Falling Down

Thérèse was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when Severus came down. Her face was pallid and worried. She stepped in front of Severus to prevent him from leaving. "Please, Professor, you must tell me how my lady is!" she begged.

"She needs you now," Severus replied with difficulty. "I shan't be returning." He whisked by her towards the front door.

"NO!" she shouted. She pulled him by the arm into the backroom and sat him down. "There still may be hope."

Severus shook his head. "I cannot allow myself to hope. I care too much for her," he replied.

"Wait, I wish to talk to you; you owe me that at least," she said as she turned before allowing him to reply. He sat with his arms crossed, scowling as she went to work, getting down the tea set and turning around quickly in the small room, preparing the tea. "I was listening to your argument. I think you did as best as you could under the circumstances. You made a very good case for loving her before you knew she had been the one all those years ago."

Once she had the kettle on, she returned to the table and placed one hand on the table to brace herself as she sat down, looking wilted and battle weary.

"Let me speak with her," she said as she placed her hand heavily on his forearm. "Woman to woman, I can say and ask things that you cannot. You might be surprised." She stood up to get the kettle when it began to whistle. He waited patiently as she poured them a cup of tea.

Thérèse sat and looked dreamily into the distance while they both wrapped their hands around their cups. "She was so happy in her letters to me. She admitted she missed you. She was starting to feel something that she had not felt in years...if ever! From the tenor of her letters, she experienced something of a breakthrough. She knows you want to love her, and now she is thinking it may not be so impossible. I think she needs time, now that this terrible secret is out, and she has said what she needed to say to you. Trust me. She will send for you."

"Fine," he said curtly as he rose from the table to leave. "I am not as certain as you are. I will not anticipate her contacting me." He turned and went to the door.

"Professor?" she called after him.

"Yes?" he asked while keeping his back to her.

"Your little girl. What is she like?"

"She's just like her mother: infuriating, bossy, intelligent, and unforgettably beautiful all in one," he answered.

Severus walked out of the shop and thought of his daughter. Alice Hermione. How he longed to tell her she was his. How different life felt now that he knew a part of him was living in the world. He stood still and watched the children on the boulevard with their parents. A young pregnant witch with a little child in a stroller caught his eye. That would be his dream, to do it right by Hermione. He would lay her down on a bed they would share together and honor her body completely with his own. He wanted her, and she had said he owed her; therefore, who else should give her what she wanted? He decided he would not give up without a fight. It would be his pleasure to spend the rest of his days proving to her he could and would give her everything she had lost and more.

***

"Madame?"

Hermione was lying on her back upon her bed with one arm draped across her eyes. She was trying to rest and stop the gnawing inside her chest and the stabbing pain behind her eyes. How had this all fallen apart? How did he know? Why did he have to tell me he knew? She was going to tell him that she had been that young woman all those years ago. Now he had regained all of the control. Everything was ruined.

"Come in, Thérèse," Hermione called out as she remained supine on her bed.

A cool cloth replaced her arm over her eyes. Hermione let out a small sigh. "Oh, Madame!" she heard Thérèse say. "I shall get your headache potion. You must be suffering terribly."

Hermione frowned. Well, it wasn't as if they had been silent. "So, you heard?" she asked, knowing the answer already was 'yes.'

"Yes, Madame, and with all respect, it was I that encouraged his honesty with you."

Hermione sat upright in her bed and ripped the cloth from her eyes. "You did what?" she shrieked.

Thérèse was standing nervously as she explained in a soothing voice. "Madame, he came into the shop and forced himself into my mind. He saw the mark on your back. I was very angry with him...but...he knew so much already. He and your friend, Harry Potter, knew all about many things. I could see how sad and miserable he was. He loves you so much. He loved you before any of this came to his knowledge. Please do not remain angry. He did his best to be honest and forthright today."

Hermione fell back onto her bed. "I can't imagine being in the same room with him now! Do you know he has been the only man to touch me intimately? I don't even know if I am capable of that kind of experience anymore."

"Why not talk to him about your daughter? You have never met her, and they both live at Hogwarts. I am sure that could be something to ease the tension," Thérèse offered.

"I never should have lied to him," Hermione said ruefully. "I never should have given her up. I should have told him I was having his child. I have misjudged him. He wants to have her back. I gave her away when he had just as much right to know her. I don't know what to do."

"First, Madame," Thérèse said sternly, making Hermione take notice and focus, "you had been the one violated, not him. How were you to know what he would do? The things you know now, you didn't know then. Secondly, let him know he is welcome again back into the shop. Start talking about your child. Think of how much you had wanted to tell him but lost your nerve. Lastly, let things happen slowly, but naturally."

She handed Hermione a phial. Hermione swallowed it all and looked at Thérèse pleadingly. "I can't. I can't just casually ask him to return. Will you invite him for me?"

"Yes, Madame," replied Thérèse. "However, I will not do anymore explaining or involve myself in your discussion. You must face one another, learn to be comfortable in the same room with each other, and communicate about how are you both going to go forward concerning your child."

***

Hermione was a wreck. She was waiting silently in her flat, waiting for Severus to arrive. She walked around, fluffing pillows and making sure all the pictures on her walls weren't crooked. She went three times into the bathroom to make sure her dress was still smooth and crisp and that her hair and make-up was still flawless. She was wringing her hands and at the last minute decided she needed to change outfits. The soft-pink dress with its wide span skirt and sleeveless bodice was not right. She should be more professional...more businesslike. She went into her highboy and found a light cashmere cardigan that was cream-colored and hid her arms. She felt more comfortable and secure, more in control of herself. She slipped on her matching heels and walked by her vanity, pausing to think about perfume. Should I?

What is wrong with me? she thought, exasperated with herself. Why on earth should I even care how I look?

Because he was lied to and manipulated more than you ever were, and you feel like complete shite!

"Shut it!" she snarled to herself.

She heard the knock on the door, and she looked at her shoes. Should she even think about heels? Was it too much? Should she wear her sling backs?

Fuck it! she thought and took off her heels, threw them under her bed, and raced downstairs to let Severus inside.

"Hello," she said a bit breathlessly. Severus was dressed as usual, but sans teaching robes. He wore a traveling cloak over his black button-down frock coat and pants. She felt her heart was going to rip out of her chest, and her stomach felt it had sank down into her legs. Her legs felt like lead as she led him upstairs to her flat. "P...Please come in," she said shakily. "Would you care for tea?"

She looked at him when he didn't replay and saw him staring at her manicured feet. Why is he staring at my feet? she thought nervously.

"Professor?" she asked.

"Tea?" he repeated. "Yes, that would be acceptable."

***

Severus was nervous when he knocked on Hermione's door. He could hear her running down the stairs at the same time he felt his heart rising in his throat. He couldn't help but notice her dainty ankles and her soft, tiny feet with a creamy pink polish on her elegant toes. She is... comely. With her hair cascading around her shoulders she was a vision in pink. He wanted to touch her, to hold her small feet in his large hands. He felt a wave of possession come over him. What man has seen her like this? Probably none since the day I took her innocence... or the day she gave birth to our daughter.

He loved her. It was just that simple, yet she could never love him. Not after what he had done to her. But, oh, how he wanted to erase that memory from her! The possessiveness turned into a desperate need to care for and cherish her. Yes, he loved her, wanted her, and God help him, he wanted to try and see if she could ever see him as more than the Death Eater he had been.

He drew out of his thoughts once he noted her staring at him as he stared at her bare feet. He drew his eyes from her and sat down as Hermione turned to make them tea.

Once they were sitting, Hermione began to speak. "I want you to know that you are welcome here in my home. I hope that we can place aside the past and focus on Alice."

"Yes," he said bluntly. "I do want her to know me...us."

"What is she like?" she asked him as she sipped her tea.

Severus smirked, and a smile played around his lips. "She was a bold little spitfire when I first met her. She threw mud on me because I said something derogatory about her parents," he said without his usual sarcasm in his tone.

Hermione couldn't suppress the laugh that came out of her. She could picture her slinging mud at Severus, just as she had hit Draco as a third-year. "Sorry," she whispered.

He lifted a hand. "She has grown to be quite the bookworm. She is a chatterbox with the loveliest, curly black hair and dark chocolate eyes. She has your dimple on her left cheek and is already becoming a know-it-all. I found her rather tedious and bothersome as a small child; however, there was this pull there between us. She can't help but tell me about her adventures and things she's learnt. She's a brilliant child and a bit sneaky. I have wondered many times if she will be a Slytherin."

"So, you see yourself in her? Do you see me?" she asked quickly.

He paused and said, "I see my black hair and our tempers. She is quick-witted, however, which could come from either of us. Her eyes, though, when I look at them, I see the openness and freedom there that you had as a young girl in my classroom. She's eager, so desperate to learn everything. I would say she is her mother's daughter."

Hermione listened with rapt attention. How strange to know that the little bundle she'd given away, her small, sweet baby girl was now this young girl, just three years shy of starting Hogwarts herself. "Severus," she said softly as she toyed with her cup. "I want to apologize to you. I should have told you I was pregnant. I never should have hidden her from you. It was wrong."

"Don't," he said, looking pained. "You were frightened, having been violated, terrorized, branded, left to die, and afraid for your life. I think you did what you thought was best, and in retrospect, I can say that, yes, you did the right thing."

"You don't hate me for giving her away?" she asked.

"No!" he said sharply. His face softened as his voice, and he continued, "You entrusted her to good parents. She has known love all her life. She is very attached to her... father."

Hermione swallowed and said, "That must really hurt."

"It does," he answered softly.

"What are we going to do?" Hermione whispered. "Do we tell her? I am so confused!"

Severus was quiet for a while and finally said, "I think we both need to speak with Neville and Luna. I have already confronted Luna, and she actually was waiting or expecting that I would be taking Alice from her. It was as if she knew from the start she wouldn't have her forever."

"What do you and I do?" she whispered, looking down into her teacup.

***

Severus sighed at the question Hermione posed. What were they to do? He wanted to tell her he had fallen in love with her the day he first saw her in this very shop downstairs. He wanted her to know he had fantasized about making love to her and wanted desperately to tenderly make love to her now. He wanted to say that if she still felt he owed her, he would be willing to pay for a lifetime. He would be her slave if she asked it of him. She had borne his child knowingly and had not rid herself of it. She went through the pain of childbirth and lovingly considered the fate of their daughter above everything else. He loved her for keeping a part of him inside her, he loved her for loving Alice so much, and he loved her for being so strong and fiercely independent and successful as a business witch. He wanted to tell her she was the comeliest and most feminine witch he had ever met, and her body aroused him as well as her shrewd mind. He wanted, most of all, to tell her that he would never stop wanting her. But he couldn't. What would she think if she knew he ached to be inside her, to make love, to explore each curve and crevice on her body and drink the dew from between her legs?

"Severus?" she asked. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," he murmured. "Hermione, I would very much like to take you out for dinner. I believe we need to know one another if we are to ever be parents to our daughter."

He thought he saw a flush of yearning in her eyes. He would just have to ease into things and find the answer. He lifted an eyebrow and said, "It hasn't escaped my notice that you have never said if you would even like to be Alice's mother."

Hermione drew a ragged breath. She fidgeted with her cup and said, "I-I don't know if she would even want me."

He wanted to reassure her badly. "She talks about her Aunt Hermione a great deal. She wants to meet you. I believe she thinks of you as some sort of heroine, traveling the world, beautiful and elegant."

She blushed. "Honestly! She hasn't even seen me."

"All the better to conjure up images of your hero. I do believe she thinks of you, her godmother, as her heroine," he answered lowly.

"I don't know, Severus. I don't want to take her away from the only parents she's known. She might be hurt badly if she learns Neville and Luna aren't her real parents."

"There seems to be no easy solution, does there?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "I don't know where to even start."

"Hermione," he said as he leaned into the table where he sat. "Would you allow me not only to know you as the mother of my child, but might I also try to court you? Not just to show you my respect for giving life to Alice... I want you to know that I not only have the deepest respect for you..." He paused, uncertain, then remembered Thérèse's words. "But that I also want to experience with you the way a woman deserves to be treated and loved."

"Severus," she whispered. "Are you telling me that you honestly have a true feeling for me? That this is not only about Alice?"

"I am," he replied, his gaze flicking away nervously, then quickly back again, longingly at her face. "And I have, long before I ever knew about all of this. Can you believe me?"

***

Hermione was standing in her bra and matching knickers, trying to decide what to wear.

"Thérèse?" she asked. "What do you think? I adore the green, but I don't want to wear his colors! Then there is the blue, which is divine...but it is so low cut...I don't know!"

"What about the white and silver?" Thérèse asked.

Hermione gaped at her. "Are you mad? I only bought that thing because Philippe insisted I wear it for the gala last summer! It reeks of virginity, and I can't wear that around Severus!"

"Madame," Thérèse said soothingly. "You are a beautiful woman and should wear what you think is the most flattering and comfortable for you. Now what of the crimson?"

Hermione looked at her hopelessly. "The color of fallen women?" she said weakly.

"You are impossible! You are going to the Opera," Thérèse said, throwing up her hands.

"Why couldn't he just take me out for dinner?" Hermione whined. "Fine! I shall wear the crimson. It's the best one I have, and I adore it so."

Thérèse took out the stays she would need to wear with the dress. Hermione took a deep breath and held onto one of her bedposts as Thérèse pulled the strings taunt. The bra came off and the garters went on. Thérèse powdered her mistresses' arms and slid the opera length gloves on her before helping Hermione into the dress. She looked at herself in the mirror as Thérèse put up her hair. The crystal design on the bodice gleamed in the low light.

After her make-up had been applied, she looked at her jewels. "No, this necklace is much too fussy. Let's try the filigree. However, I will need the rubies."

She placed the dangling, blood-red rubies on her ears and slipped on her shoes. "I shall take the silk cloak, Thérèse. Make sure my wand is in the correct pocket."

The bell rang downstairs and Hermione huffed. "Curse that man for always being on time!" she declared.

She took one last look into the mirror and cautiously made her way down the stairs.

Severus was elegantly dressed in silken black robes. He smiled at the beauty before him and said, "You are a vision, Hermione."

"Thank you, Severus," she replied nervously.

He offered her his arm and she suddenly thought a horrid thought, What if the dress reminds him of the blood? She found herself growing nervous and started to shake.

They were nearly at the Apparition point when Hermione started to breathe with difficulty.

"Hermione!" Severus said with concern. "What is wrong?"

"I-I can't do this," she gasped. "I'm wearing the wrong dress, it feels wrong. I knew I should have worn the blue!"

She burst into tears, and Severus Apparated them back outside of her shop. She wrenched the door open and flung off her shoes, running up to her flat.

"What happened?" Thérèse asked after materializing from the backroom.

"I don't know. Something about the wrong dress," Severus answered.

"Wait here," she told him.

Thérèse went upstairs, and saw Hermione clawing at her stays. The dress had been ripped from her, and she was crying.

"I feel so stupid!" she sobbed, her breathing labored.

"You need a Calming Draught," Thérèse informed her. She went into Hermione's highboy and found her potions.

"Take this, and I shall remove your stays," she whispered.

Hermione swallowed it and began to breathe easier. "Is he gone?" she asked sadly as she sniffed.

"Do you want him gone?" she replied.

"No, I just want to put on my jeans and a jumper," she admitted. "I need to be covered."

"Get dressed, and let him know when he can come upstairs," Thérèse replied as she descended the stairs.

Hermione tapped her wand to her face, removing all the make-up. She took down her hair and wrapped it in a bun at the base of her head. She hurriedly picked up her discarded clothes and shoved them into her tall bureau. She quickly slipped on her comfy socks and called for Severus to come upstairs.

He walked up soundlessly, and when he emerged, he looked at her with great concern. "Hermione, are you all right?"

"Yes, I took a Calming Draught, and I'm feeling relaxed. I just really got nervous," she said as she wrung her hands.

"Perhaps an evening at the Opera was not the wisest choice for a first date," he suggested. "Or is it that you are unsure of being out in public with me?"

"No!" she said. "I have these triggers that once they pop in my head, everything falls apart," she confessed. "Perhaps it was too much. Can we do something else?"

"How about that greasy burger and steak fries?" he asked her.

"Perfect!" she said as she beamed at him.

***

Thank you for all the lovely reviews! I really do appreciate it. My thanks again to Maria, Beth, and karelia for all their advice and hard work!