Seeing Eyes Blind

A/N: I'm ba-ack. Miss me?

My gratitude for all that went into this chapter transcends words, so, to Anastasia, AnnieTalbot, Psychokelli, Tinibeth, Melenka, Indigofeathers, FerPorcel, Machshefa, Arynwy, Poultrygeist, Timestep, Subversa, Bambu, Chiara, and Emmacrew, and everyone on LJ during the difficult summer of 2007, I can say only this: Impossible without you.

A door opened beside him, and, for the first time in two decades, he stood face to face with Hermione Granger.

-------------------------

Her mind refused to function as she took in the face of Harry Potter.

His eyes swept her face, seeking the familiar amidst the changes wrought by time.

Grey? Already? he thought, his eyes tracing a strand of silver from her brow to her neck, where it caught in a trail of... First that ghost, now Hermione? he thought. What's happening here?

"You're bleeding," he heard himself saying, instinctively reaching a hand toward her.

As he moved, torchlight reflected off his glasses, obscuring her view of his eyes.

In the dim light of the corridor, they could have been any color.

Green. Or red.

Any color except blue.

Ron's eyes.

Ron.

Her eyes flew to his scar, and, unconsciously, she stepped backwards. She heard herself snap, "It's nothing."

Behind his glasses, Harry's eyes widened. His daughters had told him that her tone could cut stone, and Merlin knew, Ginny had shaken her head sadly at the transformation the girls had reported but... well, war changes people, and his family, at least, had moved on. Sad, really, but – well, what was past was past.

Still, when he went to speak, he had to clear his throat. "Right, then. I'll be off; just paying my respects to Professor Slughorn."

A sharp nod. "Of course." Then, very quietly, "Oh."

Harry turned back toward her. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, but her eyes fixed again on his scar.

A hint of brittle politeness seeped into his tone. "Quite." Turning on his heel, he made to head down the slanting corridor.

From his place behind her in the shadows, Severus felt her deflate, and his lip curled. "Potter," he said, stepping closer behind her.

Hermione threw a startled glance over her shoulder and stiffened as she realized he had not dressed.

Harry stopped short, but did not turn around. "You."

"Indeed."

"I'm surprised at you, Snape," Harry said, turning slightly. "That you should have the nerve to show your face in these halls. I wonder at your welcome."

"No less than I wonder at yours," Severus said dryly, silently reaching down to unclench Hermione's hand from the folds of her robes and to draw her back against him.

Hermione inhaled audibly. What is he doing? she thought wildly.

"Mine?" Harry said, still refusing to look back. "And why should my welcome be a question at Hogwarts?"

"Times change, Potter," Severus said, "as those who align themselves too closely with the philosophy of one moment realize too late, if at all."

"Still playing both sides, I see..." But Harry faltered as he turned to face them fully.

His eyes raked the pair standing still before him, and his mouth gaped.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, dropping his gaze to the floor, blushing furiously. He had almost offered to heal her neck, still bleeding from... from that. "Impossible."

Hermione straightened slightly, watching him with narrowed eyes.

"I'm not seeing this," Harry growled at the floor.

"How unremarkable," Severus said evenly, not taking his eyes from Harry's discomfiture, "that you, of all people, would refuse see what is right before your eyes."

"I – I..." Harry examined his shoes, searching for his reason. Finally, remembering that he was a Ministry candidate, he announced, "I won't be spoken to this way." Turning on his heel, he headed downward toward Slughorn's chambers.

But he misjudged his path in the wavering light, and he bumped his shoulder on the side of an archway. "Bloody hell!" he said again, slapping his palm hard against the offending column.

The stone stood implacably, unmoved.

Hermione watched him leave, then leaned back against Severus' chest. She blew her hair out of her eyes before closing them and exhaling fully. "Well, he had one thing right," she said, rather more conversationally than Severus had expected.

Severus raised an eyebrow.

She continued, "'Bloody hell' covers things quite accurately, wouldn't you say?"

He drew her closer to him and leaned his chin on her hair. "You perceived it, then."

Unbidden, a pinched, rueful smile crossed her features. "Rather. They were my closest friends for years, after all." She exhaled again, attempting to ease the tightness in her chest. "That wasn't Harry angry, Severus," she sighed.

"No," he agreed quietly, resting his chin on her hair.

"That was Ron. Embarrassed, and trying to hide it." Turning her head to rest her cheek against his skin, she swallowed hard against the lump welling up in her throat and squeezed her eyes shut. "How does Ginny not see it?"

"I should think that would be obvious."

She nodded softly. "It would seem we have two problems, then."

We?

In the silences of the flickering torchlight, they stood, unmoving, for a moment.

"You did that deliberately, didn't you," she said quietly.

A dry chuckle, utterly without mirth, into her hair. "Flushing the game."

Another long silence, during which the torches' flames settled from the movement of Harry's passing.

Finally, very softly, she said, "Thank you."

His heart threatened to choke him at her courage, and his arms strengthened around her.

"There's nothing to be done about it, of course," she said, not moving. "About Ron, I mean."

"You are the expert."

"It's not as though I can kill Harry to release Ron, Severus," she said, finally loosening herself from his embrace, turning to face him.

"Weasley knew there would be risk," Severus said carefully.

Hermione tossed her hair back. "He was a teenaged boy. I'd say his risk assessment skills were zero to none, especially where souls and Advanced Dark Arts were concerned."

Severus said nothing.

"Mine weren't spectacular either," she said, her gaze darkening as the enormity of what she had done to Ron began to sink in.

His eyes sharpened at her tone, and he placed a crooked finger under her chin, raising her face to his. "Nor were mine, Hermione, not at that age, and yet here we are." We. Then, Later.

"Yes. In the dungeons." Her eyes, resolute, held his. "Severus," she said, her voice dropping, "Slughorn. How much time do I have?"

His eyes flickered to the passageway down which Potter had so recently retreated. His mind raced, calculating. "Your... situation is somewhat outside of my experience."

Her laughter echoed against the stone walls. "Situation?" She laughed again, in spite of herself.

"You would perhaps prefer 'condition'?" He scowled.

"I believe the appropriate term is 'state,'" she said, brushing his diplomacy aside with a wave of her hand. A confident, dismissive gesture, one that made him draw a sharp breath – a memory – again, of her as a student, sure of her success at lessons, before she had learned, too sharply, to soften the distance between her intelligence and that of her classmates.

The gesture was utterly innocent of derision, of bitterness, of anger. And utterly unlike anything he had seen from the troublesome professor since returning to the castle.

She stood before him, more a victim of her own strength than he had ever been.

Untrained, untaught, untutored.

She should not have been alone.

She was still alone.

Despite what they had done, what they would continue to do, lest they loose her, unrestrained, on the world.

Troublesome, indeed.

Yet now, right now, she stood with him, her innocence seemingly restored by the loss of it.

Ironic.

An innocence whose taint would grow again, unbidden, invisible, but...

... but no longer unheeded.

He wanted to taste it again.

To taste her again.

Before the first blood was even dry, he knew that he would return, again, and again, to re-open the new wound to hold the old at bay.

A small sound escaped his lips.

The pain in his hip was sudden. Sharp.

He hissed, and she was looking at him.

In her eyes, all she had endured in silence.

Clear, whole, and luminous.

In her eyes, he saw it shining, and it was exactly the color of moonlight.

Bloody hell.

"Your hip?" she asked.

He nodded curtly, and she smiled knowingly, and he looked away, knowing it was coming.

Delay made it all the sweeter.

And he felt rather than saw the shadow return.

Yes. "Hermione, I – " he began, his voice hoarse.

She shook her head. "Later."

But later was now, and, closing his eyes before he turned to her, he closed the distance between them with a breath.

As his lips met hers, she murmured, "Time, Severus?"

His hands threaded into her hair as his lips moved down her throat. "Not enough."

Easing her head back into his hands, she whispered, "Liar."

But her hand dropped to his hip, and she pulled him to her in the open archway, and, at his groan, she felt her smile darken, and she knew it was true.

---

Neville smiled as he passed them. So, it was true, then.

Politely, he averted his eyes, and the torchlight remained steady.

---

In the curtained alcove off the Head's Office, the little ghost was staring at the Sorting Hat, still held cradled in her arms.

The old portrait had said to put it back – that its magic wouldn't return unless she did.

But the new one had said she didn't have to, at least not right away.

Maybe they'd forget she had it.

Maybe they'd forgotten already.

Maybe.

She sighed, and the curtain fluttered slightly at her breath.

She put her hand over her mouth and waited, but no sound came from the outer office.

She held the Hat in both arms.

She'd never been able to carry solid objects through walls.

She wasn't sure it could be done.

But there was no other way out – no other way, except past the portraits, so she settled herself in the air.

She smiled.

It didn't matter.

She didn't have anywhere to be.