Part the Third

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Part The Third

He ate two eggs, four rashers of bacon, two pieces of toast with jam, and downed three glasses of milk and a cup of tea. Hermione, after sending Rose off to school, sat by him and chatted while he ate, catching him up on news of herself and other former students. They both knew that she was making small talk just to stay in the room in case his very empty stomach might consider the food to be too much, but Severus admitted to himself he welcomed her company. He had gone for weeks without talking to another soul, and it surprised and disturbed him that he actually found the company of another so welcome after weeks of enforced solitude and squalor.

Once he'd finished and sat back, exhausted from devouring the largest meal he'd had in months, he dozed, only to be awoken by Miss Granger's soft hands and her quiet voice urging him to take a cocktail of healing potions. He sat up, and after gaining the courage to ask the location of the loo, he swung his legs over the bed for the first time, feeling as weak as a newborn, cursing his inability to take himself to the toilet.

As Hermione held on, they stumbled inelegantly across the landing to the bathroom. "Please don't feel uncomfortable, Mr. Snape," she was saying, as if reading his thoughts. "If it helps any, please remember I am a registered Healer, and there's not much I haven't seen or done for a patient."

Staggering against the door, Severus grunted. "I have no doubt you are highly competent, Miss Granger. However, there are some things a man must do alone, and this is one of them."

She blushed in a way that made the word 'charming' come to his addled mind. "Of course. I'll just be across the hall. I'll come and help you back to bed when you're, you know. Finished."

It was only later that he found himself idly wondering which statement had caused her to blush so charmingly: his artless insistence on taking himself to toilet, or that inadvertent, rarest of gifts – a compliment on her abilities.

For the next week, Severus did nothing but eat and sleep and putter around the little house Hermione and Rose shared. He ate anything and everything put in front of him, and glowered ineffectively at Hermione when she teased that their cat Sam had better watch his food bowl while Severus was in the house.

He treated Rose with rather shy respect, as if unsure how to act around her. When she asked what Hermione cringingly thought of as a 'dunderhead' question, he replied with acerbic wit, but without the cruel malice that had been part of her educational years. He was so very different from the crackling, harsh wizard Hermione remembered from her school days. Whatever anger and bitterness he had carried from the war had been literally wrung from him by the past ten years, leaving behind a rather quiet, contemplative soul.

Rose Granger, Severus decided, was not an irritating little carbuncle, as he believed most children to be. As he silently watched mother and daughter interact, he thought of the Granger and Weasley he remembered from Hogwarts. They, along with Potter, had spent their last year of school on the run. And apparently, she'd been left with this reminder of it - a bright, clever little girl who sounded like a carbon copy of her mother but looked absurdly like her father. Not that he cared, he told himself. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. It was all ancient history, the war. He'd just hoped that-

No, he shook his head mentally. That was then, and this was now. She and the boy had undoubtedly loved one another, and had produced this intelligent, tender-hearted daughter. That is their reality. What is my reality? he wondered, hearing their girlish laughter throughout the house. What in Merlin's name am I still doing here?

Severus needed to leave. If he didn't go soon, he was afraid he'd start looking for any excuse to stay. For a week now, he and Hermione had been having increasingly animated, thought-provoking conversations, each one growing longer and more absorbing until yesterday, when they'd looked up and it was three o'clock in the afternoon, and they'd had to make a mad dash so they wouldn't be late picking Rose up from school. It had been a comfortable, sort of sheepish feeling, having enjoyed something more than either had been willing to admit.

He broached the subject at the kitchen table while Hermione made Saturday morning pancakes. "I believe I have overstayed your hospitality, Miss Granger."

She turned to him, spatula in hand, frowning. "Oh, we're back to Miss Granger now, are we?" She gave him a sad little smile. "And to think of all the hope I felt when you actually called me Hermione, Severus."

Cheeky little wench, he thought. While he had never objected to her using his Christian name, he'd never given her permission either, even though she'd insisted he use hers from the off. She watched him pensively, and he thought, not for the first time since he stumbled out of the loo and into her arms, what an attractive woman she was. He winced. All the more reason to get away before he made a proper fool of himself.

"I have taken advantage of you long enough... Hermione. I am grateful that you and Rose took me in after - well, after what happened, but I can't in good conscience sit around here like a lemon, day after day, existing on your charity."

"We've had this conversation before, Severus. You aren't imposing. You are a friend in need. That's what friends do – they take care of one another." The last words seemed to stick in her throat and she turned back to the hob.

He growled. "I don't like feeling like a pity case."

"Well, good, because you're not." Her voice was clipped and formal; she was angry, or possibly hurt. It was hard for Severus to tell without benefit of her lovely expressive eyes telegraphing her emotions.

He took a deep breath and tried again. "I'm in the way."

"Oh, bollocks." She turned back to him. "For the final time, Severus, you are not-" she ticked off his excuses on her fingers. " -in the way, a pity case, my new pet project, Rose's stray, or any of another dozen or so things you've called yourself." She flipped the last pancake into a plate and placed it in front of him. "Eat up while they're hot." She took a tray with another plate of pancakes into the front room, where Rose sat watching Saturday morning telly and talking to one of her school friends on her mobile.

Returning to the kitchen, Hermione watched Severus tuck in. Now that his appetite had returned, it pleased Hermione to no end to see him eat. He rolled his eyes at her cooking and groaned with delight when his belly was full. He ate neatly, as if conscious of how he appeared to others when doing something as personal as feeding himself. Hermione felt a secret pride that he had grown stronger and healthier while in her care. He no longer looked like a starving scarecrow. There was something tremendously gratifying, watching his gaunt cheeks fill out to something approaching normal.

"I'm not going to send you out into the cold with a few galleons to keep body and soul together," she said archly. "For your information, Severus Snape, I worked very hard to nurse you back to health. I don't relish you out there somewhere undoing all my good work."

He looked stonily down at his plate. "I told you, I will find a way to repay you," he said, his voice sounding hollow.

She made an exasperated sound. "Severus, stop that now! I'm not trying to make you feel obligated, you prat, I'm trying to tell you that I don't want you to leave. I can't make myself any clearer." She sat down beside him and laid a soft hand on his wrist. "It's winter. Christmas is coming." He risked a glance at her, and she touched his shoulder. "Rose and I have come to care about you very much," she said quietly. "I want only one thing from you. I can't make you do it - and I don't want to make you do it - but there is one thing I really, really want."

Here we go, he thought. "And that would be?" he asked.

Hermione gazed at him levelly. "I want you to stay here, at least until Christmas. I've been speaking with Harry and some others, and we want to help." Her voice was imploring. "I've been blessed; many of my friends are blessed. It's time you received some of those blessings, too, Severus. No matter what you might think, you deserve them."

Her expression grew angry. "You certainly did not deserve the crap the Wizengamot has forced you to endure. I know it's been ten years coming, but I want to help. You've been through too much shit and been fucked around too much."

He straightened, eyebrows reaching for his hairline. "I hope you don't kiss Rose with that mouth," he said, awed by her vehemence on his behalf.

She burst out laughing. "See? No dramatics, no martyrdom. Just hang around and work with me on Potions, or help Rose with her homework if you feel you must do something, but just allow a little holiday karma to come your way for once, Severus. It's not charity; it's friendship. Please don't be too proud to be my friend."

He was watching her intently. A tiny dollop of maple syrup clung to his bottom lip, and Hermione resisted an insane urge to lick it from his mouth. She'd been thinking along those lines a great deal in the past week, actually.

Let's face it, girl, she told herself. You can be as pragmatic and altruistic as you like, but the fact remains that you want him to stay because you're falling in love with him. You're just using that old chestnut, 'I don't want you out on the street,' but what you're really saying is, 'I don't want you anywhere else but here with me. For a long time. Perhaps forever.'

She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as he took a tentative sip of tea, found it to his liking, and turned to her. With something like surprised exasperation, he said quietly, "You are making it very difficult for me to leave." When she grinned triumphantly, he looked deeply into her eyes, searching her, testing her, daring her.

She didn't care. His words had given her too much hope to back down now. Hermione tried once again. "Severus, in spite of how it came about, I do enjoy your company." She leaned back in her chair and smiled. "I'm glad you're here. Besides, no one remarks over my cooking like you. You make me feel like a gourmet."

He gave her a keen look. "For years I subsisted on the toughest cut of pride ever carved. Even that is gone now." He hesitantly reached out to touch her hand. Something like his old smirk twitched his lips. He added dryly, "After that, anyone's cooking is marvelous to me."

Hermione blinked, then gasped at his impudence. "Oh, you, you Slytherin!" she hissed, swatting his bicep. Then she laughed and gave him a mock reproachful look. "Here I am, making this sincere, dramatic announcement, and you're making fun of me – and my cooking! You should be ashamed, Severus Snape!"

He looked surprisingly pleased with her reaction. After a moment's hesitation, he replied quietly, "That was delicious. And you are a good cook, as well you know." He looked away. "But I still feel like a gooseberry. Without magic, I'm less than useless. Remember that in a month's time when you're bemoaning the fact that I'm about as helpful as an extra navel."

Hermione's heart cramped for him. "Severus, you still have your ability. It's not like you'll never access it again. You are one of the most powerful wizards I have ever known. Remember who you are!"

He snorted and sat back from the table. "Who I was and who I am now are two vastly different creatures, Hermione," he scoffed, holding up his arm to show the black, malignant cuff. "I read up on these, you know. Many wizards never retrieve all of their magic after wearing one. The magical signature changes over time, and the longer the cuff is worn, the weaker the signature. Upon removal, some wizards as left less than Squibs." He looked away bitterly. "And what am I without magic? Nothing."

Hermione was silent. She could have spouted platitudes to contradict him, but they would have been lies. Magic was part of their being; part of their souls. She could remember times during the war when she had been nearly depleted of magic. It was exhausting and sickening; like a low-grade fever that wouldn't break. It made her feel physically weak; she couldn't concentrate properly. She was depressed.

It was magical depletion that she and Harry later deduced had caused Ron to behave so abominably when they took turns wearing the Horcrux. If it could make someone feel so dreadful for just a few hours, what must ten years of it feel like for Severus?

"No, not anymore," she said to herself, and without explanation, stood up and left Severus sitting confused in the kitchen. She stalked into her front room, grabbed a handful of Floo powder and shouted, "Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place!" She stepped through the flames and landed in the library, where Ginny was playing with the kids. Harry was just entering the room with a cup of coffee.

"Hermione!" he said, with a smile made of equal parts hospitality and confusion. "Is everything-"

"Harry," she said without preamble, "it's time for you to pull your finger out and fire the big guns with it. I want you to go to Kingsley and remind him that you're the Boy Who Lived. He owes you."