Just Like That

Chapter 12 – Just Like That

He stood before his portrait, feeling as though he had been called to the headmaster's office. It was a unnerving sensation...looking yourself in the eyes after you have slept with a woman that your... self cares about far more than you do.

"Are you just going to stand there staring up at me, or are you going to say something? I have other places I could be."

His older self had been rude to him before, but now he just sounded petulant. It annoyed the piss out of him, especially when he knew the portrait was well aware of what had just happened.

"I've just slept with Hermione..." There, let his portrait deal with it.

He shifted uncomfortably under his older self's glare. If this was anything like how he acted as a professor, he could easily understand why his students were terrified of him. Good thing he knew that his first line of defense was irritating sarcasm...

"So what do I do now?" A legitimate question, he felt. Of all the things he had read in his future journals, the path home wasn't one of them. Or anything about his liaison with Hermione.

"You go back."

"How? I don't even know where the Time-Turner is! And Hermione..."

"Hermione? You sleep with her once, and she suddenly goes from a 'show-offy swot' to someone you don't want to go back over? You don't want to go back because of one night with her? One night? You are starting to understand her worth, but you still have not the faintest clue what you're giving up. What you have to give up. She is going to have a long, wonderful life...with someone else. And you will die. You will save the whole fucking world, but you will die, knowing what you have given up.

"Just you wait, just you wait until you read those diaries of mine in full. Then you will know, you will know exactly what it is that has made me the son of a bitch I am today. You think you love her now because of her warm body and her gifted mind. You have no idea the regard she will have for us...has for us. That she would give anything for you to still be alive, in spite of, deep down, knowing there was nothing she could do."

He hung his head, feeling both ashamed and angry. How dare his portrait berate him like this? He knew how he felt about Hermione, even if the feelings were new. His older self knew what was going to have happened that night...he could have warned him, told him to stave off her advances. To find an excuse to end it. To stay out of her bed.

But why would he have tried to stop himself? Their encounter had been... Well, there just weren't words. And if it really was the best thing he was going to have, well, a man would have to be a saint not to be so selfish as to want that.

And it really had been good, so good. From the moment he had stopped her from fleeing, the entire encounter had been so intense, like nothing he had ever experienced.

As he spun her around, he was shocked at the force with which she hit his body. The shock lasted but a moment before she practically launched herself at him, her lips seeking his, her hands twining in his hair.

It was the first time in twenty-four hours he wasn't terrified, that he wasn't thinking about any life or death choices. As the whispers of her shampoo and something uniquely her wafted around him, he surrendered, drawing his body into her warm embrace.

She's thought about this before.

He awoke less than an hour later to find that she must have somehow rolled to her side. She was spooned up to him, her back pressed against his chest, his arms around her, a breast cradled in his palm. He knew he had to leave her, to have the time with his portrait to try to sort all of this out, so he had grabbed all of his possessions and fled the attic.

And now he stood before his portrait, and instead of some sort of comfort from his older self, he was greeted with derision. He had fallen in love with Hermione Granger, and his older, angry, cynical self had not wasted any time in reminding him that his affection for her was doomed to fail. Had been from the moment he landed in his... her attic.

"Fine, so this is the most meaningful sexual experience I'll ever have. And instead of remembering it with happiness the rest of my life, I'll die feeling like a perv. Congratulations. Way to make me really want to return home."

"Have you forgotten what will happen should you not return?"

"Mum..." He hadn't thought about her in days. His older self was a supercilious know-it-all. It was no wonder he would grow to have no friends. But he was right. Regardless of the choices he would make...and he was pretty sure after a night with Hermione Granger he knew exactly what those choices would be...he did have to return. He could not allow his mother to be killed or worse because of a witch he had no right to care for.

"Yes, Mum."

"But what if he enters my mind again? What do I do? He will know if I'm lying!"

"Then you must not give him any reason to question your honesty."

"But what if..."

"He will not attempt Legilimency again... for now. At some point, you will need to learn Occlumency and Legilimency. It will be in my journals. But for now, he will be so overjoyed by your news that he will not enter your mind."

As relieved as he was for that, Snape still felt completely lost. Everything was changing so suddenly.

"When do I leave?"

"Tonight."

"Tonight? No... Hermione... She'll think..."

"That you just fucked her and left her? I suppose. And then she'll storm down here and start screaming at me again, and I'll have to finally clean up our mess."

He knew it was a horrible question to ask, but... "And is there any way she and I... that is to say..."

"The next time you see Hermione Granger, she will be eleven years old. What do you think?"

"And before I die? She won't be eleven then."

"No, but you will be thirty-eight."

"Fucking hell. So this was all for nothing? Listening to you go on and on about the Light was for nothing. Falling in love with her was for nothing? Why don't I just go back and ignore you. This. Is. Not. Worth it!"

"Leaving the Dark and going to the Light isn't enough of a motivation for you? Not following in Regulus' footsteps isn't enough? Then look at it this way: go back, join Dumbledore, protect Hermione."

"I thought if I went back, it was to protect Potter... That Skeeter bint went on and on about this ridiculous promise I made to Dumbledore about Lily..."

"Do you really think I went back and told Dumbledore about my long lost love from the future and how in, I don't know, about ten or so years she would show up and I would want to protect her all my days? Of course not, you pillock. I had to tell Dumbledore something he would actually believe. He knew how I had mooned after Lily my first few years of school. He also knew of our falling out. What he didn't know and what I didn't bother to tell him was that you and I had moved on. He fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The man had weird guilt associated with love...probably because he's the only wizard in our world that actually fell for a Dark Lord, if that Skeeter woman is to be believed.

"In any case, do you know how often protecting Potter and Hermione will go hand in hand? Potter is... special. Some combination of his mother's love, Voldemort's curse, and dumb luck usually keep him alive even when we aren't around. But Hermione will be a target. Top-of-her-year Muggle-born during a war waged to eradicate her and her kind from Magical history? She will need protection. She will need you."

"And she'll never know... what we've done for her."

"I wouldn't say never. In fact, I'm pretty sure by this time tomorrow, she will know everything."

"Why. Do you plan to tell her?"

"In a manner of speaking. I'll have you leave the clues for her own discovery."

"And the Time-Turner. I'm to go back right now. Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Where is it?"

"In the flour canister."

He grinned. "She really is a Muggle deep down, isn't she...?"

His portrait nearly smiled in response. "Yes, but then again... so are we."

"And I won't bleed all over the place this time?"

"No."

"I won't die?"

"Not yet."

"And the hell we're going to through, it's all worth it? Just to protect her?"

"Other than that horrible decision to join the Dark Lord, do we often make decisions lightly?"

His older self had a fair point.

"You'll find parchment and quills on your dining room table. Leave her the key to getting into my diaries...she deserves to read them in their entirety. And don't write her any sentimental drivel."

"Anything else?"

"Send yourself back to the moment after you left. You're going to need that week to read and... cope."

It was the closest his portrait had ever seemed to caring about how he was feeling during all of this.

He picked up his effects and made his way to the dining room. Her research littered the entire tabletop. Insuring she would actually find something on the desk, he quickly piled all the paperwork and books into neat stacks, cringing as he did. He hated when anyone moved his research, but at least he knew that she shouldn't need it any longer. He procured a parchment and a quill and scratched out a note.

Not seeing her one more time before he left was devastating. But his portrait was right...he really did need to leave. If he saw her again... it would be nigh on impossible to do what he must.

Before he could change his mind, he stormed into the kitchen. Sure enough, he found the Time-Turner in a plastic bag buried in the flour canister. He sat on the floor and began setting the dials. Just in case his older self was lying to him, he pulled a dishrag from where it hung on a cabinet door and pressed it to his nose.

He lay down once again on the floor, taking a deep breath, and hoping nothing terrible would happen to him, he released the dials and blinked out of the room.

AN: Cringing...