16/17

Day 100

His trial is today.

Which is why I'm going to Snape's trial.

The journey back to Grimmauld Place where Harry lived was easier than Hermione had anticipated. The good thing about wizard travel was that once you made up your mind, getting there was but a moment's work. There was no waiting for endless hours on airplanes, hiring taxies, building up nerve.

You want to be there, and then you simply were there.

"Hermione, I didn't know you were coming," Harry said as he entered the room, having heard the Floo sound. Their Floos were connected, though Hermione hadn't actually been back since before the end of the war.

"I didn't either," she said, "until just now. I'm coming to the trial."

Harry looked startled. "Are you sure? You don't have to. It's really just..."

"A formality," Hermione finished. She straightened the cuffs of her robes and took a deep breath. "I know, you've said. But I... I think I need to see him."

"You still care for him, don't you?" Harry asked softly. He led her to his bedroom where he finished getting dressed. Harry looked very sharp in dress robes, though his hair could use a good... but Hermione knew there was no point in trying.

"I don't know what I feel anymore. I thought what I wanted was false, my desire born of capture and desperation. If that were true, why do I still want him?"

Harry shrugged as if to say, 'I can't fathom why you wanted him in the first place.' He tossed a cufflink into the drawer and began digging. "Maybe you just... want him," Harry suggested, frowning at the messy drawer. He gave up and just Summoned a matching pair of cufflinks, letting Hermione fix them for him.

"How do I know it's what I really want, though?" she asked, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed.

Harry sat beside her and put his hand over hers. "Hermione. Feelings are always real. They can be falsely influenced or they can be formed under duress, but they're yours. Do you want him?"

Hermione's heart felt laid bare. "Yes," she said in a small voice.

Inhaling deeply as if steeling himself, Harry asked, "Do you love him?"

"Oh, gods," Hermione said, groaning. "I do. I love him."

"Well," Harry said cheerily, "you've done dumber things."

Hermione thought that was probably supposed to help, but the problem was that she wasn't sure she had.

*

Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice rang clear and strong over the courtroom. The cadence made her heart pound as he began to wrap up the proceedings.

Snape's trial had been one of the easiest, so said Kingsley, and one of the most clear-cut. Hermione's own memories had been played in front of the court like a movie reel, revealing to the Wizengamot and the limited members of the audience and press that Severus Snape done his duty to Albus Dumbledore and that his imprisonment of Hermione had been for her own safety. Despite Snape's derisive snort when Harry had said the latter, the court was obviously sympathetic to him.

Everyone loves a hero.

With his back to Hermione, Snape barely moved an inch throughout the entire trial. Not even when Walden Macnair was brought in as a witness to testify that when Snape had been taken from his home, he'd been beaten and tortured for days until Voldemort had set Nagini on him during the final battle. That was proof enough that Snape was not on the side of the dark.

Macnair's description of the abuses was enough to make Hermione's stomach clench, and Kingsley had eventually told the gleefully reminiscent Death Eater that his co-operation would be taken into consideration. Macnair glared and spat at Snape, but a spell kept Snape free from his disgust. Macnair was taken away in chains...Hermione hoped his testimony wouldn't shorten his sentence at all. The things he'd done to Snape...

No wonder it had taken Snape so long to convalesce after Nagini's bite... it wasn't just the venom he was recovering from.

"It is the decision of the Wizengamot that Severus Snape be cleared of all charges against him. Mr. Snape is to pay the traditional reparation for having taken the Dark Mark, a sum of five hundred Galleons. The Wizengamot will also require five hundred hours of service to the wizarding community for crimes, though necessary, against fellow human beings."

The reaction to Snape's sentence was mixed. Hermione was appalled at the money...she knew Snape likely didn't have much, judging by the state of his home. But the community service seemed like a good idea, even if just to get Snape out of his home...Kingsley probably feared the man would become a recluse, otherwise. The punishment would appease those out for blood, though for those who hated Snape it wouldn't ever be enough.

Snape's council led him out of the courtroom. His eyes stayed straight ahead, though he gave a curt nod to Harry, who was sitting in the first row. Hermione sat toward the back, knowing she'd need to slip out right after he left in order to catch up with him. As she'd suspected he would, Snape was moving quickly and with the intention of getting out of the Ministry as soon as possible.

Another trial was scheduled for directly after Snape's, so most people stayed seated in order to watch more blood spill. The Death Eater trials had been going on since the third day after the war, and they would likely last for another month. Then with appeals and remands, no one could really say when the fallout would end.

But none of that mattered now. Hermione quickly ran after Snape, who was walking with a determinedly average speed toward the lift. His council entered first, followed by Snape, who turned and looked directly at Hermione as she lunged forward and stuck her hand in the door.

Snape's council glared a little behind her horn-rimmed glassed, but obligingly pressed the Door Open button until Hermione could gracelessly sneak in.

They were the only three in the lift.

"Hi," Hermione said, wincing. Not very clever, but neither congratulations nor commiseration seemed appropriate.

He nodded and looked pointedly at the closed doors.

"I'm glad that... you're okay."

Snape's face turned very slowly toward her, and he looked so incredulous that she had to repeat her words back to herself to make sure she'd said what she thought she had.

"I mean," she said, trying to make up for whatever blunder she'd made, "service for the community's not so bad. The reparation is unfortunate, but that's an across-the-board law, so..."

"It's a travesty of justice, is what it is!" Snape's council announced bitterly, her hand twitching as if she'd relish the chance to blast the law itself into space. "Mr. Snape is a hero, without whose efforts the war might not have even been won! Is this how we thank our heroes?" she demanded of Hermione, whose eyes widened.

"No, I..."

"No, it isn't! Unbelievable."

Hermione listened, a little stunned, as Snape's council continued on in that vein for the rest of the ride. Hermione kept trying to catch Snape's eye, but he studiously stared forward as if nothing were more interesting than the floor buttons.

When the doors opened, Snape left quickly, striding across the Atrium with a speed that was completely contradictory to his prior attempt at nonchalance, leaving his counsel behind easily.

"Professor Snape!" Hermione called, half-jogging to keep up.

"Miss Granger, I thank you for whatever concern you feel compelled to show, but I assure you, it is unnecessary and..." He paused to look at her. "...Unwanted."

"What will you do now?" she asked.

"Give my savings to the Ministry of Magic, work off my debt to the community, and then enjoy the only freedom I've ever known."

"How?" Hermione put her hand on his arm, hoping to slow him down. His long legs made chasing him frustrating, and her high-heeled shoes weren't helping matters. "How will you enjoy it?"

Snape stopped once they were beyond the Ministry's doors. He looked up to the sky as if he'd never seen it before.

"It's like that day we spent on the Prince grounds," she said softly, looking upward.

"What?"

"The sky. Doesn't it look the same?"

"I don't remember."

Hermione wanted to think that he didn't remember because he'd been too busy looking at her, but she'd never really been the lucky type. There were two options: he didn't remember, and that meant that he didn't care; or he did remember but didn't want to, and that meant... that he didn't care.

"I think it does," she said, bravely ignoring his dismissive attitude. "The same grey. Like the world was black and white and we were the only colour." Hermione stepped closer and quietly added, "And when I was on my back and you were between my thighs, I looked up and thought, 'I am the only woman in the world who will know you like this.' Was I right?"

Snape looked away. His face was hard angles and severity, but his eyes were just a little sad. "Why did you leave?"

Hermione started. She hadn't even realised he'd known she wasn't around. "I had to... figure some things out. I was confused. I still am, I think."

He shook his head. "Then you should go back."

"Maybe," she admitted softly, casting her eyes to the heavens again. She didn't care if grey wasn't a very nice colour...it was her favourite. "But I think I'd rather sort it out here. With you."

Snape was still for so long Hermione almost poked him to check for Petrificus Totalus, but then he snorted.

"But I'm not confused," he said harshly, not quite meeting her eyes.

"You weren't the one behind lock and key," she reminded him, feeling a little defensive.

And then he looked at her, and as clearly as if he'd said the words himself, she knew he was thinking, 'Wasn't I? '

"What do you want from me?" he eventually asked, sighing heavily and wincing a little.

"I want to see if the things we felt can turn into something larger. I want to give us a chance."

"Miss Granger," Snape began in a tired voice that rang with finality. "There is no chance."

Too quickly for her to even protest his words, Snape Disapparated.

She wanted to follow. She knew where he lived. It would be easy enough. And if she couldn't get in, in all likelihood the coal chute was still open.

But she didn't follow. She stood rooted to the spot, staring at the space he'd taken up and wondering when something so complicated suddenly seemed so damned easy.

Eventually Harry came out of the Ministry, and without even asking, he took her back to Grimmauld Place and plied her with tea and placebo platitudes.

It didn't make her feel any better.

*

Rapping her knuckles against the front door, Hermione wondered if maybe she was wearing a groove into the wood. If not now, then certainly soon.

Of course she knew Snape was inside. There was nowhere else for him to be. She'd been unable to find out where he was volunteering for his service, thought not for lack of trying. And Harry hadn't been any help, either, telling her she was obsessed.

Nonetheless, she knew he wasn't out because she'd heard him, even seen his shadow pass under the door, tantalizingly close and yet so completely out of reach. She'd called to him when she'd seen the break in the light that signified his proximity, but other than a sharp intake of breath that very well might have been her imagination, there was no response.

"Professor Snape, please!" she called, lips almost pressed against the door as if to tempt him.

Nothing.

It was day seventeen. Again.

*

On the twentieth day that Hermione Granger went to try to convince Severus Snape that they were meant to be together, she was sure he wasn't there, just as on those other days she'd been sure he was.

She sat on the stoop of the house that was once her cage, waiting for her former captor to return home and claim her.

There was so much wrong with this situation, Hermione didn't even know where to begin.

But she'd had enough time to think about it. More than enough, truly. And she wasn't coming to any new conclusions. She wasn't the type to believe in fate or destiny, but there was a certain appeal to the idea. Somewhere, she and Snape had been brought together. He had saved her from a horrible fate with Rabastan Lestrange, who now called Azkaban home again. It had to mean something. Things like that didn't just happen, not in her world.

That Snape would ignore her like this hurt, naturally. But she was convinced that he would come around. Eventually. She always known him to be a stubborn man, but she could be just as bull-headed when it came down to it, and she knew she could outwait him.

She had no other option.

A muttered curse drew her attention to the street. Seeing Snape approach, she stood rapidly. She'd never thought she'd see him outside his house; surely it would be easier and safer to just Apparate inside. But perhaps he'd warded against all Apparition...after being kidnapped from his own home and tortured for days, it wouldn't surprise her in the least.

"You are becoming a grave nuisance," Snape snapped, withdrawing a key from his pocket and holding at his side as he would a wand.

"I just want to talk," she said, trying to keep her voice from falling into the pleading it tended to do when there was a door between them.

"I've nothing to say, and neither do you."

Hermione quickly moved to block the door. They stood on the stoop and regarded one another, Hermione imploringly, Snape warily.

"Why are you so scared?" she asked quietly, firming her stance in case he tried to push her away.

"You," he spat, then broke off and swallowed. "You have no idea what you're asking of me."

"Do you think it's any easier for me?" she asked incredulously. "If anything, I'm in the worse position here. How strange and uncomfortable do you think it is for me to have fallen in love with the man I should, by all rights, despise...both on principle and thanks to a long and aggravated history?"

"Then by all means, Miss Granger, go with your instincts on this, and hate me."

Snape pushed Hermione aside and she let him, pretending to stumble as he opened the door not with the key, which seemed to be for appearance's sake only, but with a softly muttered spell and a wave of his wand.

Not needing to recover from her 'misstep,' Hermione threw herself through the barely opened door. She pressed herself against the wall in the foyer, wincing as he followed her through furiously and slammed the door.

With one hand gripping the front of her jumper and the other holding his wand tightly, Snape pressed his face up against hers and hissed, "You take liberties with my patience, but I've had enough. Leave here and do not ever return."

"Professor Snape," she said quietly in a voice fit to sooth any less dangerous beast, dragons included. "Answer one question for me. Just one and I'll leave you alone."

Pushing her away as if burnt, Snape wearily rubbed his face with one hand and walked into the living room. Hermione realised she'd never seen the foyer before; it must have been Disillusioned when she'd been trying to escape. She followed him quietly, keeping a wise distance.

And then Snape turned calculating eyes on her, and she couldn't help but feel nervous.

"In return, you will answer one for me. Regardless, though, of your answer and mine, you will leave. Is that understood?"

She nodded and moved closer, but he didn't sit, and she would stand as long as he did. "Who goes first?"

Snape looked considering. "I will ask first."

"All right. Ask me whatever you want. But you didn't need to make a deal. I'd have answered whatever you asked. I really do care about you."

Waving her comment away like a pesky insect, Snape crossed his arms over his chest and regarding her carefully. His gaze seemed to travel over her skin directly, and she pressed her hands against her thighs as if to protect herself from, or perhaps encourage, the touch.

"Do you believe," he began slowly, his eyes holding hers, "that if you didn't love me now, your actions during your imprisonment would make you wanton and weak?"

Having prepared herself for nearly anything he might have asked...and having intended to answer honestly, even if he'd wanted to know how to make her go away forever...Hermione was surprised when her heart stuttered and her blood felt frozen.

"Yes," she whispered hoarsely before she could stop herself. Yes. "But that's not why..." she continued hastily, desperate to explain herself.

But Snape help up one hand imperiously, and she slammed her lips shut, her eyes begging him to understand, to let her speak.

"You need not feel compelled to explicate, Miss Granger. I know well enough that your actions were caused by a delicate mental state brought on by the natural desire for survival. The point was to see what you thought. Now we both know. You may ask your question."

Sinking into the sofa, not caring that Snape was still standing tall and abrupt like a lord who never deigned to lower himself in front of a vassal, Hermione tried to calm her breathing. It doesn't mean you don't love him, she told herself. She'd already been through this. But hearing it said so... callously... made her wish she hadn't offered the stupid bargain.

Sometimes not knowing was better.

"Can you please just sit?" she asked, unaccountably tired.

To her surprise, Snape did. Taking a seat beside her on the sofa, he watched her carefully as she pretended not to notice.

"Things are not always as... simple as we'd like them to be," he said in a quiet voice, one she didn't have much experience with. She'd gotten to know his various intonations and fluctuations of emotion and tone over her time with him, but this almost grudging kindness was foreign.

"Sometimes they are, though." Hermione turned to face him. He looked much better than he had the last time she'd been able to truly study him, when he'd been recuperating from Nagini's bite. His skin still held that slightly yellow tinge, his nose was intimidating the rest of his features, but his eyes had changed. He looked... exhausted.

He didn't turn away from her scrutiny. He seemed content to let her take her fill; probably because he knew that she would be leaving for good the moment this conversation came to a close.

So Hermione did the one thing she could think of to keep the conversation going.

She kissed him.

And he froze, his entire body stiffening, but he didn't wrench his mouth away and toss her out on her arse. She couldn't help but feel that was encouraging.

His lips were just as she remembered, thin and forbidding but still soft and warm. No matter what masks he wore, Snape would always be human. He couldn't hide that, not from her.

Hermione held the kiss as long as she dared, which was quite long for having a partner who refused to reciprocate. She slowly, millimetres at a time, pulled away from the kiss. But before she was even far enough to lick her lips, Snape had the back of her neck and was pulling her forward, pressing his mouth against hers like he was starving and she the only available nourishment.

The kiss spiralled beyond their control; Hermione thought about slowing it, but she wasn't willing to take the chance that he'd break it and she'd once more be without him. All that mattered was that right now, he was taking what she offered.

"Nothing changes," Snape whispered against her lips. "You'll still leave."

Hermione thought about that as she crawled into Snape's lap, straddling him and continuing the kiss. She couldn't be sure if he was lamenting the fact that she'd leave, or reminding her that she had to. But she didn't care any longer.

If he was offering a moment, she would take it.

Snape's mouth moved to her neck, pressing small kisses and licks along the tendon. Hermione's head fell back to offer him as much of herself as possible, and he took it. His hands snuck beneath her jumper, and the coolness of his fingers against her fiery skin made her jolt a little. She pressed his hands against her waist, wanting to warm them, wanting him to be heated by her, fuelled by her.

"Take off your shirt," he said against her throat, helping her by pulling her hem up. Hermione did as he asked and tossed it aside, quickly following with her bra.

She moaned as his mouth found her nipple, his hand caressing her other breast. Her fingers tangled in his hair as his mouth worked magic on her body. Each tug with his lips, every nip with his teeth drew a line to her pussy and made her body sing for him.

"Gods, Professor," she hissed at a particularly sharp bite. He responded by gripping her hair and kissing her mouth again, his hand guiding her head to make the kiss everything he wanted, which was everything she wanted, too.

Hermione's fingers scrabbled for his belt, unbuckling it quickly and parting his trouser placket. He groaned as her fingers delved inside, stroking his erection lightly through his pants. When she freed his cock and balls, both hands moved to cup and caress, to sooth and stroke. How could his fingers be so cold when his cock was so very hot?

Snape's hands were everywhere. He couldn't seem to decide where to rest them. They travelled from her waist to her back, around her shoulders and down her arms, up her belly and over her breasts, resting on her neck and tangling in her hair.

Finally, he unbuttoned her jeans. Then he hoarsely demanded, "Take these off." His eyes were wild and black, his expression desperate.

Standing, Hermione slowly pushed her jeans and knickers to the ground, exulting in the way his eyes followed her every moment as he sat back on the sofa and lightly stroked his cock. She swore she could come just from his eyes on her and his hands on himself.

"Come here," he said, and Hermione realised he'd been ordering and she'd been obeying without question, and for some reason, that was all right. He wasn't going to hurt her...he never had. He was protecting her, even like this.

With her knees on the outside of his thighs, Hermione settled back into his lap. She held his face with one hand as she kissed him, wishing there was a way to own him through her lips on his.

"Tell me you want me," she whispered against his lips, her words barely a breath, but she knew he heard her.

"Yes," he hissed, raising his hips to indicate his need. But it wasn't enough.

"Say it." If he could make demands, so could she.

With a heavy breath and closed eyes, Snape said, "I want you."

Bracing his cock with her hand, Hermione slowly sank down onto it, and the feeling of fullness was so much more than physical. She wished... but it didn't matter anymore.

Snape's eyes clenched shut and his head dropped against the back of the sofa as she seated herself. His hands were moving almost unconsciously up and down her back.

When Hermione began to move, it was like steps to a dance long forgotten, danced on marble instead of sand: the movement was easier, tangible...

And then his hands were on her hips and he was moving her, pulling her body down onto him again and again. She kept up easily, her body demanding more touch, harder, deeper, and she complied. Her mouth moved over his throat, brushing against the raised scar tissue, cleansing and absolving him.

As much as he seemed determined to, Hermione did not let Snape take over. If there would be no more, they both needed to know that she wanted it, that she took what she needed. She wasn't here because there was a lock on the door. She wasn't here for her safety or his cover. She was here because she wanted to be. And he would never forget that.

Hermione slipped a finger into her folds to bring herself to completion. Almost immediately the swell of sensation commenced. Snape watched her, groaning. She felt his cock twitch within her, proving his appreciation.

But then his hand pushed hers away, and he took over, his thumb teasing her as she rocked over his cock. "More," she begged. "Harder." And he would, but only for a moment before he'd begin to slow again, tormenting her.

Snape's hips began to thrust up, and she cried out as she was brutally filled.

He was no longer teasing her, and her body was climbing higher and higher. She was reminded of all the times she'd touched herself and thought of him or touched herself in front of him, and she knew that he wanted her: more than her body, more than in a cage.

She bit him as she came, right over the scarred fang marks on his neck. Her mark was the one that mattered, her mark was the one intended. He'd look into the mirror and not see the nearness of death but the nearness of life. And then maybe he'd admit to himself what she'd known for ages. That he loved her.

Snape came, roaring, a moment later. Her name. Her name. Hermione gasped as he pulsed and throbbed within her, her name on his lips. She'd never heard such a sound. But even as he said it, Hermione heard his words from before: nothing changes.

But everything had.

He held on to her so tightly that Hermione was afraid she'd shatter. She'd never felt so fragile and yet so safe.

The aftermath was cool and awkward, with Snape buttoning himself back up and handing Hermione her jeans with a disinterested air, but there was no ignoring, no overlooking her name on his lips. No more Miss Granger.

Just like she'd hoped, once free, she became Hermione. And there was power in her name.

She dressed efficiently, watching him for the telltale signs of withdrawal, which were, sadly, all there. He stood stiffly by the hearth as he watched her with distant eyes.

She sighed.

"It doesn't have to be like this, you know," she said, striving for casualness but somehow landing on pleading.

"It is what it is," he responded, voice sharp with self-denial.

She couldn't sit while he was standing; it was different now. "I wanted this."

Snape only nodded. He didn't look away from her, but neither did he give her anything through his eyes. They were shuttered and blank, eerily so. She had the feeling he'd spend the rest of his life like that: closed-up and completely unfeeling. Could she change his mind? Had she a right to try?

"Your question, Miss Granger," Snape reminded her. The use of her last name was a slap across her heated cheek. Nothing changes.

Hermione smiled bitterly. "Do you think that if you pretend you don't love me, your behaviour while I was in the cell makes you strong and selfish?"

Snape glared.

"But I already know the answer," she continued, shaking her head. Her smile was sad, now. "You think ignoring your feelings means you only did what you had to do, but we both know it was more. You love me, and that doesn't make you weak. It makes you brave." Hermione crossed the distance between them and touched her hand to his cheek, softly, a memory. "And we both know you are no coward."

She pressed her lips against his, not demanding, not even searching. Just reminding. I'll always be here.

But his eyes were still hard and his mouth uninviting. "Nothing cha..."

"You're wrong," she interrupted softly, backing away. "Everything is different now."

Hermione turned. The front door was visible to her now, of course. She wished it wasn't.

She left. He let her.

Author's Note: Only the epilogue remains. I can't wait to hear what everyone thought of this chapter--it happens to be my favourite. Thank you all for reading and for the lovely reviews.