe…” She chuckled again. “Oh, I’m not laughing at you, no, of course not. But really, between the two of you, do you think you could find a less painful way to say ‘I love you’? If you tried?”

Hermione was stunned. “Love? Me?”

At her look, Molly’s laughter deepened. “Of course! Whatever else did you think we were talking about?”

---

The older woman spoke very gently. “He still loves you, you know.”

Hermione’s thoughts frayed into incoherence.

“You did leave the ceremony together, openly – and this is Severus we’re discussing...”

“Oh… right,” she breathed. Since finding the potion, she’d not thought about that part. About his searching her face intently, scarce daring to believe that she’d accepted his hesitantly offered arm. About the first brush of wool, his arm solid, warm, beneath her awed fingers. His blink of surprise. His eyes, his bearing, the hitch in his breathing all asking if she was really sure.

He had found a way.

---

Hermione’s chair scraped suddenly across the floor, and Molly found herself crushed in a tangle of curls, a slightly damp cheek pressed against her own.

“Thank you.”

The younger woman had already opened the door by the time Molly regained her breath. “Hermione, dear?”

She turned.

Molly saw the combination of fear, hope, and determination in her eyes, and her heart jumped in empathy. “May I see the potion?”

The blue glass glowed softly in the sunshine. Inside, the potion that had borne such confusion and agony swirled serenely, innocent of everything but the purity of light, liquid, glass, and motion.

---

Molly’s eyes glistened. “Such a lovely color… same as your dress robes, isn’t it?”

“Always - since my first ball.”

As Molly watched, a new layer of understanding appeared on her face. “Oh,” she breathed, her hands cradling the bottle with a gentleness that brought tears to Molly’s eyes.

“I’ve always thought it suited you… seems I’m not the only one...” Her smile could not have been more wistful had Hermione been her own daughter. “If you’ll accept a free bit of advice?”

“Of course.”

“Drink it before you go. He won’t be able to hide from an empty bottle.”

---

The Contraceptus potion depended on the perfect balance of life and time.

It effected a delay in which a woman might live out whatever might be left of her childhood. The final choice of when childhood ended, if it ended, could remain her own, no matter how shyly offered or violently rent the rest of it might be.

He’d allowed himself to imagine he might possibly be able to give her that decision.

Just that much.

Too much to hope, he knew.

In his hands, life.

Hers.

Her.

When he finished brewing, he’d shuddered with the need to touch her.

---

And if he’d crept back to his rooms under cover of darkness with her imagined skin singing under his hands, no matter how loathsome, how vile the reasons, if he’d waited to bathe, inhaling deeply the scent of a forbidden potion made with her hair, for her, about her…

Just a dream.

Nine short dreams in a nightmare of waking.

His hope in a gargoyle, her life in a cauldron.

Unreasonable, like all dreams.

Her life in his hands. In hers, his.

Him.

Not the way it was supposed to be.

Just exactly the way it was supposed to be.

---

He lay on the sofa, remembering hope.

No point remembering. She’d think her way to forgiveness, eventually.

Enter logic, exit wonder.

He shifted on the sofa. He couldn’t get comfortable.

He should have destroyed the potion. Or never told her. Died.

When she’d accepted his arm, the acrid tang of remembered shame dissolved in the graceful silence of her “Yes.”

He knew perfectly well why he’d told her.

He mashed a cushion with his elbow.

Perfectly, bloody well why.

He’d told her for the same reason he’d let her get the potion from his cabinet: he’d wanted her to know.

---

The crook of his elbow over his eyes, his cheekbones sharp against his arm.

He heard a soft knock.

“Severus?”

He didn’t move. For once, he’d take it lying down. “Enter.”

He heard every click, every bit of friction in the hinges, and waited.

The door closed, and still he kept his arm over his eyes.

A soft rustle as she moved, the quiet sigh as she sat in a nearby armchair. The quiet clink of a bottle on his table. Then silence.

Inwardly, he braced himself. The words would start soon. He mentally bade nine private, sleepless nights farewell.

---

“You should not have done what you did,” Hermione began.

“I apologize.” His voice seemed to have lost all resonance.

“Don’t, please. You shouldn’t have risked thinking of me at all.”

“Risk? Had Voldemort learned of my plans for you, I assure you, he would have approved.”

“Flawless thinking.”

“If it had been otherwise…” His mouth went dry. “… had there been no war, I would have spoken.”

“You’re speaking now.”

“Don’t insult us both by deliberately mistaking my meaning.”

“I’m not, Severus,” she said evenly.

He realized she wasn’t nervous.

“Uncover your eyes?”

He did.

The bottle was empty.

---

His arm paused mid-air as he stared at the empty bottle.

“No need to rise, Severus.” She blushed. “Sorry,” she muttered, “I’m usually more careful with my words.”

Seeing a sharp wariness in his eyes, she hastened, “I didn’t come here to condemn you, Severus.”

“You have every right to do so.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but I’d rather prefer to touch you.”

He blinked.

“Illogical of me, isn’t it?”

“Entirely.”

“The Contraceptus wasn’t your whole plan, was it?”

Something flickered in his eyes.

She took a long breath. “Show me the rest?”

He reached for his wand.

“Not that way.”

---

He didn’t dare reach for her. “You ask me to believe you desire my touch?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing what I would have done? Planned to do?” he demanded. “Don’t play me for a fool, Hermione.”

“Then show me the same courtesy. You didn’t want to rape me.”

His eyes became mirror-hard. “No.”

“But you would have.”

“Yes. Had events transpired a certain way, I would have done.”

“Because you cared. For me.”

His voice felt thick. “Yes.”

For a long moment she stared into his face.

“Could you really have done it, Severus?”

He nodded.

“How?”

“The same way I murdered Albus.”

---

As he’d intended, Albus’s name hung between them like a blade.

“When you killed him, it meant both more and less, something far beyond the casual surface.”

“There is nothing casual about murder or rape.”

Her look was steel. “Nothing about you is casual. Killing Albus was less ‘murder’ than an act of mercy, of heroism, of self-sacrifice.”

“It was still murder.”

“Every act is colored by context…” She shook her head, frustrated. “You didn’t rape me, Severus.”

“Make no mistake – I imagined it.”

“Which? Rape, or touching me?”

Silence.

“What did you imagine, Severus?”

“Everything.”

“Then show me.”

---

“You cannot be serious.”

“I am no girl, Severus – no terrified teenager tossed into your path in the chaos of battle. There are no witnesses, no humiliation, no degradation. Show me what you would have done, and how – then, or on another night, had things been otherwise.”

“Things were not otherwise!”

“They are otherwise now – because you nearly died to make them so.” Her voice rang in his chambers. “Severus, please.”

His breath faltered. “Potter told you what Albus said.”

“Yes. I used those words deliberately - for the same reason he did, Severus.”

“Impossible.”

“No. True.”