Chapter 6

This story eventually becomes very adult. Minors, please do not read it.

I do not own these characters. I am just borrowing them.

Please consider leaving a review. I have received very few. I need to know what you like and don't like.

They lay holding each other for a while and then finally got up.  Hermione took a shower, and Severus waited patiently for her to come out. 

He sat in a chair with his hands folded in his lap and waited as he had waited all week long for her to overcome her anger and talk to him again.  He was able to escape into his ordered mind and work on some spells and potions he had been developing before the war.  If he had not had something for distraction, this would have been even more maddening.  Sitting in his quarters or the classroom for the last week had been infuriating, but he'd eventually calmed down and stayed silent and let Hermione work out her pain. When she'd gotten sick, he'd been afraid.  It had been obvious to him that the control of the power he had came without pain when he really was not thinking about it.  He just desired it.  It had little to do with mental force.  He would have to learn to relax to use it.

Hermione came from the bathroom clean and pink from her warm shower.  She had her hair smoothed into long waves, and her robes were a deep green. 

"Severus," she called to him.

"I'm in the chair. I'm now moving toward you," he informed her.

She extended her hand, and he took it and drew her close.

"You look beautiful, Hermione."

She raised her face to his, and he kissed her. She buried her hand in his hair, urging him into a long kiss. 

He finally drew back.  "If you were still 20 years younger, this might seem bizarre."

Hermione said, with a laugh, "It wasn't so bizarre.  I was determined to approach you after my N.E.W.T.s.  After all, I was over 17 and of age. It was my dream to apprentice under you."  She pulled on his arm.  "Come on, I think I need some food. We can go down to the kitchens to get some soup and then go see if Poppy is in." 

She took their wands from the table and tucked them into her sleeves and then reached out so he could take her hand.  They walked in silence through the classroom and down the dungeon halls.  Hermione smiled at some of the students as they passed, and Severus jumped out of the way.  They finally reached the kitchens and got the house-elves to serve them some soup. Hermione took the big bowl and an extra spoon to the private dinning room near the kitchens. 

When Severus tried to eat some of the soup, it came right back up.  He sighed and said, "I guess I still have the shield internally.  Well, at least I cannot starve, and I do have the pleasure of your touch and kisses."  He reached out and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.

"Severus, if you could go anywhere without me, would you still want me?" she asked with a bit of uncertainly in her voice. Not convinced he really would stay with her.

He looked at the fear on her face, and she suddenly seemed like the young girl he had known so long ago.

"Yes, I'm sure I would. You believe in me.  Maybe your feelings have something to do with the barrier that keeps me in this half-life, breaking down.  I am almost certain it does.  If Voldemort hated me enough to do this, he must have known about my duplicity.  Let us say he planned to curse me to this non-existence.  Maybe he thought I would only come into consciousness when someone hated me.  I did have snatches of consciousness over the years, but I have no clue who was thinking about me or why. Whether it was good or bad thoughts, I only knew I was trapped in that nothingness.  If I were awake more than a few minutes, I would start to panic because I was alone in the Shrieking Shack.  A few times, it got really bad.  It was terrifying, not knowing why I couldn't leave that room.  It was a dismal prison with only the blood stain for company, Hermione."

He squeezed her fingers and brought them up to his lips for a kiss. "You saved me from that nothingness.  I'm here now because you care for me."

"But I don't want you here because you think you owe me some devotion, like a guardian angel," she protested.

He smirked at her. "No, I don't see wings on you. I just see a good and beautiful woman.  I would not have had the courage to go after you if I had known you cared for me back then; seventeen is still a child to me.  But a man who has had nearly no love or affection his whole life would be a fool not to respond to the care that you have for me, and you're clearly an adult now."

Hermione noted with a silent smirk that they both avoided the "L" word.  It was too soon.

She sighed. "I guess we may never know if you would have cared for me without this spell."

Severus noted she'd finished her soup, and he drew her to her feet and put his arms around her. "Does it truly matter?  A devious wizard who wanted nothing more than to torture me orchestrated this situation.  Instead, I am getting care and affection.  As I said earlier, he never understood the power of LOVE."  The word came from his mouth as a foreign word.  He'd formed the letters almost with slow deliberateness.  "That which defeated him can now defeat his spell."

She was still a bit frustrated. They would never know if Severus would have cared for her if he had not gone through this trial in his life.  Did their bond emotionally tie them together?  He was so different than he had been years ago.

He watched the emotions cross her face, and he realized she couldn't see his pleasure at being with her. 

"Hermione," he said, kissing her forehead, "I do not make it a habit of being physical with a woman I do not have feelings for.  Please believe me when I say that I care deeply for you.  If you could see my face when you come into the room, you'd know I care."

"Now that's something I wish I could see: a Severus Snape who cares for me.  It downright boggles the mind."  She laughed and hugged him, jumping back when the door opened and Minerva came in carrying a cup of coffee and a pastry.

"Oh, Hermione," she said, looking curiously at her, "what are you doing?"

"I was just doing some warm-up exercises."  She flapped her arms about her, raising and lowering them as a demonstration.  "I was sick last night, and I came for soup and thought I'd stretch a bit."

Minerva looked at her as if she didn't believe her. Then she nodded and went to set her cup and saucer on the table.

She eyed Hermione's empty bowl and two spoons.  "I thought I heard voices."

"Oh, yes, Sir Nicholas was just on his way through before you opened the door."

"Well, that explains the voices."  She chose to ignore the extra spoon. "I'm sorry to hear you were so sick.  How come I wasn't informed?"

"I wasn't able to call for help. When I woke this morning, my fever had broken," she said. She felt Severus tug at her shirt from behind, urging her to get out of there. "I was going up to see Poppy and ask for something to get rid of my residual headache.  Have a good night, Minerva."

Minerva nodded. "I hope you feel better for work Monday.  Let me know if you need a substitute."

Hermione nodded. "I will, thank you."  She strode out of the room and got down the hall before Severus spoke.

"We will have to tell her soon," he said with a sigh. "The woman always tried to accept Albus' belief in me. Though it was hard for her after Albus' death. I just wanted to talk to Poppy first."

"She was heartbroken over your death.  She felt really guilty for not seeing through Albus' plan, and she was so furious with him that she had his portrait covered for nearly a year after he exonerated you in court."

He laughed. It was a curious, low rumble. "It's nice to hear that Albus wasn't everyone's saint. Maybe I should have spoken to her, but I wouldn't want to give the old woman a heart attack.  It's best to break the news to her a little more carefully."

"Yes, we do need to tell her soon."  They went quietly the rest of the way to the infirmary.  It was late Saturday, and most of the students were back in their dormitories.

Hermione knocked on the door to the infirmary and entered.  She and Severus made their way to Poppy's door and knocked again. 

"Come," the woman called from inside.

Hermione opened the door and stepped into a small sitting room.  It was warm and cozy.  All the chairs and the couch were draped with knitted throws in multiple colors.  There was a rag rug in front of them.  Shelves of medical books lined the walls.  Poppy was sitting in one of the chairs with a throw over her legs and a big book in her hands.

"Ah, so you've finally come to see me again, have you?"  She looked around Hermione.

Hermione realized the Healer was angry with her for not having come sooner.  "I'm sorry, Madam Pomfrey. I got really annoyed with Severus and didn't speak to him most of the week."

The older woman waved her to the couch still not sure if Severus was there. She leaned forward and looked at Hermione's face. "Have you been ill?"

Hermione sank gratefully into the couch. "Yes. I got that flu last night.  It was very bad."

Hermione reached over and took Severus' hand. 

Poppy's eyes got wide. "Why didn't you call me, and why haven't you said hello, Sev?"

Severus took a deep breath and said, "Hello, Poppy."

The healer's hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes clouded with tears.  "Oh, you really are there."

Severus said, "Thank Merlin, you can hear me."

Poppy threw the blanket off and came forward, and Hermione felt Severus let go of her hand and rise to meet the witch.

Poppy threw her arms around the invisible barrier that she met and held him tightly.

Severus held her close and leaned down to rest his chin on her head for a long moment. "I'm sorry I didn't come at once. We have been trying to adjust to the situation."  He sighed. "I keep sticking my foot in my mouth."

Poppy pulled back and laughed. "I just bet you do." She was not even trying to hide the tears that now ran down her face.  She still had a hold of one of Severus' hands.  "Come out into the infirmary.  I can run a scan and see what it tells me."

Hermione got to her feet and stepped closer to where Severus was. He reached out and took her hand.  They went sideways out the door. Once inside the infirmary, Poppy let Severus go and set up some instruments in the middle of the floor.  She made some adjustments to the instruments, which looked a bit like Muggle survey equipment on tripods.  There were three of them, and they were positioned in a triangle with a chair in the middle. Once she finished fiddling with the instruments, Poppy motioned for Severus to sit in the chair and asked Hermione to stand back and watch.

Poppy began to sing a spell. Her voice was capable of many notes, and her resonance went from high to low.  Colors began to swirl through the holes in the instruments, weaving a blanket around the whole triangle.  It gradually moved inward until Severus' form could be plainly seen under the cover of colors.

Hermione stood quietly with her hands clasped nervously in front of her.  She watched the lights move around Severus but mostly she drank in his outline.  He really was there.  She saw his form was three-dimensional and real.  He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other.  His hands were in his lap.  Even made out of rainbows, he was beautiful to her.  She longed to see him again.  But the colors faded as Poppy stopped chanting, and there was nothing left of Severus.

"Did you find anything?"  Severus' anxious voice came from the emptiness.

"The spell is very powerful. It is like a living invisibility cloak.  It seems to be only a few millimeters thick now.  It is as if you are suspended in a stasis field.  It is somehow keeping your body functioning on nothing. It's like a time warp where you are.  Your body is not aging.  There are several more layers of the barrier.  You say you've worn away two already?"

"Yes, the bubble he floated in and a stingingly cold exterior barrier where I could not touch him.  His coldness took away the fever from my body last night when I was very ill, and today it was gone."

"That is unusual to say the least," the old healer said. "I will have to go to St. Mungo's and do some research.  I have never heard of this.  It would have been placed on you by a very strong wizard."

"We suspect that my Dark Mark is somehow involved."  Severus explained what he remembered.

Poppy pursed her lips and then said, "I guess it's possible, but I really have nothing to go on.  Other than your imprisonment, I'd say your life's not so bad.  You managed to heal from the bites that Nagini gave you.  You don't have to eat or eliminate.  You most likely haven't aged.  Now you can talk and interact, even touch."

Hermione waited for him to react.

"No, it's not so bad.  I have a beautiful woman I can share my life with, which is something I never had. I am, however, unconscious when she's asleep, which makes me crazy.  I would prefer to be awake and on watch.  It's my nature to be on watch."

"This thing seems to be slowly losing its power as it is.  Maybe you should just wait to see how it goes.  Something is weakening the layers.  There seems to be one right under your skin, thin like a second skin.  I detect one around your internal organs, and the last is around your heart," she said quietly.

"My heart?"  Severus asked. "That's kind of odd, isn't it?"

"Yes, very," she said suddenly, making herself busy putting away the instruments and taking the chair back to its original position by one of the beds.

She stopped suddenly, and Hermione realized it was because Severus had a hold of her.

"You have an unspoken opinion here, Poppy.  What is it?"

"It has a purpose, and I think it will be obvious to you when you finally break free.  I cannot say whether Voldemort or someone else placed it on you.  It is a prison, that's obvious, but it's a rather benevolent one.  If its purpose were evil, wouldn't you have been alone in torture all these years?  Alternatively, having been aware of your isolation, you suffered little and have been asleep most of the time, alone, and only now aware when you have had Hermione for company or were thought of by her.  Your consciousness in the Shrieking Shack was only minutes.  Think what it would have been like if you lived every minute of every day and night all these years, alone," Poppy theorized.

"So you think this was done on purpose? That it wasn't an accident?" Severus asked, going to Hermione and taking her hand and pulling her close because he needed her comfort.

"It's possible." Poppy stopped and looked toward Severus and Hermione.  "I can give you a spell to shroud yourself with. It will make you appear as the ghosts do here at Hogwarts.  It probably would be best to do it only in your quarters, Hermione.  You don't want to scare the children with the big, bad, legendary spy."  She laughed. "It will take some of your energy to keep it going.  So I would suggest using it only a few hours at time.  I also think we need to tell Minerva about you.  She cared a great deal for you also, Severus, and she still speaks of you on occasion.  She wanted to have you replace her."

Severus said, "Yes, I heard her tell Hermione that.  I am not sure I want the job.  You know how much I enjoyed teaching the hoodlums," he told Poppy, sarcastically.

The healer laughed.  "Well, you were under a lot of pressure back then. I think if you tried it now, it might be quite satisfying.  Hermione, come over here. Severus, stand about six feet in front of her.  This shroud might feel a bit warm, but you will be visible for a time. Now I will teach it to you, Hermione, but I will also teach you how to turn it off.  I'd really rather you not come face to face with anyone it the halls, least of all Filch; the poor man is ancient and might have a heart attack."

"...and that would be bad, why?"  Severus asked.

Hermione jabbed him in the ribs playfully. "The poor man.  It must be hard for him to be here, knowing our world of magic can never be his."

"That man supported Umbridge, and I have no doubt he was in Malfoy's back pocket. I was clearly surprised to see him still here," Severus complained.

"I think he repented after the war, Severus. You, of all people, should understand the need for forgiveness," Poppy said, her tone like a mother giving a lecture. "Enough for now. Let's get this spell done; I'd like to go to bed before midnight."

Severus said, "Of course. How rude of us."

Poppy came and reached for him and pulled him close when he took her hand. "I'm very happy to have you back, Severus.  You have no idea how many times I wished I could have found you in time to help you."

Severus held her close. "There was nothing you could have done.  I took all the potions, but I did not know to fight against this unseen barrier."  He pushed her away. "Now, old woman," he said, the affection plain to hear in his voice, "teach Hermione the spell so we can let you rest."

Lisa, I appreciate you so much. Without your beta work, I could not do this.

Becky thanks for your help and support.