Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Stepping purposefully out of the fireplace, Severus saw Hermione startle when he spoke. She whipped around to face him and whispered urgently, "Severus! What are you doing here? You have to get out of here! I haven't had a chance to tell Harry about you, yet, and he'll be back any minute." She tried to push him toward the fireplace, but he didn't budge.

Instead, he looked around and frowned as he calmly flicked a stray ash off his shoulder. "I told you, I've come to collect what you owe me. And what do you mean, he'll be back any minute? He's not staying here, is he?" The rest of her statement registered, and he added darkly, "And how can you not have had a chance to tell him yet? You've spent the last six hours together."

Her voice was just a little bit anxious when she replied. She ignored his last question for the moment. "Well, where else would he stay? He's my friend, and he's here to see me; we need time to catch up. And what on earth do you think I owe you anyway?"

He frowned more deeply. "It's inappropriate for him to stay in your room, Hermione. You're not children anymore. As to what you owe me, have you forgotten our agreement?"

"We're not doing anything inappropriate," she argued, sounding even more anxious. "He's my friend – more like my brother than anything, and anyway, it's none of your business where he stays. And what agreement?"

"Two kisses a day," he reminded her in a growl, feeling his temper slipping. This was not going at all as he had planned. "And I'm making it my business. I won't have my woman sleeping with some other man – especially not Potter."

She looked surprised. "Sleeping in the same room is not the same thing as sleeping with him, Severus," she said emphatically. "And when did I become your woman? You don't own me."

"You became my woman this morning, if you weren't already before then. I warned you that you should be sure of what you wanted, and you insisted you were. Are you changing your mind?"

"No, of course not," she snapped, her previous anxiety apparently morphing into irritation. "I love you. I just don't get why you're so upset about this. Harry is my friend and that's all. He's not my lover and he never will be, so stop being ridiculous. Now, I'm going to bed. Good night."

She tried to flounce off, but he caught her arm. "Not so fast. You never answered my other question. How did you not find time to tell him about us in six hours?"

"It didn't come up, okay? We were talking about other things and it just never came up. I'll tell him in the morning."

That didn't explain anything, in Severus's opinion. "If it didn't come up, it's because you didn't bring it up. Why not?"

"I don't know!" she cried. "I kept trying to, but then I would find myself saying something else instead. I'll tell him tomorrow before breakfast."

"Why should I believe that?" Severus asked. "If you haven't told him in six hours, what should convince me that you'll tell him in six hours more? Or in six days or six months?"

"I will, I promise."

"Then tell him now," Severus persisted. "Tell him when he comes back. Don't even say hello first – just tell him."

"I can't!" she wailed, sounding completely frustrated now. "I'm scared and I don't know what to say, okay?" She made a visible, but ultimately futile, effort to calm herself, then added anxiously, "I don't even know what we're doing, because you won't talk about it, so how exactly am I supposed to explain it to Harry? And what if I do manage to explain it to him, and he says he never wants to see me again, and then you get tired of me? Then I lose both of you. I can't lose both of you, Severus. I just can't." She stared at him, seemingly unaware of the way she was anxiously wringing her hands together, and he felt some of his anger drain. She looked ready to cry; as he had discovered last night, he just couldn't stand to see her cry. He would do whatever it took to prevent it.

He tugged on the arm he still held, and she fell into his arms. He stroked her back soothingly, enjoying the way she held him tightly in response. "You're not going to lose me, Hermione," he promised. "I can't speak for Potter, but I am quite certain that I will never tire of you." He kissed the top of her head, then slid a finger under her chin and tipped her face up to his. "And I seriously doubt that Potter is fool enough to ruin your friendship just because he doesn't like your boyfriend." He sneered the last word just a little, but then he kissed her lips gently. When he felt her tentative response, he began kissing her in earnest.

They were still kissing several long, passionate minutes later, when Harry burst through the door, "Hermione, I –" Hermione tore her lips away, looked toward Potter, then gasped and tried to pull away from Severus. Severus held her close, refusing to even loosen his hold. He was determined to protect her as best he could from whatever stupid thing Potter might say. When she realized he wasn't going to let go, she stopped struggling and leaned into him just a little as she stared at Potter apprehensively. With the way she was holding him, even Potter couldn't mistake the situation, but Severus braced himself in case Potter attacked first and asked questions later. Still, Severus watched Hermione for a moment longer, then turned to look directly at Potter, too. The young fool was standing there, mouth gaping open, throat working convulsively as he tried to speak.

Severus finally broke the silence himself, greeting the bane of his existence as civilly as he could manage, for Hermione's sake: "Potter."

That seemed to jar the younger wizard out of his shock. He spoke to Hermione, though, rather than return Severus's greeting. "Snape? You're shagging Snape? What the hell are you thinking, Hermione?" Severus felt her tense, so he gave her a reassuring squeeze as Potter continued. "He's a Greasy Git and he hates us both, and you're shagging him? Have you completely lost your mind?"

Tears had started trickling down Hermione's cheeks, and Severus could feel her trembling, but she gamely defended herself – and him. "Don't talk about him like that, Harry. He doesn't deserve it – you may not like each other, but he's never harmed you in any way. In fact, he's gone out of his way – put his own life at risk – more than once to protect you. And I'm not 'shagging' him, as you so crudely put it – I'm in love with him, so you can just deal with it or leave." She turned her face into Severus's shoulder; he absently ran a hand soothingly up and down her back.

"And you," Harry sneered, turning to Severus as though Hermione hadn't spoken. "What makes you think it's all right to take advantage of a girl half your age? I always knew you were a Greasy Git of a Death Eater, but this is low, even for you."

Severus felt Hermione sob against his shoulder and wanted to rip the brat in half for being so insensitive. But he knew that would only upset her more, so instead of responding directly to Potter, he said wryly to Hermione, "Perhaps I should have given you that potion you wanted, after all." In the scheme of things, Potter wasn't important, anyway. Hermione was.

She gave a hiccupping laugh and lifted her head to look at him. "Perhaps you should," she said softly. "It's not too late, you know. You could get it for me now."

"Yes, but how would we get him to take it?" He wiped her cheeks with his thumb.

"What potion?" Harry demanded. "What are you talking about?" His voice held a slightly hysterical edge, as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing.

"Shall I tell him?" Severus asked Hermione seriously, then pointed out, "You'll probably get too apologetic, when you should be proud of your ingenuity."

She gave a watery giggle. "No, you'll probably just make him madder. I'll tell him."

"Someone just tell me already!" Harry demanded. Severus could feel the waves of antagonism radiating from the younger man. It must be quite a shock, he reflected, for Potter to find himself on the outside of a shorthand conversation – one that screamed comfort, closeness, and even intimacy – between his best friend and his worst enemy. Severus almost managed to feel a little bit sorry for the boy – except the fool was upsetting Hermione, which negated any compassion Severus might otherwise have mustered. He ignored the fool, gently continuing to wipe fresh tears from Hermione's cheeks. Fortunately, the tears slowed and then stopped as he kept wiping her cheeks with one hand and stroking her back soothingly with the other.

Eventually, Hermione gave him a grateful half-smile, then looked back at Harry and said, with quiet dignity, "I knew you weren't going to take this well, and that was before Severus and I were really together – we were still just friends, then. So I had the idea that I could give you both a potion that would make you see each other the way I see you, figuring that way, I wouldn't have to spend the entire weekend keeping you two from killing each other."

"You were going to poison me?" Harry challenged, rather melodramatically, in Severus's opinion. "Doesn't that tell you something about what a bad influence he is on you? Really, Hermione, I just don't get you at all."

"Not poison," Severus clarified blandly. "This particular potion doesn't have anything dangerous in it at all. And she was planning to slip it to both of us."

"Is that supposed to make it better?" Harry snapped, flashing a glance at Severus before returning his gaze to Hermione. "How could you use a potion on me without my consent?"

"Well," she retorted, composure slipping as she finally started to get irritated (rather belatedly, in Severus's opinion), "what else was I supposed to do? Let the two of you tear me apart with your sniping at each other? Happily sit in the crossfire while you two did your best to kill each other? Ignore someone I care about to keep you happy? Lie to you? Pretend Severus isn't my friend? Let him leave, like he offered to, so I don't have to deal with it? You tell me, Harry, what exactly was I supposed to do?"

"Well, you could have at least given me some warning," Potter ground out, but he looked chagrined, apparently recognizing despite himself the impossible position she had been in. "You could have told me this hours ago, given me time to get used to the idea, instead of springing it on me like that. I'll be haunted by that image for the rest of my life!" he groaned, bringing his fists up to his eyes and rubbing them hard. Severus suddenly had to fight to keep a straight face, amused despite himself because Potter sounded so deadly serious about it. Potter paused, taking a deep breath, then asked more calmly, "What changed your mind? About the potion, I mean."

Hermione shrugged, calming again now that Potter seemed to be willing to consider her point of view. "Severus figured it out and talked me out of it."

"How did he figure it out? Did he catch you making it?" Hermione blushed and looked away.

"No," Severus cut in. "Hermione asked me to make it for her. She pretended it was for friends of a friend of hers, of course, but it occurred to me that no one in the wizarding world – perhaps no one anywhere – hates one another as much as you and I do. So I asked her, and she admitted it."

"What were you thinking, Hermione?" Potter asked, looking almost as shocked by that sequence of events as he had when he had first seen them together. "Why on earth would you do that?"

She shrugged and said, "I already told you why. I don't know how else to explain it."

"Not why you wanted the potion," he clarified impatiently. "Why you would ask Snape to make it for you."

"Oh," she said, sounding uncertain. "Um ... well, I guess I figured he would know how to do it. And he was my friend, so ..."

When her voice trailed off, Severus interjected again, "My theory is she wanted to get caught, since she didn't want to go through with it anyway. She would have felt too guilty."

Potter nodded once, curtly, but other than that, didn't acknowledge that Severus had spoken. "Okay, about this friendship," Potter said to Hermione, obviously letting the potion go for now, "Since when were you friends with him? Last I heard, you hated him as much as I did. And he's never been particularly nice to you, either."

"Well," she said slowly, "Things changed when I came back as an apprentice instead of a student."

"How?" Potter demanded. Severus frowned at his tone, but it didn't seem to faze Hermione.

"I can't describe it, exactly," she said thoughtfully. "He just ... we just ... I don't know." She looked to Severus. "Do you know what changed?"

"You grew up," he said, although he knew it wasn't really as simple as that. "And, as you are now Minerva's apprentice rather than a student, it is no longer my responsibility to discipline you." He paused, but he couldn't resist adding, "And when you're away from Potter's bad influence, you aren't nearly as annoying." Hermione smacked him lightly on the chest, then caressed the spot soothingly.

Meanwhile, Potter frowned at that dig, but he didn't respond. Progress, Severus thought. Maybe it wasn't too much to hope that Potter would be civil for Hermione's sake, after all. Potter said, "Yes, but that doesn't explain why you stopped hating him, Hermione."

She considered that for a long moment. "I never hated him like you did in the first place, Harry. So when I started my apprenticeship, I guess I initially thought that I should try to get along with him, since he was going to be my colleague." She shrugged. "And then I got to know him, and I discovered I really liked him."

"Oh." There was a long silence. Potter finally said, "I would ask about how you wound up as – close – as you apparently are now, but I'm not sure I want to know." There was a question in his voice, though, which Severus chose to ignore. Hermione said nothing to that, either, so after a moment, Potter said to her, "This is going to take some getting used to. A lot of getting used to."

"It's late," Severus announced. "I'm going back to my quarters now. I'll see you both tomorrow." Now that Potter's anger was under control, Hermione wouldn't be in any real danger, and Severus was suddenly exhausted.

Hermione looked up at him and said, "Breakfast, right?" Her tone was hopeful.

"Right," he confirmed, not caring whether Potter agreed or not. Since it would be Saturday, he asked, "What time?"

Hermione replied, "Considering how late it is, perhaps we should plan for around ten?"

He nodded, squeezed her once more, then let go and headed back to the fireplace. She walked with him. He turned before stepping in and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "He seems like he's calmed down, but if things get difficult, come to me, no matter what the hour."

She looked surprised, but she nodded. "I'm sure it will be fine, Severus, but thanks." She glanced toward Potter, who had moved to stand at the window, looking out, then she stretched up and kissed him quickly. "I love you," she said.

He nodded once and left.