5

The walk to Severus' rooms was long, the hallways twisting in unexpected ways, and Hermione pondered how far under the streets of London the Department's arms reached.

Walking arm in arm with Severus, distracted by the scent of his skin, the warmth of his arm beneath his jacket sleeve, she forced her attention outward and wondered which aspect of being Secret Kept made hallways she passed every day unfamiliar. Even the corridor to her chambers seemed to take another course every time she walked it, as if it had consulted with the stairways at Hogwarts for lessons in misdirection. The path to Severus' rooms seemed even more convoluted, as if the bones of the earth had gone out of their way to hide him from prying eyes and harmful intentions.

And now, he'd invited her in. The energy between them hummed with promise, and the closer they got to his chambers, the more intense it grew.

"Here we are," he said as they approached an expanse of stone wall. Hermione focused on the address he'd shown her, and about Severus protected by layers of carefully placed magic and at once, a carved wooden door appeared like a gift from the heart of the stone. The texture of his protective enchantments tasted sharp and metallic, like medieval armour made magic.

His rooms resembled hers only in their skeleton, she thought as he escorted her across the threshold. Sitting room and kitchenette were scattered with books and parchment, sparsely furnished and yet undeniably his in the details. A long black robe draped neatly over a wooden chair, potions bottles here and there, labelled in his distinctive hand, and on the mantle, a small silver cauldron.

He'd moved to stand behind her, and she felt the intensity of his desire, tinged with the faintest shadow of uncertainty rippling just beneath the surface like the frantic beating of hummingbird wings...so like the butterflies fluttering in her belly. She shivered as his hands swept the hair from her neck, moaning as he dropped soft kisses along the length of the sensitive skin there. This was nothing like their chaste snogs on the couch; this was like being dipped in molten liquid and melted with a touch.

"Severus," she gasped, leaning back into the heat of his body.

"Hmmm?" His deep voice sent a shiver to her belly, and she could hardly breathe. He didn't stop, his considerable attentions focused solely on the soft skin behind her ear, his hands roaming, seeking bare skin beneath her robes.

She reached a hand behind her to stroke the back of his head, pulling him closer, running her fingers through his slick hair. He growled with approval and she pivoted to face him, her body thrumming with anticipation.

His black eyes bore through her, all the hope and fear and need of a man restrained for too long spilling free at last. Even stripped of all disguise as they both were that day in the node, she had not seen him this naked. There were no words now, none that could traverse the rubble that lay around them. All their work, months of searching for answers, the gradual dismantling of barriers erected so long ago...all of it brought them inexplicably to this ragged precipice.

And now, here they stood. The urgency of their mission had grown inseparable from the intense need to join together what surely were two halves of a potentially vibrant whole. This connection that had grown between them had a power all its own, elemental in its intensity...thrilling and terrifying and inescapable.

All she knew was the roughness of his cheek and hot breaths and sweet lips at last. Her hands were trembling as she wrapped her arms around him and brought his body closer to hers. He let out a harsh breath as she pressed up against him and she could feel the tension in his frame as he held himself back.

What is he afraid of?

"Severus," she pleaded.

He froze, breathless.

"Severus... please..."

And he broke.

The words ripped through him, a blade shredding tissue paper.

Out of nowhere, the old man's insistent voice collided with Hermione's breathless one. A wave of pain spilled over him, saturating him with the remembered horror of being trapped in a prison constructed brick by brick by his own destructive hands.

Oh, no... no, no...

His heart raced, shame and fear flooding him. He had no right to this woman, no right to the light in her eyes when she looked at him, no right to the desire filling him...not just for her body, but for her heart and her spirit.

He was only a tool, he thought; only existing as a means to gain power, or in an endless effort to repair what his vicious hurt had broken. It didn't matter what he wanted or what he needed. This was not his lot... It was not for him to feel magical in the presence of a woman or to sink into the bliss of finding the Yang to his Yin...to join together, body, spirit, and soul.

His survival meant only that he lived to serve another master, his task to decipher the rules by which he must exist...only in the service of the other.

Severus... please...

As if he'd ever had a choice.

He pulled away from her as if burnt.

She never imagined that she would hear him whimper. Not in pain.

"Severus?" She whispered. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head and sank to the floor. Tremors shook him, and despite the implicit protest in every sharp angle of his body, she wrapped herself around him, holding him against her firmly. Stiff and unyielding, it was as if he had been petrified by the yellow eye of the basilisk, doomed to remember only his own desiccated reflection, frozen forever.

"No, Severus. Come back," she said, clinging to him to still her shaking limbs. He was curled into a ball, kneeling on the rug like a man awaiting a death blow.

"Until you permit yourself to want something with every cell of your body, Miss Granger, you have nothing to lose. What is loss or fear to one who has no hope?"

His words from that day months ago echoed in her memory, shaking her as they had not even when she'd first heard them. Was this the price of hope, then? The blinding awareness that now there was everything to lose?

And this was what terror looked like, she realised, the knowledge knocking the wind out of her like a blow. She recognised it, the blinding certainty that you were no more than a speck of humanity on the gleaming edge of fate's blade. It cut and cut until there was nothing left except the shreds of who you once thought you were. If she was honest with herself, she could point to tatters of her own, shoved behind a burning drive to demonstrate beyond any doubt her right to exist in this world. So, what of hope?

They lay together on the ground, her arms wrapped around him as he shook. All she could offer him was hope, though she wondered now how much of her own remained. If tatters were all she had, all that was left of the soul that had entered the wizarding world, heart open, eyes blazing with passion and anticipation and energy, then those were what she would share. But her resolution didn't relieve the ache in her chest. There was more, there had to be something more that she hadn't understood, she thought, frustrated. There had to be something that she could do.

In a flash, she could see in her mind's eye the magical currents trying to take shape...trying simply to find their own essential form. Not to reign, triumphant, not for power or accolades...only seeking their true centres and the natural relationships that they shared with one another. Interlocking, interdependent, peaceful and whole only in the presence of each another.

The shadow of understanding soothed her. She could relieve him of the burden of being saint and saviour combined. Whatever expectations he had lived with, she refused to perpetuate. Neither of them could possibly satisfy impossible demands set by a world in conflict with itself. The best she could do for them both would be to give him her simple presence and show him in the most honest of ways that she welcomed his. She would walk with him wherever his spirit led...bringing only herself, limping and unsure, but the truest offering she had.

He felt her body against his, her arms around him, but he couldn't bring himself to move away. Through the haze of pain, he felt her move, and then could feel the smooth wood of his wand as she pressed it into his hand.

No, two wands. He stirred, confusion breaking through brittle layers of pain paralysing him. And then it all happened in an instant.

...Power, white heat rushing through him.

...Her hands, stronger than he'd remembered, wrapped around his, gripping their wands.

...Parched skin drinking in her breath, burning with her whispered words.

"They shattered it, Severus. They killed it in themselves and did it to us, too...all of us. They demanded that we be only part of who we are...smothering the rest. Who we were was innocent and honest...it was ours and it was whole and it was all we had to bring to this world. Nobody has the right to do that. The bastards."

He stirred again.

"How dare they?" He felt the searing heat of her rage, and felt it mirrored in his chest.

"I don't care what that damned Oracle meant," she whispered harshly. "I don't care anymore what the wizarding world needs. They can find someone else to fix what they broke." He felt her grip tighten. "If you want to know who I am, and who you are, just look."

She cast the charm silently but she might as well have been shouting it from the castle turrets.

A bolt of energy shot through him, her magic, sinuous and powerful, meeting his...cajoling it, challenging it. Challenging him to stand up and fight for himself...fight for his right to exist and for hers.

He felt it build, fuelled by scant memories of what might have been and glimpses of what could yet be...

Melting, no...softening, flowing with smooth power. She, ablaze, held steady in the circle they created together. Warm...he'd always sought the fire...cauldron and hearth. He was always so cold, fingers stiff and bones aching from the endless ice. This felt like being warmed from the inside out, not like the weak flame that only ever melted the top layer of frost.

Something was taking shape, old forms shifting, ready to show themselves. He could move now. He lifted his head and there she was, as dazed as he by tumbling emotion and crushing urgency. Their hands rose as one, wands aloft as two forms burst from their confinement.

Two creatures of mist and shadow.

Fluttering wings, and a flash of fire.

A musical note so pure that it made his heart burst with the joy of it... sound transformed to sensation as it filled him with peace, and hope. And love.

He didn't know when he'd wrapped his arms around Hermione, but was grateful for the anchor as he watched the phoenix manage to glide and strut simultaneously as it approached the wary dragon, nestling itself authoritatively under a scaly wing.

He couldn't help himself as the glare of the phoenix stopped the dragon's spewing, the fiery creature bemused but oddly calm under the phoenix's wide-eyed gaze.

He laughed.

She felt buoyant in the current of his laughter.

Joy.

Freedom.

Abruptly unbound from chains she hadn't realised she'd worn, she realised that it was not only he who had just shed the burdens of unjust needs and inhumane expectations.

"We have to get out of here," she said.

"Indeed," he murmured.

She stepped into the shelter of his arms, offering hers in return. He pulled her close, shaking with emotion. And then he understood.

"No, not out of here," he said. "We have to get to the Ley line. There's one here, that's the one we need."

"How do you know? Where? Severus, are you sure?" She was frantic. "We don't have to. I won't let you be used again...won't let us be used."

"I don't know how, I just... It's not for them. It's for us...for you. Do you trust me?"

A heartbeat sometimes feels like an eternity.

"Always."

He shivered in her arms.

They stood outside the door to the only chamber in the Department of Mysteries whose door always remained impassable. Black and sleek like the other doors in the Department, it had no doorknob.

"Here?"

"Yes," he muttered. "I don't know how to get in. But can you feel it?"

And she could. From behind the closed door, the pulse of the world thrummed as surely as her heart did in her chest. The ragged beat pained her; she didn't know how much longer it could go on. So tired...they all were so tired.

She brought her hands to the door and rested her cheek against its slick surface. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her tears mix with the smudge of ash on her fingers, muddy and insubstantial. His hands pushed against the door, too, and she brought one of hers to rest on his. They might not make it in, but no matter what, they would not be alone on the outside. Fingers interlocked, pressed against the smooth wood, they stood...witness to the need beyond its threshold.

With what felt like a sigh, the door swung open.

Cool air enveloped them, choppy even in the absence of wind.

They stepped inside the vast room. A chamber, inside and outside simultaneously, dimly lit by a blanket of stars shaded by thick, dark clouds.

He could hear the spirits crying now, their voices ragged and exhausted.

They weren't asking for him, but calling to her...she had what they needed. But their wounds were so vast, and he felt her shudder.

"I can't, I changed my mind." She clung to him, and her heart galloped beneath his hands. "Let's go. We have to get out of here.

"You can, Hermione." His voice was solid. The spirits weren't calling to him, but they were holding him steady, grounding him. He knew all about terror and the urge to hide yourself inside the deepest pit you could find until the earth just buried you there and left you in peace. "I'm right here with you."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know what they want," she gasped, panic staining her voice. He held her as she trembled and shook with rage at the injustice that their world had perpetrated...that it had failed so absolutely to nurture this passionate woman's trust in herself. Right here, right now, what she needed most was to genuinely believe that she was capable of being what none of her books or formulae could ever replicate.

"Let them tell you," he whispered. She shivered, and he pressed his lips to the tender skin of her temple and waited until she had stopped shaking. He felt her shift...not to animal form, but to a sharper version of herself. No longer so innocent, no longer so sure or so quick to rush in. Steadier: anchored and receptive. Her lips brushed his; her trust enveloped him even as she stepped from the safety of his arms.

Slowly, she made her way to the centre of the chamber. Shards of rock stood in hostile formation; an army of stone protecting the torn, tender spirits beneath.

She slipped her shoes from her feet. This was sacred ground.

"I'm here."

The earth rumbled in answer, opening itself to welcome her into the circle of standing stones.

The rock beneath her bare feet was hot, glistening with the sheen of embedded ore. Hard and unyielding, sharp edges sliced the tender soles, blood anointing the rock surface with blistering drops. The spirits below sang in rapture, recognition, and welcome.

Hermione fell to her knees in the enclosure. "Show me what you need." She whispered to the energies that she knew tumbled beneath the earth, her fingers stroking the slick surface. There were no words in answer, only a flood of memory like water erupting from beneath the rock.

A young girl, buoyant in the summer sun, ocean to her back, the white sand in her hands taking shape under her touch. Castle walls and murky lakes sprang to life alongside winding roads and forests populated by creatures beyond imagination...a universe overflowing with promise and possibility. The sleek sand vibrated with joy from the magic that ran through her. Whole. Powerful in its innocence and with the promise of ebullient energy to share with a depleted world.

"I'd forgotten," she murmured as she remembered herself, the summer before her first year at Hogwarts. She had been so happy. Nervous, yes, but mostly ecstatic to be joining the world of others just like her, others whose enchanted blood sang to them and who could hear the whisper of the swirling wind and the stretching branches of the trees as they reached for the sky.

But they couldn't...or wouldn't...see. They treated their magic like all the other elements at their mercy. They'd forgotten that it blossomed in the lush earth and nutritive water; it flowed through the rich metal in the bedrock of the world and sang in the vast wood of the forests and searing flame of their hearths.

The spirits beneath her shook with the pain of betrayal. It had gifted them, and they cut themselves into pieces. It shared its bounty and they separated their vibrant whole into shards.

Oh, Merlin... The Sorting Hat.

"Gryffindor!" it had shouted, and she had smiled as she made her way to the table of cheering students. "It must think that I'm very brave, then," she'd thought, uneasy. "But the hat did say that I am smart and loyal and ambitious, as well." Confused, but eager to join, to fit in like any other, she'd developed and nurtured the fire inside of her. Her intelligence, the passion of her persistence when faced with challenges, dogged bravery, and spontaneity. Good qualities, all in all. Qualities that the Headmaster valued, that kept her at the top of the form and in the centre of the war that had been brewing for decades.

She'd glanced at the other tables that day and on countless days after, wondering what it was like to belong in the other houses. During long periods when Ron or Harry would push her aside for trusting her own judgement or instinct instead of theirs, she would look over at the other tables, wishing that she could turn away from the qualities so prized in Gryffindor House, or could at least be valued for those merits that went beyond the Gryffindor creed. But she was more an outsider than she had imagined when she came into this world...unwelcome by genealogy and despite her obvious talent, inferior in the eyes of many whose lives had never been without magic.

She saw only one avenue: to prove beyond any doubt that she belonged in this world. Only her achievement, she thought, might earn her an unhesitant welcome. Her fine mind, if not her glistening magic, should grant her a place.

The stones beneath her trembled again, and she felt the wind whipping in frenzied rage.

She saw it more clearly now. The fabric of their world fraying as generation after generation of students at Hogwarts were sorted; splitting them, so young, into houses that would nurture only part of what made them whole. 'Stay away from those others,' it seemed to say. 'Our way is the right way to be.' How was it possible that the hat sang year after year about unity and yet forced them to fragment...to reject portions of themselves that didn't fit their House's mould and to despise others who embodied qualities different from their own?

"No more." She whispered to the standing stones, and they whispered their assent.

"No more." His voice was rough, but its caress was like the smoothest silk. She hadn't seen him come to join her but knew with every fibre of her soul that if he hadn't been welcome, the stones would have barred his entry. Besides, she wanted him near...needed him near...and she reached for his hand, clasping it to her chest.

He knelt beside her, his dark hair whipping in the wind. The spirits sang their greeting and he bowed his head.

Ashamed? Why is he ashamed?

Hermione didn't notice the tears on his cheeks until they had fallen to the stone beneath them, mixing with the drops of her blood until nobody, not witch, wizard or Muggle, would have been able to determine where the blood ended and the tears began.

The spirits beneath the earth's surface had called to him in their unfamiliar voices, bidding him join her. Severus recognised the sounds of pain, their injury plain, and the stirrings of redemption in their entreaty. Feet bare, he approached the enclosure just as she had, and like her, anointed the stones with what he long ago believed to be his impure blood.

Hermione is here, I'm not alone.

The guardian stones had parted for him, and he entered just enough to watch as Hermione joined the symphony, her cries of recognition soon saturated with pain. He reached his hand to touch a standing boulder and he could see, his own memory overlapping hers as he remembered her development, her growth like a plant whose light source comes from only one, narrow direction.

And the Hat. How could he not have thought about the Hat? Hundreds of years of splitting...defining children by some qualities, but penalizing them for others. How else could the Gaunts have become so stunted? Twisted through generations of certainty that they were superior, their arrogance fuelled by inflated pride in the gleaming silver of their locket; dismissive of the fire that gave it shape and sheen, and the earth that nurtured it at its breast and gave it substance.

How else could Merope have believed simultaneously in her complete superiority and utter worthlessness? Flesh and blood and magic and fear...and dreams of reshaping the world so that there is no mirror left anywhere to remind you that other boys with dark hair and absent mothers grow strong without hate.

Growing in a place with no windows to the outside, no view to the land where the steel in the skeleton of the earth nurtures the water hiding in the darkest recesses where nobody dares go, where the forests flourish with roots far beneath the surface despite the droughts that sometimes come and leave the earth parched. Only searing hate delivered with mother's milk and later, the heady rush of power as it sweeps through you...and whose cost you deny even as it burns away every bit of humanity you ever possessed.

Severus held his face in his hands and wept. For Lily, whose fire had drawn him, and in whose flame he had burnt himself without regard to the cost. For his housemates, who strove for dominance as if it meant safety when even their sparks of magic weren't enough. Mostly, though, he wept for the child and the young man who believed that his knowledge and sharp tongue would draw power to him, and that without power, he might as well cease to exist.

He mourned the hopeless, desperate wish to be safe and in control...and that despite the skill he wielded through the wooden wand he despised and in the cauldron whose contents he could shape like clay, it was not sufficient to keep the sharp blade of hatred from cutting down the first woman he had ever loved. Ravaging him along with her.

No amount of penance, no repair could undo the wages of hate. He'd worked at it tirelessly, and when his last task had been completed, had been prepared for his time in this world to end. Waking in the cradle of the earth, as weak as a kitten and as helpless, he'd wished mostly for some sign of forgiveness, a signal of reparation completed.

Instead, he was tasked with the impossible job of deciphering an old man's actions and...he understood now...repairing the damage done by centuries of divisiveness. He could only be grateful that some of that little boy remained...long dormant remnants of the child whose face lit up with eager anticipation at the thought of the magical school where he would belong.

He felt Hermione's hand stroking his hair, her caress warm and sure. How had he merited being here alongside her, this Muggle-born witch...this fierce woman whose heart had been as injured as his own? They had both touched the dark, confronted the parts of themselves forced to hide in the deepest recesses of shadow. But they had found each other there, and in the space where they touched, there was light.

He brought his lips to the palm of her hand, pressing a kiss to the soft skin there. The whisper of her sigh joined the wind's journey through the stones. The rocks were stained with their blood and tears, and with the ash of the enchantments that protected him from harm. So when the ground shook and the standing stones unfurled like triumphant petals in bloom, the surge of strength bursting from the ribbon of iron running through the rock sounded like a shout of joy. They turned to each other, the air around them vibrant with triumph.

The skies opened, showering them with cleansing rain...the depleted soil rumbling in thanks for their sacrifice and surrender...

...and extended an invitation to them...

Dance with us.

Hermione squeezed Severus' hand, and he knew what she would do...sure he could not follow. In an instant, she turned her face to the clouds and with a cry of joy, transformed. Her tiger cub frolicked in the falling rain and Severus watched, wanting nothing more than to join her. In a flash, she was on him, playful but insistent. Her tiger eyes watched as the water washed over him, letting his body greet the element they had healed, and another that they might now heal together.

He remembered the day she'd first transformed, the water he'd brought to her when she was parched. He was the tiger, she'd said. He could be this, he could do this. He understood how to turn the destructive edge of a sword into the enriching container of the cauldron, understood the injury and the miracle that magical water in potions form could mete out. Severus closed his eyes and willed himself to just be, opening himself to whatever was essential in himself...acknowledged or long since denied.

Muscles stretching, tendons straining, he felt his body melt and reform. The ecstatic roar of the cub greeted him and he tumbled with her on the slick stones.

And as the water bathed them, they felt the rocks beneath their paws shift, yielding and transforming, until an ocean of sand, like white crystals, surrounded them. They ran together in the soft sand, watching the light refract as it struck the crystalline grains. The cub yipped, and began to dig, burrowing into the ground, excavating lush earth beneath. He joined her, the smell of fertile soil filling him. Water suffused the earth and it drank it joyfully. They rolled together in the soft earth and splashed in the waters. On his feet again, he shook the water from his fur and felt his body shift once more, a glance at Hermione revealed that she was shifting again, too. Two tortoises revelled in the puddles of water, dancing with the spirits of elements too long isolated. Water and metal, released, rewoven, healing at last.

When he raised his head to look in the distance, he saw the forest he'd not noticed earlier...an explosion of colour and life too long forbidden. He watched the movement in the trees, vibrancy tucked beneath the branches. Ambling towards the forest, he felt his body shift again...azure dragon wings a signal for the rain to stop. Hermione's dragon was smaller, but a magnificent yellow, like the sun and the light on the sand.

He savoured the feel of this magnificent form, and his connection to the roots of the trees unfurling below and the knowledge that they had been healed and nourished at last. The Hermione dragon beside him glowed with an unearthly fire and with an awful certainty he knew what she would do.

How often had passion and rage destroyed someone he loved? The fiery heart in his chest pounded as he watched the dragon shift into a Phoenix so red that her feathers seemed to burn. The Phoenix sang in triumph, and he hung back until she approached him, her beak nipping at the scales on his wings. He threw a blast of fire over her head, and he would swear that she laughed as she flew alongside the flames.

She was daring him, he knew it. Daring him to break free from the bonds that'd held him captive for so much of his life. Daring him to join her and be free.

She flew so high, burned so bright, that he feared she would disappear in a burst of fire. Would a Phoenix Animagus rise from the ashes? He had to follow; if she burned he would burn right behind her. Where she went, he would follow. He launched himself into the air, dragon shifting midflight to brilliant Phoenix, catching up as she swept through the trees on the edge of the standing stones.

The trees below were shifting. They had been barren, like a forest emerging from a long winter. But as they circled above, the branches filled with leaves of brilliant green, flowers blooming where fruits would, one day, grow. From this vantage point, he could see the roots diving deep into the soil, and he imagined the paths they forged deep beneath the surface. His Phoenix memory told of centuries of trees that had burned, nourishing the soil with their ashes, nourishing another generation of trees.

Like him, the world had its cycles and rhythms. Life, death, regeneration and renewal...cycles in balance, the fabric of the universe intact. The blade that split them into shards bred generations of wizards who forgot; and brought a Tom Riddle into their world. And Riddle, reaching into the soul of the world, tore it almost beyond repair in his quest to reverse the laws of nature at any cost.

He spread his wings wide, circling, flying alongside Hermione, and in a burst of elation, soaring above her. She trilled with delight and met him above the clouds. Together, they checked the seams and bindings of the universe and found them strong. Side by side, they revelled in the sensation of the world made whole.

Gradually, they descended, the standing stones peppered with foliage and the silver sand bordered by lushly growing grass. He knew she was watching as he prepared to land on the patch of green. This fiery woman had taken the lead so many times; this time, he would step forward first.

He signalled her with a telltale ruffle of feathers. His heart lurched and he hoped that she would understand what he was going to do, and that she would follow.

Still descending, riding the current of cool air, two luminous red Phoenixes nuzzled together, even in flight drawn to one another...and side by side, burst into flame.

Her skin had cooled again by the time she woke. They lay on a sparse patch of grass within sight of the standing stones. Hermione blinked, she was sure they'd been more crooked when they had first entered the room. The chamber felt different altogether, she thought. The fractured vibration was nearly gone along with the splintered rocks. Flowing energy washed over her, as if the earth sought to share its bounty and its joy.

If the energy were made of sound, she thought, it would have been a symphony. Like an orchestra playing in the distance, Hermione could feel the pulsing rhythms and soaring tones of intricate song. It was growing, swiftly surfacing from the world's core.

She turned to Severus as he lay alongside her and reached over to tangle a finger in a loose strand of his hair. Her heart leapt as his eyes opened, and his gaze swept over her, languorous, heated...a finger following the trail of his eyes with burning touch.

Her heartbeat raced as the energy of the room swelled...they must finish it now, she realised distantly, distracted by her building desire, her heart and body's needs in synchrony as his fingertips traced swirls on her belly.

She wanted this; she wanted him with every cell of her body...heart, mind and spirit. My choice.

"Severus," she whispered, and he reached for her with both hands. She moaned at the feel of his hard body against hers, wanting nothing more than to rip away the strips of cloth separating them and feast on the touch and taste of him. No more barriers.

"I want you, Hermione," he murmured. "I want all of you, every fantastic, exasperating, annoying, irresistible bit of you." He punctuated each word with a sweep of his lips against hers, his hand finding bare skin and seeking more.

Eager, ravenous...

Yes, yes...

She twined her limbs around him as he lifted her into his arms, carrying her to a clearing of lush grass beneath the shelter of overhanging trees. Under the reflected light of a hundred thousand stars, they swam in the depths of their desire, the edges of his once-battered heart tempered in the searing heat of her welcome.

It was like the melding of materials unjustly separated, jubilant in their reunion. She thrilled at the touch of his bare skin and shivered at the heat of his eager body moving against her. Her hands stroked the planes of his broad back, unconsciously tracing fiery runes there, her mouth on his, drinking him in like a woman long parched. And his lips, so hot on her skin; his voice, smooth as flowing water; hooded eyes following the trail of those nimble fingers, surprising her with their intensity as he explored and aroused, focused as if memorising the landscape of her form and absorbing the texture of her soul.

Severus captured her gaze with his and the longing on his face made her cry out...he must know how much she believed in him; how much coming to know and love him had changed her. He was part of her...inextricably, and the joy of that awareness coursed through her even as she felt the gravity of it in her bones.

She reached her hand to his lips, fingertips stroking until he captured one and drew it into his mouth, sending shivers through her body.

"Severus... please..." she whispered. His eyes were bright, and it made no difference which of the tears on her cheeks were his and which were her own.

The warmth in his chest might have been from his pounding heart, though his body was burning so hot that it was hard to tell.

Severus, please... Only her voice now, hers and the truth...finally, finally...that he was free to choose his path: To anchor the repair with this final joining, here with the elements swirling around them, or to carry her from here and love her only as a man loves a woman and not as a proxy for the universe.

What he knew for certain was that he could not...would not...walk away from her ever again. Not from compulsion or obligation, but because of a bond so true and powerful that he would treasure and protect it as long as he drew breath. He'd found the essence of himself, and some of it was in her.

"Yes, oh, yes." This was for him to choose...freely and fully, he thought as he brought his mouth to hers again.

And if the universe benefited, he'd not begrudge it...so long as they were left alone for a while after.

He reached for her again, her body slick with desire, her hands roaming over his chest, his belly, stroking him with feathery touch. Her touch inflamed him and he wanted only to sink into her...to bury himself in her wet heat, finally finding the merger and balance he'd yearned for.

She sighed at his caress and arched into his touch. His mouth, sucking, licking, anointing her with his breath...and drawing deep moans and shouts of pleasure as he teased and tasted the most secret parts of her, the centre of her pleasure and seat of her desire. The Cauldron, he thought, surprised...she is my cauldron and I am the flame.

He shifted atop her, and she wrapped her legs around his hips and drew him to her, her hands stroking him...he moaned and thrust into her eager hands. She guided him to her centre, and as he sheathed himself inside her, they cried out together with the intensity of their bodies joined...at last.

Hard and hot and slick, they clung to each other, rocking together. She cried out, her hips rising to meet his stroke for stroke. Her mouth found his, her tongue thrusting, lips and teeth and hot breath devouring him. With each thrust, each swipe of her tongue and groan from her throat, his pleasure swelled, twisting and rising. He knew from her frantic cries and urgent movement that she was not far behind.

They clung to each other as they moved in unison...their journey impossible to make alone. Burning and tender and the heart of the most intense pleasure he had ever known...she cried out her completion and he felt the waves of her pleasure as if they were his own. The ground beneath them shuddered as if the magic they had harnessed and healed awaited their completion.

He stroked Hermione's hair, fingers tangling in the snarled curls. She laughed and kissed him again...and again and again until he was hard and hot once more and thought that perhaps, this would be a satisfactory way to spend all of eternity.