4

For most people, Snape mused, the words, the morning after, probably didn't conjure the image of piles of books and what appeared to be a bottomless supply of ink. Leave it to him and Hermione to redefine the art, he smirked. To be fair, though, none of their experiences had been typical, though he'd not trade them--not that first night or any of the days that followed. And despite his usually solitary habits, the first true collaboration and companionship he'd ever experienced fit him like the warmest cloak he'd ever worn.

Hermione didn't said a word that first morning when they entered the library together, but simply enlarged his work table, appropriated the chair across from his, and took to narrating questions, dilemmas and frustrations in a steady stream of exasperated muttering and the occasional enthusiastic outburst. Snape enjoyed both her proximity and what he once would have considered her "chatter" far more than he'd have predicted, and she in turn seemed pleased to have him close by and genuinely available for the first time since they'd been set to work as partners. And not just for his encyclopaedic knowledge of potions or other magical disciplines, he realised with a jolt, but from all appearances, she seemed to simply want to be near him.

He wasn't sure if it was a delayed result of the months spent in bed recovering from the snake bite, or perhaps the deepening effect of the texts he was studying, or maybe, he realised, it was the influence of prolonged nearness to Hermione, but carving out moments to just be--without pressure to create or perform or prove anything--had quickly become essential to his days.

He enjoyed their down time the most, he thought. Transformation to her tiger form had become a part of their evening routine, a relaxing end to what had become increasingly frustrating days. Gradually, Hermione slipped more quickly from tiger cub back to her human shape, and lately, she'd not shifted to tiger form at all, sidling up to him without need for a furry mask to give her courage. Their time at night on the library sofa had become their refuge, a period where academics and news reports from the outside were strictly prohibited. Only sustenance was permitted there, food and conversation and rapidly escalating touch that made him feel alternately nourished and starved.

The days passed in a blur of Arithmantic equations and maddeningly failed attempts to discern the key variables that would reveal the antidote for their broken world. Why had they thought that Hermione becoming an Animagus would be the break they needed? It's not as if the tiger cub knew anything about--

Wait.

"Is it possible that we've been approaching this all wrong?" Snape muttered.

"What do you mean?" Hermione looked surprised, a welcome change from the offended glare she'd shot at him earlier when she realised he'd been checking her work.

"As if I'd miss something obvious, Severus. Really."

"We keep looking for an intellectual answer to the puzzle, like it's a problem to be solved," he said.

"Isn't it?" she retorted, pushing aside the page of equations with a huff.

"Possibly not," he replied. "We persist in taking it apart, me doing some pieces, you doing others. But maybe the snag is that we're recreating the core problem when we do it that way."

"Well then," she asked, "what is the core problem?"

He rose, wandering around the room as he spoke. "Well, this all began with the creation of the Horcruxes, right?" She nodded. "Voldemort didn't just rip his own soul. He ripped apart the mechanism that makes the world work."

"Right," she said. "And now, the gears that used to line up and work together are grinding and breaking."

"Exactly," he said. "The pieces used to fit, but now they act as if they don't belong together."

Something was niggling again, something about--

Pieces in a puzzle... steps in an incantation... ingredients in brewing--

"Wait," he said, heart racing. "It's not mechanical, that's where we've gone wrong." The words were tumbling over each other in his excitement. "What is the procedure for brewing a potion, Hermione?"

He could see that she was bewildered, but she would humour him, he knew, and address his question with the utmost gravity.

"When you prepare a potion," she began, "you combine ingredients in specific amounts, in a specified order into a cauldron--a heated cauldron..." She stared at him, mouth agape.

He couldn't help but grin.

"Where are those references on the Five Elements, Hermione?"

"You mean the ones that you said a few months ago were filled with folklore and hogwash?" She smirked.

"Don't be cheeky, just bring them to me," he snapped.

She eyed his unsteady piles of books and he pointed. "Start with that one."

In his hands, the large book vibrated with potential. He remembered the illustration he needed. It had intrigued him ages ago when he was making his way through the volume, drawn him despite deep scepticism of the content and irritation as every promising lead brought them to a dead end. Brightly coloured, the images moved about out in a circle, one flowing into the other--the five elements from which Chinese philosophy believes everything is drawn.

Not a circle, not precisely, he realised as he took a close look for the first time. He felt Hermione beside him, peering at the diagram.

"Do you know how this works?" she asked.

"No clue," he said. "But if what's wrong is alchemical and not mechanical, maybe there's a way to get at it with a potion..."

She was nodding absently and he had the distinct impression that she wasn't really listening.

"Hermioine?"

"Hmm?

"Have you heard a word I've said?" His lip curled with amusement. He could so relate to her absorption in whatever new idea had caught her fancy.

"Hm?" she started, looking a bit guilty. "I was thinking," she apologised.

He laughed. The shocked and slightly embarrassed look on her face only made him laugh harder. "I understand," he said. "So what is it that distracted you?""Alchemy," she whispered.

Alchemy.

His silence was making her nervous. "Severus?"

She felt his arm snake around her and pull her close. "Now, I'm thinking," he said.

"Must we take turns with that?" she asked. "Wouldn't it be more productive to think out loud? You know--conversation?"

He snorted. "I generally prefer to speak once I know what I have to say."

Before she could decide whether to feel insulted, she felt his lips brush against her forehead. His words were murmured as if to leave room for plausible deniability. "I find it irresistible that you show me every single step in your thinking. All your energy and excitement is right there, front and centre. I wish I could do that, sometimes."

He rested his cheek against the top of her head and she trembled with the knowledge that here, at last, he'd laid bare a small part of his heart to her.

"I'm very impulsive, sometimes," she said. "You're so articulate; every word has its place. The thinking is crystal clear."

"Impulsivity hasn't ever done much for me but get me into spots I wish I'd never been," he said. "It's not been

often, but inevitably disastrous."

Hermione nodded. Harry's description of the memories Severus shared in what he believed were his last moments knotted her stomach.

"So," he said. "What about Alchemy?"

"I realise that you are the Potions master," she began. "But maybe this isn't about a potion at all." She looked up. "We know that Voldemort damaged the magical Ley lines, right? What if what he damaged in the Ley lines was something about the elements--I mean, we know that what's damaged is elemental magic, but this is different. What if it has to do with the elements as described here, and that's what we've got to fix? Maybe that's what runs through the Ley lines and in the nodes."

"The Elements," he echoed. She nodded and pulled the book to her lap, laying it open in front of both of them.

"Look, Severus. They look like they depend on each other," she said as she traced the kinetic circle from one elemental point to another. "Metal nourishes water; water nourishes wood; wood feeds fire; fire makes earth, earth makes metal," she read. "What happens if one of them breaks away or stops functioning?"

She watched as his eyes roamed over the symbols of the cycle, the progression of creation and destruction; each piece in a delicate dance with the others, each with a purpose and a place. "Not one of them, Hermione," he murmured. "What happens if they are all out of balance? Torn and crippled so that they can't do what they're meant to?"

She was shaking too hard now to hold the book.

"Is that what I saw in the node? The animal forms that couldn't hold their shapes?"

"I didn't see that," he said. "I only heard... I heard music, but discordant. Like a symphony that had been through--a war," he snorted.

"Broken."

"Yes," he whispered.

"How do we fix it?"

"I don't know, Hermione. I've felt just like that for as long as I can remember. I don't even know how to fix myself."

She winced. "Who said that you're broken?" she said. "Besides, if there's anything that this diagram makes clear, it's that everything changes."

Everything changes.

"Yes," he said, nodding, "and perhaps that what we've believed static... is not."

"Static?" She wrinkled her brow. "Why didn't I think of this before?" she muttered.

She turned from him then, slipping her wand into her hand. A deep breath centred her, and she brought herself to languorous evenings spent curled against Severus in the library, memories filling her with warmth and hope. Riding the waves of emotion, she brandished her wand.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Hermione and Snape watched, surprised, as a large black tortoise erupted from her wand. Slow and serene, it glided across the room. She almost missed him reaching for his wand, casting his charm nonverbally as they both silently eyed the tortoise drifting around the room.

Nothing could have prepared them for what erupted from his wand.

Instead of the doe that they both expected, the creature that flew across the room, the lines of his muscles taut and his translucent pelt shining--

Turned his head disdainfully to face them--

And roared.

They watched the two animals circle each other. The white tiger, sleek and graceful, pranced around the steadily moving tortoise. Vibrant for figures made of mist and emotion, they looked oddly in synch for two such dissimilar creatures.

"I thought your Patronus form was a doe," Hermione said quietly, eyes trained on the translucent animals.

"It was." She was startled by the sharpness in his tone.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Are you upset that it's not a doe anymore?"

Her anxiety cut through him, but he was too distracted to focus on her at all. Did he have so little sense of self that his Patronus patterned itself after whichever woman held his heart? He hunkered down to sulk.

"I don't fancy the idea that my Patronus form shifts to resemble the current object of my affection," he muttered.

"But it hasn't," she replied, too absorbed in the mystery to register that for Severus Snape, this amounted to a declaration of eternal devotion. "Look, mine has shifted, too. It should also be a tiger, shouldn't it?"

He paused, considering. "Perhaps. But," he gestured to the slowly fading creatures that had continued to eye one other and were currently nose to nose, "my Patronus has assumed your Animagus form," he said unhappily.

"How do you know for sure?" she asked, leaping to her feet. "I was certain that my Animagus form would be an otter since that's what my Patronus form has always been," she said. "And if my Animagus is a white tiger, why is my Patronus a tortoise?"

"Perhaps your otter finally developed a healthy sense of self-preservation and grew a shell," he muttered, still disgruntled by the inexplicable change in his Patronus.

She scowled. "Very funny. Obviously, our core assumptions are wrong."

"Such as?" he asked.

"Such as," she retorted, "the relationship between the forms, for one." She thought for a moment. "We always just assumed that the Patronus and Animagus forms would be the same. Obviously, we were wrong."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not sure what I'm suggesting yet. But Master Wu shifted into multiple Animagus forms at the node." He nodded. "Have you ever heard of a wizard who could do that?" she asked.

"Never, but you'll recall that we have no idea whether that's meaningful, and if it is, what it means." He spared a moment to rue the behaviour of the elusive Taoist wizard whose inexplicable actions were their only, slender guide.

"But that's just it." The excitement in her voice was contagious. "You don't know what your Animagus form is because you've not attempted the shift. When was the last time that you cast a Patronus, Severus?"

He shut his eyes, reluctant to allow the memory to draw him back into its grip.

"During the war," he murmured.

"The night that you left the sword for Harry?"

He nodded, unable to prevent the image of the silvery doe from filling his mind's eye.

"Severus," she said, "That was a long time ago." She moved closer to him, but he refused to look at her. "Severus, listen. I don't think that your Patronus changed to match my Animagus form." She hesitated for a moment. "I have a feeling that my form changed in response to you."

It took him a moment to process what she said. Changed in response to me?

"In what possible way does a white tiger originate with me, Hermione?" he asked. "Doe, remember?"

"Yes, I remember. Doe. Your devotion to Lily, your commitment to protect Harry. I remember, Severus." He looked up sharply at her clipped tone, her expression was fierce. "I don't know how I know that you were a tiger first," she said. "But I do know that my cub recognised you as another tiger. I didn't remember that until just now when you--" She gestured towards the still prancing creature.

"Another tiger?" he echoed.

"Yes, another tiger. Familiar, powerful, safe." She took a sharp breath. "More than safe. Like you had something that I needed." She paused. "And you gave it to me."

"Me?" He echoed. That magnificent creature couldn't possibly be him. It was far too beautiful, too virile to be a reflection of his heart.

"Yes, you--the tiger who was you."

"The tiger who was me." He blinked and then scowled at the smug look on her face. The idea of her exquisite tiger cub coming into being because of him left him breathless.

"I'm not an Animagus," he said, stubborn to the end.

To his surprise, she leapt to her feet and it struck him that if she didn't have all that hair, he might be able to actually see her thoughts exploding inside her mind.

"I didn't cast a Patronus before..." She blushed hotly as he raised an eyebrow.

"...before I shifted that first time. But I'd bet that it wasn't a Tortoise, then." She challenged him, arms folded.

"Well, then, state your hypothesis."

"Well," she began, "Perhaps the Patronus form isn't always identical to the Animagus form, but foreshadows it."

"Why would it?"

"Because..." She stumbled. "Well, I don't know why. But I think it does."

"What do you believe happens to your Animagus shape when your Patronus changes?" he asked. He could hardly keep the excitement from his voice. She heard it, though; he could tell by the way she beamed at his question.

"Let's find out, why don't we?" She grinned at him, and his heart leapt into his throat.

"Hermione, wait..."

But before he could move to stop her, she'd done it. One moment, she was standing before him, hair wild and cheeks flushed. And in the blink of an eye, a small black tortoise sat at his feet, scratching her sharp claws on the cold stone floor.

Being a tortoise was not nearly the fun being a tiger cub had been, she thought, once she'd transformed back to herself. No fur to get stroked, no purring or snuggling to be had. Severus had dutifully lifted her tortoise-self from her spot on the floor to sit beside him on the chaise. But, alas, there was no cuddling to be done with a hard-shelled creature, she supposed. Though the look on his face when she'd transformed back made it well worthwhile.

"You were right," he said, stunned.

"I was right," she echoed.

Without a thought for propriety, she flung herself at him and he held her close, clutching her with a ferocity that frightened her. She could feel his heart hammering against his chest and she wanted to kiss that precious pulse point in his neck, the one that lay opposite the ragged scar. She settled for wrapping her arms around him.

"You terrify me," he whispered.

"Is that a bad thing?" she murmured into his chest.

He laughed, and it was glorious. She smiled with relief.

"It's not a bad thing, then?" she teased.

"No," he chuckled. "It is most definitely not a bad thing."

"Ron used to say that I was 'brilliant, but scary'."

"You are," he agreed. "But that's not why you terrify me."

"Why, then?"

"Your willingness to fling yourself into whatever you do," he said. "The energy you bring to every thought, every feeling--"

"It's too much?" The fear she felt constricting her chest would surely rise to choke her now, she thought.

"No!" he said swiftly. "It's not too much. It's just so... different from what I'm accustomed to." He paused, and she felt his heart speed up again. "It's partly my nature and partly what I've been taught, I suppose." She held her breath, listening. "To hold back. To shield my thoughts." He laughed, ruefully. "Occlumency is a mixed blessing, you see. It's meant to keep intruders out--" He paused. "--but it works just as well to keep me--my thoughts, my emotions, my hopes--in."

She nodded. It was easy to imagine how a naturally reticent boy in a politically volatile environment would learn that safety lay in his natural reserve.

"But you." His hand stroked her cheek and she lay her own atop it, startled to feel him trembling. "You have no fear."

"I do," she contradicted. "It's just that when I'm afraid, I don't want to be alone." She paused. "And I told you already, I can sometimes be a bit... reckless. I suppose."

"You suppose, do you?" He chuckled. "You say that as if I've not had ample opportunity to notice."

She heard the laughter in his voice and since she could breathe again, lifted her head so that she could look at him.

"I suppose you would have," she whispered, entranced by the intense look in his eyes.

"I like what your recklessness does to me," he murmured. She leaned forward to kiss his lips, soft and chaste, and felt a rush of energy flow through her. His breath came fast and she tilted her head to whisper in his ear.

"Alchemy, Severus."

"Alchemy," he echoed.

"I just don't understand it," Hermione muttered as she pushed aside another piece of ink-smudged parchment.

"Don't understand what?" Severus asked, lifting his head from his work and wincing. Parchments lay in disarray, empty ink pots and broken quills interspersed among the wreckage. He'd assiduously avoided watching her work, keeping his head down and his attention focused on the article he was reading on the alchemical properties of water. In Chinese. He'd apparently neglected to notice the attack of the grumpy Niffler, he thought with a smirk.

"The equations just won't balance," she grumbled, oblivious to his amusement.

He walked gingerly to her side of their worktable, dodging fallen parchments and silently casting Evanesco on a drying ink spill on the floor. He peered over her shoulder at the runes slashed into the parchment, red and purple symbols crashing into one another, wrestling for dominance--collapsing instead into a smoky pile at the bottom of the page.

Kinetic Arithmancy. He thought. Such a showoff. He caught her eye and smirked, and she shrugged.

"It's the most effective method for simulating and predicting process, but it's not working. And it's made a huge mess of my parchments."

He snorted. "Yes, well, the wizarding world thanks you for sacrificing your materials in the face of the ongoing devastation of random nonnatural disasters and fairly predictable human idiocy."

She rubbed her eyes and laughed. They were both overtired, he thought. Too many late nights and restless sleep did not make for clear thinking.

"May I take a look?" he asked, lesson learned about intruding on Hermione Granger's work process without prior permission. She nodded and pushed the parchments towards him, leaning back in her chair with a sigh.

The parchments were, indeed, smoking, and almost petulant in their refusal to balance.

"So what have you done here?" he began, tracing the curve of her equations as they reluctantly returned to their positions in order for him to examine them.

She'd used the Tree of Life, he noticed--an unusual choice, but one that resonated with him as well. Symbols spread across the page. Runes, letters and symbols spanning time and culture teetered, one on top of the one another--rising first from the bottom of the page in a solid trunk built of Chinese foundational runes, building with Rado and Kunaz, and branching into the main boughs from which gracefully shaped letters dangled. She'd incorporated the Chinese symbols for each of the five elements, he noticed, and was attempting to introduce the symbols for Qi and Shen to the rune Laguz, but the rune kept skittering off the page. As he watched, the rune Eihwaz took a dramatic spin, knocking the others from their perches and causing the letter and symbol pileup he'd witnessed earlier.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "They do tend to the dramatic."

He chuckled and smoothed the page, jerking his hand away from the heated surface. "Dramatic and hypersensitive, it would appear," he added.

"Yes, well they are not accustomed to being asked to work together. They're apparently still negotiating." She peered at the parchment again. "It should work," she said softly. He nodded.

"Indeed, it should." He moved the parchments to the centre of the table. "Whatever is awry here, you're unlikely to identify it tonight," he said. "Perhaps it's time to put the equations aside and take a break."

She nodded and he watched her lift an ink-stained hand to massage the back of her neck.

Watching the movement of that hand beneath her tangle of hair, his stomach clenched with the unspoken anticipation that had been hanging between them for weeks. Lingering touches, heated glances, and the not-so-occasional snuggle on the chaise had not strayed from the chaise. He knew that she was waiting for him to open the door for deeper intimacy, and at the same time, he was acutely aware of his own efforts to pace himself.

There was no question that he wanted her. He'd been drawn to her long before their visit to the node. Her response to him suggested that she wanted to be with him, as well. But he wanted more than a physical relationship and he certainly had no interest in a casual one. There was something elemental in the energy she stirred in him.

He felt generous when she was near; he wanted to shower her with every ounce of energy he could muster. What was his was hers. What he felt for her, how he felt about himself when he was around her, shook him profoundly. Yes, he wanted her--oh, how he wanted her. But the fear that that the moment he reached for her in earnest, the always-lurking Severus Snape brand of poison would be released, had kept him remote. At least this way, he'd imagined, they both might be safe for a little while longer. Just in case.

Optimism and hope were emotions he'd not had much opportunity to employ. It would appear that sometimes, they materialized even without invitation.

He watched her work out the knots in her neck and wanted nothing more than to run his hands along the smooth lines and gently ease the tension accumulated there. Perhaps there was tension elsewhere that he could attend to while he was at it, he thought.

Courage, man.

"Taking a break at the work table was not quite what I had in mind, Hermione," he said. Her tired smile unclenched his throat just a bit.

"I was actually wondering," he began, hoping that his voice didn't sound as shaky as he felt, "if you would care to accompany me back to my chambers for some dinner and perhaps a glass of wine."

Her face lit up, and she suddenly looked far less tired.

"I would love that," she whispered. Relief flooded him, and he marvelled at the warmth in her eyes and the hope radiant in her expression. His stomach clenched again with anxiety. Please, let me not bollocks this up.

The home of Severus Snape can be found at number 7, Unspeakable Row, Department of Mysteries, Ministry of Magic.

It was at once a reminder of the looming danger he still faced post-war--even ensconced as they both were in the depths of the Department of Mysteries--and a tangible expression of trust.

She absently stroked the parchment as she focused on the address, and he caught a glimpse of the tears that she dashed away with an impatient swipe of her hand. When she was done and the parchment reduced to cinders, she stood, taking the arm he offered.

Neither paid the slightest attention to the long smudge of ash that lay on her fingers as she curled them around his arm as they stood to go.