Unlocking the Future

Chapter 11 – Unlocking the Future

Appendix II: Court Testimony of Harry James Potter, Trial of Severus Tobias Snape, April 15, 1999

Chief Warlock: You come before us today, Mr. Potter, asking for a reversal of the charges against the late Severus Snape, who, you argue, killed Professor Dumbledore under the Headmaster's orders. You further argue that Snape served as the spy for the Order of the Phoenix even after the death of Professor Dumbledore, without the Order's knowledge, and that you know all of these things from memories he left you moments before his death. Are you prepared, under oath, to affirm the validity of these statements?

HP: No, sir. Not only do I expect you to exonerate Severus Snape because of the preponderance of evidence presented by myself, the other witnesses, and the portrait of Headmaster Dumbledore himself showing that Snape was the only fucking reason any of us are here today, I also expect you to award him a Order of Merlin, First Class. I expect you to then put Professor Snape's name on the Wall of Heroes as it rightfully deserves to be, and I expect you to have done all this before the first anniversary celebrations next month!

Snape did not know what was more preposterous: anyone nominating him for an Order of Merlin, any class, or reading the call which came from the mouth of a Potter.

Absurd, and yet he loved every word, the tone of respect washing over him, comforting him. Sleep usually gave him a perspective on events, calming away stress, but last night's nightmare had only intensified his fears and apprehension.

He flipped to the next page of the book, and sure enough, there were the pictures of this Wall of Heroes, his name ensconced between Albus Dumbledore's and Harry Potter's. Second on the list of at least a hundred.

And what sort of honor would he gain if his Lord won this war? The pleasure of serving his pureblood compatriots in their new world? The privilege of not being killed?

Well, he certainly hadn't enjoyed the privilege of not having the shite kicked out of him.

With a swish and a flick, he reheated the tea in his mug and began reading from his own journals.

Fuming and frustrated were not a good combination for her. Some people wore anger well...their remarks becoming scathingly brilliant, their ability to weave a tapestry of curse words legendary.

She just got crabby and forgot to take care of her hair. Which was now a sea of tangles as she kept messing with it.

The fact that she even noticed her physical state as she passed the mirror on the way to the kitchen told her something she really did not want to know...that she cared about how she looked today. She never had cared about such things at Hogwarts. Not out of a self-deprecating belief in her own lack of assets; she knew she was pretty enough. No, Hermione Granger could clean up when she wanted to. But in the middle of studying for OWLs and NEWTs, or preparing for examinations, or even (let's be honest...especially) translating The Tales of Beedle the Bard, time worrying about appearance was time wasted from learning.

Unless there is a younger version of the man you've allowed yourself to have an academic crush on sitting two floors above your head... probably without a shirt on...

Fantasies about Snape had been the forbidden place her brain had gone to for years. And until now, they were safe. Snape was dead, and no one would ever know.

Her obsession with the museum was always something, in her mind, she had seen as separate. She was sure it had something to do with her overwhelming need to keep his memory alive.

Her fantasies were much more physical. They centered around the Hero Snape...the swish of his robes and click of his heeled boots as sexy instead of terror inducing, the lines on his face softened, that voice... Fantasy Snape wasn't her Potions master; he was the man who had saved her life without her knowing it. In her dreams, she was able to thank him.

On some level, this was why the jokes from Harry and Ron about her fixation on all things Snape rankled. It was like being back in school. Who does Hermione like? Who would ask Hermione to a ball? And absolutely, the only way they would ever know where her mind went was if she told them. Which she never would.

But it didn't help that sometimes she was pretty sure that they knew.

That the Snape in her mind wasn't eighteen years her senior. He wasn't a Death Eater, and he wasn't greasy and batlike. Hook nosed, yes, of course. What woman in her right mind would want to get rid of a nose so well suited for...

No, her fantasy did not make disparaging remarks about her teeth or call her an insufferable know-it-all. He did not mind ink smears on her face. He smiled on a regular basis with straight, white teeth.

But the best part about her fantasy Snape? He wasn't real.

Unlike his younger counterpart upstairs, who also wasn't nineteen years her senior...

Taking out her wand, she began spelling her hair into some semblance of order, Vanishing the smudges of ink off her face.

He skimmed through many pages of his journals in the hours waiting for Granger to return, and the elation he had felt from Harry Potter's pretty speechmaking had been crushed under the weight of his own words. He had liked the notion of being a hero until he read page upon page of what it actually meant to live the life.

The court transcripts had made it sound romantic...working for all those years without recognition, having the fun of actually sticking it to Albus Dumbledore.

Of course, it had left out the difficult bits. The years of near celibacy because of sheer physical exhaustion. The stress that would cause his face to age so quickly. The recounting of every bone broken, every scar received, at the hands of his Lord. Wasn't the point of getting out of the Death Eaters to stop being tortured? Because it seemed that his life, should he go back and choose the Light, would be nothing but an endless attack on his person.

He got to the last diary and found that it was mostly empty. The few pages in it discussed his anguish over his castle being turned into a house of torture and being the most reviled man in their world, save Voldemort. The last page mentioned Harry Potter and rumors that he was returning to the school.

He was surprised at the sheer volume of writing he had skimmed through. He had been known to scribble before, but never to leave such detailed descriptions of his life. And he had to admit his older self was a pretty damned good writer. He had felt as if he were actually present at many of the scenes he had read about...in all their gory detail.

Feeling the need to add something to the pages and to purge some of his thoughts, he dug around the attic until he found a pen.

He started by signing his name. It seemed as good a place as any to begin, and he always enjoyed the flourish of writing it out, even if he hated his middle name.

As he picked up the pen to begin writing again, his name began to disappear from the page. Below it, in blood-red letters, appeared:

Took you long enough to start scribbling, boy.

As his shock abated, he became curious. Before he could write something else, more words began to appear:

Well, now that I actually have your attention...yes, this is an impressive bit of magic, yes, I did learn it from your Lord, and no, it did not involve splitting up our soul. We are not that foolish.

And you might want to shrink these down and hide them immediately. She's walking up the stairs at this very moment.

Having no reason to disbelieve himself, he quickly shrunk all of the materials he had stolen from downstairs and quickly shoved them and his wand into his bag. She had not touched it, he believed, since the day he arrived, and it was safer than under the sofa cushions, where he might smash his wand by sitting on it.

Just in time, he flopped onto her bed as the stairs began to descend. He sprawled, attempting to mimic a sleepy state, eyes shut, mouth slack. He heard her slam something onto the coffee table and had to stifle a smirk.

"And just what are you doing in my bed?"

He popped open one eye and looked up at her scowling face. "Sleeping?"

"In my bed?" Her hands were perched on her hips; the glare on her face could have pierced armor.

"Sofa is too narrow for a good nap." I should have been a goddamned actor.

She flicked her wand at said sofa, and it widened to a double bed's size. "I expect that I will not find you in my bed again, Snape."

"Indeed. However, you are always welcome in mine." The words squeezed their way out of his mouth before he could think.

She really was quite pretty when she blushed.

"Are you hungry? I've brought up dinner." Clearly, she was trying to ignore his faux pas.

He sat up and surveyed the table. On it was a tray with a small, old casserole dish, one he recognized quite well, a spoon protruding at a precarious angle from the food.

A wave of aromas assaulted his nose...beef, onion, potatoes, basil, parsley...

"Granger, have you made cottage pie?"

"A passable version, yes. It's one of my favorite comfort foods."

"Anything in particular you're trying to comfort yourself over?"

"I dunno, just that you're still here, and I have no idea if it's safe to send you home. And you do have to go home."

He sat down on the floor, legs folded over each other, and beckoned her to come eat with him. "Why such the rush to get me home? Do you have a date tonight that you had to cancel on my account?" He spooned a generous portion on to a plate and handed it to her.

She did not seem amused by his jibe. "Hardly. Wizards rarely knock at my door."

This actually surprised him. "And why ever not? Other than being my captor, you seem nice enough. And you can hold a conversation. And you're quite... pretty." What the hell is wrong with me? I might as well have said "Hello! Might I sleep with you? Ta, dear."

"As to holding a conversation, most wizards prefer their women like their children: seen but not heard. And pretty? You must be confusing me with some other witch holding you captive, not this frizzy-haired, bucktoothed harridan." She looked up at him, a mischievous look in her eyes.

She's fishing for a compliment... Strange, she doesn't seem the type.

"I see no issues. With your teeth, that is." Smooth, old man. Very smooth. It's compliments like that that get you so far with the ladies...

She grinned, showing off her decidedly straight teeth. "True. You should have seen them when I was a child." And then she giggled, and he got the feeling he was being left out of some grand inside joke.

"And what else is for dinner? Man cannot live by pie alone."

She sat down at the table next to him and procured a bag from the floor. "Crusty bread and Boddies." She ripped a sizeable hunk off the bread and handed it to him. An ice-cold bitter followed.

She really was a woman after his own heart.

I really am the worst captive-holder in the history of people holding other people captive. She groaned internally at how ridiculous that sounded. At any point tonight, he probably could have taken her wand, or worse... But he really seemed just to want to drink her Boddies, eat her delicious home-cooked food, and enjoy her company. The universe would probably implode at any moment.

They had talked about so many things, most of which she knew from studying him. And yet, it was so different to hear it from him at a younger age. His retellings of life events were brighter, less jaded than his diaries. He had her laughing to the point of tears from stories of a young Lucius Malfoy trying to woo Narcissa Black. Who would have ever thought there was a time that Lucius Bleeding Malfoy could be tongue-tied?

Two cans of bitter shouldn't leave her this giggly. But this young man made her laugh, in spite of who she knew him to be. In spite of knowing that his adult self would never take the time to ever make her laugh.

The end of the loaf of bread sat between them on the coffee table, and she reached across to take it. As her fingers grasped at it, his hand shot out and clasped around her wrist, the bit of bread dangling from her digits.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you to always offer your guest the last of the food, Hermione?"

Her eyes, which had been focused on his fingers, shot up to his face. His eyes smoldered as they fixed on her mouth.

She watched as he slowly leaned forward and, teeth bearing down ever so gently, prized the bread from her fingertips.

He chewed the bread, looking at her thoughtfully, his thumb lightly grazing the inside of her wrist. He swallowed, and she was mesmerized by the bobbing of his Adam's apple. He did not stay her hand as she moved it towards his face, her fingers trembling as they came ever closer to his face.

He closed his eyes as her fingers began tracing along his cheekbones, the grip on her wrist becoming lax. She watched, amazed, as he leaned into her touch before his hand came up to cover hers.

Amazement quickly turned to outright shock as he took her hand and tipped it away from him before pressing a kiss into her palm.

This was crazy; she knew it was wrong. The fantasy was never ever supposed to become reality. She was falling for a reality that could not possibly exist, something that would only end badly for both of them.

Yet she was powerless to stop herself. She knew he was going to kiss her, and she knew everything would be ruined if he did. That the guilt she felt now would be even more painful as it would also be tinged with regret.

She did not care.

He must have sensed something; she felt his fingers grazing her temple, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. As she looked into his eyes, she saw a question there, one she was afraid for him to ask. Hoping to silence him before he spoke, before he could say anything that could change her mind, she rose to her knees and slowly moved across the floor to him. Straddling his legs, she took his cheeks between her palms and lowered her lips to his.

Electricity coursed through her body. She sighed as his hands came up to grasp her waist, and he used the opportunity to deepen the kiss. As their tongues intertwined, she hoped that he wouldn't stop, that he wouldn't pull away, that he wouldn't realize just how insane they were being.

Before he could call a halt, she ground her pelvis into his. She really could not think of a better way to make her intentions clear.

He pulled away from her suddenly, and she knew she had made a mistake. The reality of what she was doing crashed down around her, and she knew she had to get away, remove herself from his grasp, flee.

She pushed away from him as hard she could and stood; as she turned away, he grasped her wrist, turning her towards him. He must have stood as she ran, as when she turned around, she crashed into his chest, her hands finding his shoulders for balance. His arms came around her, and she read his face for a sign, expecting his rejection.

Instead, she only saw desire.

Pushing her naysaying thoughts away, and knowing she would have to deal with the consequences in the morning, she twined her fingers in his hair and crushed her lips to his.

AN: Mine is an evil laugh! Thanks so much to my betas and to linlawless, my TPP admin.