Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Severus stared after Hermione for a moment, debating whether he should go after her. He wasn't really sure why she was so upset – he had agreed with her, hadn't he? He had spent the afternoon stewing about Minerva's concerns, and had concluded that perhaps it would be best to keep things platonic with Hermione. Although he wasn't really concerned about what people might think of him, he'd hate to see Hermione's reputation damaged.

And wasn't that a strange circumstance, to be more concerned with her status than his?

And of course, there was also the small matter of his real reasons for developing a friendlier attitude toward her in the first place. Somehow, he didn't think Hermione would be happy if she ever learnt his original motives had been selfish, even if he had eventually come to like her for her own sake. The likelihood that she would actually find out about that was remote, he thought; the only two people who knew were himself and Lucius. Since Lucius wanted her to stay at Hogwarts, Severus assumed the secret was safe. Still, look at all he himself had inadvertently disclosed to her in the past. There was no guarantee he would never get ill again, was there?

No, far better to end it before it began, for both of them, he was sure. Still, when she didn't immediately return he decided even platonic friends tried to comfort one another when there was obvious upset. Or so he had heard, anyway. Ignoring the fact that his friends generally avoided him if they suspected he might be even slightly displeased, he dusted the remnants of dried asphodel dust off his fingers and went to find her.

She wasn't in the corridor, nor in the nearby girls' lavatory, so he pulled out his wand and cast a locator spell before setting off at a determined pace. Ten minutes later, he found her sitting under a tree staring at the lake. "Are you going to tell me why you're so upset, or just sit here when there's work to be done?" Even as he spoke, he cringed mentally at his pathetic attempt to be comforting.

She gave a short, bitter laugh and replied without looking at him, "I'm fine. Why would I possibly be upset?"

Sighing, Severus realised this was probably going to take a while. He cast a cushioning charm before gathering his robes neatly around himself and sitting next to her. "I don't know. That's why I asked."

She kept her gaze focused forwards. "It's nothing. Apparently, I misread the situation." She turned to glare at him then. "Don't worry, I won't impose myself on you again." To his chagrin, he could see traces of dried tears on her cheeks before she turned her gaze back out to the lake.

Severus frowned. "Who said anything about imposing?" He should probably just leave things be, he knew, but he couldn't seem to make himself do it. "You're the one who said we should forget it."

"No, I said you should tell me if that's what you wanted, and you said it was. Fine, I get it. You don't want me. I shouldn't have kissed you last night. I won't do it again."

"For the record, I didn't say any of that. What I said was it would probably be best to forget it, and it probably would. I said nothing about my preferences." Part of Severus was horrified to hear himself quibbling in a way that would make it harder, not easier, to keep things light, friendly, and non-relationship-like, but he hated to see her looking so vulnerable. In all the years he had been his nastiest self with her, she had always seemed impervious to his insults. But apparently, his well-intentioned effort to protect both of them from scorn and pain down the road had hurt her more than he ever would have thought possible.

She snorted. "Your meaning was clear. I may have a terrible record in relationships, but I certainly know when I'm getting the brush-off. I've gotten it often enough, haven't I?"

"I wasn't trying to give you the brush-off," Severus argued, conveniently ignoring the fact that he had been doing exactly that. "I was ... well ... that is ... Damn it, Hermione, I was trying to do the right thing! Have you even considered what people might think if you got involved with me? Have you thought about that fact that my record in relationships is significantly worse than yours? Why should you subject yourself to that?"

Severus watched, fascinated, as Hermione jumped up and began pacing in front of him. She sounded annoyed when she finally spoke. "Why should I care what people think? The people who matter will know the truth, and the rest of the world can go hang for all I care. Your opinion and mine are the only ones that matter. Anyway, in what way is your record worse than mine? As far as I know, you've mostly avoided romantic entanglements altogether. I, on the other hand, have had at least one spectacular explosion."

Severus couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Oh, right. It's so much healthier to obsess over a dead woman for more than two decades."

"Look, if it's because you're not over her, that's fine. I understand, really. I mean, who can compete with the perfect Lily Potter, anyway?"

Severus was not as happy as he might have expected that she didn't sound upset anymore. Instead, she sounded resigned, and Severus found himself hastening to reassure her.

"Lily was hardly perfect," he admitted. It was still hard for him to acknowledge this fact - he'd loved her since he was eleven years old - but since the end of the war, he had allowed himself to remove the rose-tinted spectacles. "She was quick to anger and slow to forgive, and she was rather spoilt and shallow, if you want the truth. I'm sure if she had lived, and if I had had even one other real friend, I'd have got over her years earlier than I did."

"If she was so awful, why did you love her?"

"She wasn't awful. She was vivacious and fun and smart, and she was the first person who ever seemed to like me. She was all I had. Is it any wonder I clung to that in the face of later evidence of her faults?"

Hermione dropped down beside him. "If you're really over her, then I don't understand why you haven't found someone else before now."

"When and where would I find anyone? I spend all my time here, I can't abide idiots, and I'm not only ugly, I'm a pariah." Hermione seemed surprised. "You don't really think of yourself that way, do you?" To Severus, she sounded slightly worried and upset by the prospect that perhaps he really did. "I mean, I can see your first two points – you don't get off the grounds much and you really don't tolerate inanities well, but ..." She paused, turning pink, then seemed to steel herself to continue. "You aren't ugly, Severus, though I'm sure you aren't to everyone's taste, but I bet you'd be surprised how many women find you attractive. Sexy, even." The pink hue to her cheeks deepened slightly at that. "And most people know by now that you were always on the right side of the war, that you did what had to be done and what few people could have managed to do, even though it was necessary." She broke off, her blush deepening. "Sorry, I'm babbling." She laughed self-consciously and looked away, her fingers nervously raking through the grass next to her.

Severus stared at her for a long moment. He couldn't think what to say. She thought he was sexy? Certainly, there had been evidence recently that she might find him attractive, at least a little, but sexy? People didn't find him sexy. They found him ugly and nasty and greasy and mean, not sexy. Suddenly, all his reasons for thinking they should keep things platonic flew out of his head and all he could focus on was how badly he wanted to keep her for his own.

When the silence had dragged on too long, Hermione said awkwardly, "I suppose we ought to go either brew or clean up." She began to get to her feet, and Severus panicked at the thought she might really give up if he let her leave. He took her hand and pulled her back down beside him, and without giving her a chance to protest, he kissed her.

The hour had grown quite late by the time they stopped snogging long enough to return to the lab and clean up. Even while they bottled and cast stasis charms on everything, they kept pausing for more snogging. Hermione felt like she was in a dream. He really did seem to want her, and he had said he was over Lily, so maybe there was hope for them ...

While she was wiping clean the work surface of the bench, she suddenly remembered Harry and Luna's invitation. "Severus?"

He looked back on his way to the storeroom. "Yes?"

"I have to ask you something, but I want to be clear that it's fine if you don't want to go," she began as she unconsciously twisted the cloth in her hands. "I can go alone – it really wouldn't be a problem – but the invitation did include you, so I wanted to give you the choice ..." She trailed off when Severus held up a hand. "Sorry, babbling again."

He smirked, looking amused rather than annoyed. "Why don't you just tell me who invited us where, and then I can decide whether I want to go or not?"

"Oh ... er ... right ... Well, Harry apparently saw the pictures of us in the Prophet, and Luna says he's worried about the sudden shift in our relationship, so ... they invited us to dinner." Severus didn't answer right away, so she plunged on. "If you don't want to go, though, it's fine. Luna and I can keep him under control."

"And have him spend the entire evening turning you against me? I don't think so. If you're going, I'm going," Severus said firmly. "I shall even do my best to restrain any impulse to strangle him," he added teasingly.

"I'd appreciate that greatly," Hermione said dryly.

His eyes taking on a speculative gleam, Severus purred, "How greatly?"

Hermione felt her cheeks grow warm. "Very greatly," she murmured, then sighed and added repressively, "But I don't want to rush things, so I won't be expressing it in the way you might hope."

Surprisingly, that didn't appear to faze Severus. His lip twitched with good humour, and all he said was, "Pity." He disappeared into the storeroom for a moment. When he returned he paused to kiss her briefly. "There's really no rush, you know. I like to think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Hermione was startled. "You've seen Casablanca?" she blurted, momentarily diverted.

"Of course," Severus replied. "My mum was quite hopelessly determined that I should fit in to the Muggle world as well as the magical one. We had a telly, and when Tobias was out at the pub, we'd watch old movies."

"You call your father 'Tobias'?" Hermione asked, intrigued.

"He was hardly a father. More like a jailer, really, so I decided when I was fifteen that he didn't deserve any sort of honorific." He shrugged. "It's habit now."

"Oh," Hermione said, surprised he was willing to say even that much, though it saddened her greatly to hear him talk about his father in such a way. She decided not to press him. "Well, anyway, dinner with the Potters is generally at seven. I can Apparate us there if you're comfortable with that, or I'll request a Portkey, if you prefer."

"I believe I can safely trust you not to splinch us. You're rumoured to be the brightest witch of her age, you know," he said with a smirk.

Hermione smiled and rewarded him for his faith with another kiss.

Saturday arrived much sooner than Severus would have liked. In fact, he wouldn't have minded all that much if some natural disaster had befallen England or Scotland around teatime. Unfortunately, it didn't, so he found himself preparing to knock on Hermione's door when the appointed time came. She had told him to dress casually, and that she would be wearing Muggle attire, so he was feeling rather exposed in black linen trousers and a long-sleeved black linen shirt. He tugged at the cuffs to make sure the remnants of his Dark Mark were covered. This was as casual as he got, he thought irritably, and if Potter didn't like it, that was too bad.

He recognised his irritation was really due to nerves, and he was a little bit pleased to realise he had learnt something since his younger days, when he would have blamed the nearest Gryffindor and behaved toward that unfortunate person accordingly. He knew if he had met someone like Hermione in those days, he would certainly have ruined his chances almost immediately. He had half-expected that even with his newly acquired self-awareness, their budding relationship would implode as soon as they acknowledged it.

Much to his surprise, though, the days since their talk by the lake had gone rather well. Better than well, actually, he amended, as he thought about long evenings working on their potion interspersed with stimulating academic discussions and increasingly heated snogging sessions. Though part of him wanted to hurry up and get her into bed for a long weekend of uninterrupted sex, another part was actually glad they were taking it slow. It felt almost as though he was making up for something he'd never really known he'd missed by being so lonely and unpopular – and so focused on a woman who didn't even want him – when he was younger.

So all in all, he was thoroughly enjoying this relatively innocent time. Who would have ever thought anything related to me would be even close to innocent? he wondered, bemused.

Sighing, he realised he had been out here in the corridor woolgathering for several minutes already, and he glanced around uneasily to be sure no one had seen him behaving in such a ridiculous fashion. He tugged once more at the collar of his shirt, hoping it covered the scars from that accursed snake, and then forced himself to knock.

Hermione opened the door almost immediately, and Severus found he had to swallow and start reciting the twelve uses of Dragon's Blood to prevent a very obvious physical reaction to the sight of her in a sleeveless blue tee shirt and a snug denim skirt that stopped above her knee. He really wished he was wearing his robes.

Hermione kissed him in greeting, then smiled warmly. "I'm so glad you're here," she said before frowning in concern. "Are you all right? You look pale."

Severus almost pointed out that all the blood in his upper body had clearly moved south, but forced himself to say instead, "I'm fine. Just a little worried that I won't be able to keep from hexing Mr Potter. Shall we get this over with?"

Hermione grinned and took his proffered arm. "It won't be that bad, I promise. I won't let him badger you too much, and if he gets too difficult, we'll leave."

Severus brightened. "Really?"

"Yes, but please try not to provoke him, all right? I realise it will be taxing for you, but you will try, won't you?"

"Only for you," he grumbled, though it was meant as a joke... mostly, anyway.

She patted his arm and changed the topic. "Perhaps next weekend we could sneak away for dinner out somewhere, just the two of us."

"Yes, let's do that," Severus said. "We've been spending far too much time with sycophants and dunderheads recently."

She laughed, and Severus found he felt significantly more at ease by the time they reached the Apparition point. Of course, when she wrapped her arms around him to Apparate them to Godric's Hollow (since he decided not to point out that he had been there before under rather unfortunate circumstances), all the blood rushed south again, but Severus was by then feeling happy enough to take it in stride.

They arrived on the porch a moment later, and Severus stole a kiss before releasing her and again mentally reciting the twelve uses of Dragon's Blood. Hermione smiled at him, and he found himself smiling back. She said softly, "Thank you for doing this for me."

Severus couldn't think of anything sarcastic to say, so he simply said, "You're welcome."

Hermione stepped back and rapped sharply on the door before pushing it open. "Harry? Luna?" she called. "We're here!"

Footsteps announced their hosts' approach from the rear of the house. "Hermione! Severus!" Luna exclaimed, and hugged them both, despite the bump in her abdomen that clearly announced she was expecting. Severus swallowed both a caustic comment about a new generation of Potters (he hoped to Merlin he would not still be headmaster by the time this one reached eleven years old), and his discomfort at the unfamiliar contact with a woman in her condition.

He turned to greet Potter – though he supposed he'd have to call the man by his given name from now on, wouldn't he? Hermione probably wouldn't be pleased if he kept calling her best friend by his surname ...

"Headmaster," Harry said formally, apparently having no such concerns. Hermione and Luna were already moving off into the sitting room, chattering about Luna's pregnancy.

"Mr Potter," Severus replied, "it seems to me you've been on the Board of Governors long enough to dispense with the formalities."

Harry flushed and grinned self-consciously. "All right. Severus, then, and you can call me Harry."

Severus thought he deserved an Order of Merlin for not rolling his eyes at that. Really, did the boy think he didn't know he was called Harry? But he supposed it was just the polite thing to say, so he didn't comment.

His restraint was clearly for the best, he decided, because the boy was still speaking. "When you say 'Mr Potter', I have flashbacks to Potions lessons, which I'm sure we'd probably both rather forget." He gestured toward the sofa. "Come in and have a seat. What can I get you? Some Firewhisky? Or some wine, maybe?"

"Wine would be nice," Severus said, deciding he'd best keep his wits about him.

Harry held up a bottle for Severus's inspection before pouring them both a glass. "Cheers," he said.

Severus clinked glasses, thinking for a moment how surreal this all seemed. After an awkward silence, he asked, "How's work?"

"Fine, fine," Harry said. Another pause, then, "How're things at Hogwarts?"

"Same as ever."

They sipped in silence for a few moments, and Severus watched Hermione and Luna, who were across the room cooing over something baby-related. He made a mental note to talk with Hermione about contraception before they took their physical relationship any further. He was barely ready to attempt a relationship – he had no desire whatsoever to attempt fatherhood any time soon.

Harry said, "Look, I don't want to start trouble, but I have to ask about your intentions toward Hermione."

"Do you?" Severus asked under his breath, wishing Hermione was paying attention, so she could put a stop to this discussion.

"You know I do," Harry said firmly. Clearly, Severus's question hadn't been quiet enough. "Until very recently, you hated Hermione's guts, and now suddenly you're dating her? You'll forgive me if I'm sceptical about the abrupt change of heart."

Severus glanced at Hermione, who was still wrapped up in her conversation with Luna, before saying quietly, "My prior opinion of her was unfairly coloured by history and misunderstanding. We've moved past that and discovered we have a great deal in common. My interest in her is sincere. Beyond that, our relationship is none of your business, and we will both thank you to stay out of it."

Harry stared at Severus for a long moment before nodding slowly. "Fair enough. But if you hurt her ..."

He didn't finish the threat, and Severus wondered idly what the younger man thought would scare him. Probably a snake, he thought irreverently before answering as patiently as he could manage. "That is not my intention, though such things cannot always be controlled."

Fortunately, Hermione joined them as he spoke, seating herself beside him and taking his hand and squeezing it gently. She smiled at him before turning to her friend. "Harry, stop badgering Severus. There's nothing for you to worry about. Everything is fine, I promise."

Harry looked doubtful, but he swallowed whatever further protest he might have made, and the talk turned to more pleasant (if odd) topics when Luna joined them a moment later.