5 Days of Summer

We're walking hand in hand, we'll walk this way forever

Our eyes have risen to the water's edge, watching with the tides

The stars have fallen to another day, and the sun warms our path to find

The reason leaves us far behind in our strange world

It's a strange world

It's a very strange world

~ Sarah McLachlan, Strange World

After their ride on the wheel, everything was settled, without their arranging anything about it.

On Monday, Snape resumed coming to the library to escort her home, and neither of them commented about it.

They had taken but a few steps when Hermione seized him by the crook of his arm and walked leaning on his side up to her door.

"Are you seriously worried about the National Wizarding Library?" he asked.

"I am."

"Why do you care so much?"

"It's my great opportunity."

"Why would you prefer that place to the Emily Brontë Library? Don't you like it?"

"Oh, I do."

"Does Mrs. Peewit mistreat you, perhaps?"

"Mistreat me? I can understand that your ideas about mistreatment aren't exactly widely shared, Severus, but you should have taken lessons from her, as a teacher."

"Humph. Then you know Mrs. Vand."

"No, I only met her once."

"In this case, I don't understand. What does that have to offer you that the Brontë Library does not?"

"It's the National Wizarding library, Severus."

"You made me aware of that, yes."

"At the Ministry."

"So do you crave it because the Ministry sounds more important to you than a provincial library? The bigger the spotlight the better? Tsk. A Gryffindor can't change its spots, apparently."

"Oh, please! Had I craved for attention, I wouldn't opt for something no one cares about like bookbinding, would I?"

"Then name me one positive feature of the Ministry of Magic."

She bit her lip. "It's a magical place. Where I can perform magic."

"I could make that out."

"Severus, I know that you... I... ehr. But I cannot give up magic altogether."

"Nobody asks that of you."

"I cannot!" she continued, talking more to herself than to him. "I cannot do as the Boddingtons. Yours is a different situation, but what they do makes me uneasy. You are right; theirs is a kind of survivors' guilt. We all have our own, it seems, though in different guises. But I have a hard time believing that it's moral to abstain from performing magic, I'm sorry. Magic is my talent. It's not right to leave it unused."

"So, it's a question of what is wrong and what is right."

"Of course!"

"Of what you should and shouldn't do."

"Well, if you –"

"You still feel in debt to them, the wizarding community."

"I don–"

"Do you believe you owe them something? Because you don't owe anything to anybody, Hermione, if this is what worries you."

"I have to do the selecting for myself."

"Stay assured that you don't have to prove anything, either. You aren't defined by the prestige of your job. The time for exams is long gone."

"I received a gift, and I can't throw it completely away."

"And d'you think the National Wizarding Library is a good place to display it?"

"What's the matter with them in particular, Severus? Do you have it in for them?"

"It's only that, as far as I know, you don't need magic to restore books."

"... You made inquiries about bookbinding."

"I am quite well-taught, Hermione."

"With ancient books, it's counterproductive to use magic, but if you are to look after a whole library, magic can be quite useful."

"I suppose that Mrs. Peewit wouldn't notice if you were to use magic in the Emily Brontë."

"But the Ministry would. Or do you think they always make an exception like in Jorvik, where you wanted me to swallow that the Boddingtons would cast a spell over the place?"

"You did drink it in, however."

"Listen, Severus. I'm already leading a split life. My Muggle friends don't know I'm a witch while to my Hogwarts mates I'm one who fled, a quitter. I cannot keep one foot here, one foot there any longer."

"One more reason to choose just one side."

"You're bringing grist to your mill, Severus."

"Hermione. How many spectacular deeds have you really seen accomplished by magic?"

"Well, I have lived to see the end of a dictatorship, through the sacrifices of many."

"A dictatorship based on magic as well."

"Evidently."

"Hermione, I don't need to tell you that I once believed in the power of magic much more than you may ever have, so much so as to go against my Muggle father and against other principles as well."

She nodded.

"But what can actually magic do? We can't save people from dying. We can't save ourselves from our faults. Wizards haven't overcome world hunger or pollution. We are impotent. We elected magic as our god, but it's a god as helpless as we are. Unawares, we – I – believed in a fraud."

His arm stiffened under her fingers.

"After too much brooding over this subject, I eventually opened my eyes. Magic is only a golden calf we idolise. Better be left without it, and struggle with our strengths alone, I say now."

"Magic can do some good," she murmured.

"Oh, it can. But it's not omnipotent. I stuck with that idea for too long. I became a Death Eater for it, for wanting to defend the wizards' privileges. But I was only bowing to the idol.

"Don't think I didn't miss my magic. Oh, I did regret the loss. After all, all I'd done before was trying to protect our world, didn't I? Why was I repaid with surviving without magic? Even the Wizengamot thought it was a price enough to ask from me for killing Dumbledore and had me cleared. What could a Muggle do against them, after all? There was no necessity to lock a poor, weak Muggle in Azkaban: I was prevented from killing again anyway," he sneered.

Hermione held only a hazy recollection of Snape's trial, from a time when she didn't want to hear anything about him. She could remember an afternoon, though, when Harry came visiting her and had announced to her that he was declared free.

"It had to be a joke, of course, that I, the Dark Arts supporter, was left powerless – by a snake! For some people, it was justice. A way to make me atone for what I had done. Humpf. It wasn't certainly me who needed to atone."

On Tuesday, Severus let his hand slide down on her forearm, until it touched her palm.

Raindrops slipped in between their intertwined fingers.

"Let me tell you what magic did to me. It lured me to think less of my father's work. On the other hand, it made me join a band of sociopaths. Swept away my generation. Enchained me to work for an old poofster who betrayed all of us, including your friend, Potter. And now what magic didn't do. Didn't save my mother from cancer. Didn't protect that silly girl I was in love with. Didn't turn this into a better world, a fairer place to live in. In the end, we are no better than Muggles, only more foolish, since we fanatically put our faith in a savage deity."

He gripped her hand more strongly.

"Once I realised that I no longer had to serve that god, I felt liberated, as if I'd been released from a crueller master than Dumbledore or Voldemort. I could tell them all to sod off and walk by myself. Ah. I could breathe afresh. No longer had I to perform an endless duty. I could do what I wished for the first time. Nobody had expectations about Severus Snape, the Muggle.

"And by the way, how do the majority of wizards employ their magic? For foolish wand waving, cleaning their house, flying on broomsticks, Transfiguring into Animagi for pranks? None of them is able to create a single thing of beauty. You did a right thing in choosing a magicless job, Hermione. Don't step backward."

"I do believe magic did a good thing for you, Severus," she spoke softly. "It saved your life. Your magic sacrificed itself in order to let you live. You're alive thanks to your own magic, and that's a fair deal as far as I'm concerned."

On Wednesday, arriving at the corner of Haworth Road, Hermione continued walking forward.

"You live along Stockton Lane, don't you? It's not far from here," she said.

"It's not near, either."

"I can go for a little stroll, now and then," she replied. "And I can always Apparate back if I'm tired."

"Someone did sacrifice for you for once; someone saved you when others couldn't, and it was you. You saved yourself in the end."

"Uhm. So I don't owe anything to Lucius. He cheated me."

"Lucius?"

"Lucius found me in the Shrieking Shack. Didn't you know that? Ah, right – you've been told the story of Minerva helping me, haven't you?"

"Yeah... I though McGonagall was behind your recovery."

"Umph. That's what she thinks as well. Lucius fled from the Shack when he heard someone approaching. Luckily, he had already provided me first aid, so Minerva only completed the work."

"Why didn't Lucius make it public? It was an honourable act on his part."

He snorted. "Who would believe him? His word was worthless against Minerva's. She treated her saving of me as a way to make me forgive the horrible way she treated me during my last year at Hogwarts, and nobody would stop her. Lucius was content to make an honourable act in secret, for once."

"You should inform the press about this, you know."

"We prefer it like this, in fact. Everyone has his own way to pay for what he has done. Lucius doesn't want publicity about this. I told you he's changed."

"Why didn't you testify for him at his trial?"

"I wasn't invited, Hermione. I was in St. Mungo's. But it's better like this, trust me."

Thursday. Heather and wild herbs bordered Stockton Lane, their wet surface glistening silvery under the moonlight. Rain was gently tapping on their leaves and on the pavement.

Absent-minded, Hermione set her foot in a puddle. It came out all muddy, her sandal greasy with slime. She cleansed it with a flick of her wand, unconcerned.

"What a great employment for magic," quoth he, arching an eyebrow. "Go home, Hermione, and have a shower."

"What a jerk you can be," she answered back. "I'm going to leave right now," she continued and kept walking, pulling him by his hand.

He didn't move. "You had better do that or you'll catch a cold, and it will be your fault," he said, drawing her closer.

"Impossible," she replied, "the fault is yours, usually." Her hands slipped across his sides, then joined on his back, crumpling his shirt.

"So it seems," he murmured, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

And then he kissed her.

His lips grazed only her lower lip, briefly, weightlessly, no longer than an instant before departing from her.

"Go home, Hermione," he repeated in a choked voice.

She caressed his cheek with the side of her hand, and then ran away, laughing.

"I am beginning to understand why you're still friends with Lucius."

"No, you can't consider me that opportunistic, Hermione."

"Sorry..."

"I only enjoy being received at Malfoy Manor and to play the member of the ton now and then."

"Idiot." There was an undeniable satisfaction in calling Snape an idiot.

"I only hope you don't want to work at the National Wizarding library for the money, Granger, because you'd be the idiot in that case. Starvation wages for new employees in the Ministry, I've been told."

"This is the silliest thing I've ever heard. I'm not seeking the job for the salary!"

"I thought as much. Do you get a war pension from the Ministry, don't you?"

"Yes. Do you?"

"A little one, and only thanks to the joint efforts of Minerva and Potter."

"I'll tell Harry of your gratitude."

"I have grounds to believe that you wouldn't need a job for financial reasons only."

"No, luckily I don't. But I cannot stay unemployed; I'm not made to twiddle my thumbs. I want a job so that I can feel useful to other people."

"Again with the old story of duty and sense of guilt."

"Please. You're worse than I am in this regard. And you should know me well enough to tell that I don't condone selfishness."

"You could be helpful to Muggles, if you'll stay at the Brontë library."

"Tell me, honestly: would it be right if I left my magic to rot?"

"It's never been up to much, honestly."

"Severus!"

"What?"

"You are an arsehole."

"Why, for so little." He patted her head, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Honestly, Hermione, leave the Greater Good to some babbling old fool and do what you want, not what you think you should do. You are blessed with the possibility of not depending on money, or other people's will; take advantage of it. As far as I'm concerned, you could start a crusade for abolishing the wall between wizards and Muggles, but probably you'd be happier just dedicating yourself to something creative."

"But you don't write just because it's a challenging hobby, Severus."

"Do I?"

"I've read Smoke From the Chimneys, and I daresay you don't." She smoothed a crease of his shirt, on his back. "There was truth between those pages."

"I can't really speak about my own stuff, since that's nothing more than a variation over a well-known plot. But I do believe in the power of written words, yes. They can have more consequences than political manoeuvring, sometimes, because they teach people how to think."

"I don't understand how could Against a Brick Wall be inferior to Smoke, though."

"It's not inferior; it's only that Richard III is dead, by now."

"I want Brother Lucretius to make a guest appearance in Creeping Like a Lizard. He lived exactly at that time, you know."

"Who told you of Creeping Like a Lizard?"

"I have my informers."

"You read the interview with that bosomy journalist, haven't you? She was quite good looking, if I remember rightly."

Hermione nudged him. "Move away, would you?"

He didn't let her arm go. "I have my own theory, of course, of why you want to work at the Ministry," he said with sudden steel. "You want to move to London to stay closer to that Chris Darrell of yours at the British Library."

Hermione paled. "On my honour, I swear that what you say was never a motivation for me. I'd try the selection even if the Ministry were in Birmingham."

"How would you explain to a Muggle boyfriend you are a witch?"

"How did you mother do it?"

"Oh, my father suspected it from the start. He watched by chance a match of Gobstones in a pub. Or that's the story I was told, at least. Now answer to my question."

"I don't know. What was your father right about?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I threw you out of the library, on Midsummer Night, I heard you muttering, 'Father was right,' or something like that."

"I don't remember."

"I heard it."

"Maybe that women are a plague upon humanity, or that it's useless to help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Maybe that trying to help a woman is a thankless task."

"Oh, but I'm very thankful. And you've helped me a lot. Truly. But I won't give up the selection."

He kissed her on the threshold of the library, on Friday night, until his teeth clicked against hers and he stood back to let her pass. He had grasped only her lower lip at first, again, nibbling at it as if it was a fruit – or maybe it was she the one who was thinking of cherries, or redcurrant, or raspberries, something red and juicy, in any case. In a second attempt, their lips had met in full, and the little fruit was squashed.

Normally, it would take thirteen minutes to go from the library to Haworth Road. That night, it took thirty. Every step was interrupted by a kiss, a hug. She moved, clinging at his side, head thrown back to receive more kisses, in a trance.

They walked past the point where Hermione had Disapparated the night before, and the night before it, and kept walking and kissing until a cottage loomed up at their left, pale against the dark blue sky. Severus took the little path among the weeds that led to the cottage, walking backwards to continue kissing and nibbling Hermione's mouth.

They embraced, leaning against the rugged wall of the cottage. Hermione let her hand run through his hair, finding his nape, following his trapezius under the collar of his shirt. With deliberation, he took off her glasses; put them on a wooden form that was there under the window, sat down on the form, and made Hermione sit on his knees. She rubbed her cheek against his temple, eyes closed, while he kissed her under her lobe, around her ear. With his fingertips, he followed the contours of her cheek, her jaw, her chin, his touch as soft as a feather. She nuzzled his hand, relishing the smell of his skin, and then planted a kiss on his wrist, circling the mount of Moon with her lips.

Around them, was nothing but the rustle of heather and the moonlight.

Feeling Snape stir his legs under her, Hermione whispered, "Am I heavy?" and she got up, remaining close to the form.

Severus stood up as well and handed her her glasses. "It's late, Hermione," he muttered. He searched his pocket for his keys and unlocked the door, then went in and switched the light on. The door swung closed behind him.

Hermione's eyes adjusted to the sudden light coming from the window on her left, hesitant about leaving. She kicked a peat clot away from the path.

Snape peeped out of the door and held out his hand to her.

"Do you want to come in?" he asked.

A/N

Thank you: Valady, RobisonRocket, Pink Raccoon, Alfavia de Montsegùr, readers & reviewers.

Please note that some background explanations may become more AU from now onward.