Lost, Then Found

As always, thanks to JKR.

As always, thanks to ginnyw and thanks to my wonderful pinch hitter beta, lifeasanamazon.

42. LOST, THEN FOUND

He forced acrid black coffee down his throat and considered it penance. Small penance, but penance, all the same.

She wasn't in the Great Hall, wasn't beside him, and wasn't eating toast with too much jam while reading one of her ubiquitous textbooks.

He'd come here on the slim chance...the very slimmest of chances...that she'd be here. If not at her place beside him, perhaps at the table with the other Gryffindors. But the Gryffindors seemed oblivious to the fact that she wasn't where she was supposed to be, wasn't where she should never have been, which, by an insane twist of fate, was now her place.

Beside him.

His food congealed on the plate while he drained his third cup of coffee in hopes that the combination of caffeine and tannic acid would speed the efficiency of the hangover potion. Not that he deserved such efficiency. But he needed it.

He replaced the mug with trembling fingers, cursing his body for betraying its state so blatantly, and left the Great Hall.

Only to meet Albus coming in the door.

"A word, Severus."

"Only one?"

"Perhaps a few more. You assured me that you were uninjured," the Headmaster stated. "You seemed unharmed in your first class yesterday. At least, you did teach it."

Bloody hell. First-year Slytherins and Gryffindors. He hadn't given them another thought since...since she'd left him in his stupor.

And with that, Albus was gone.

Leaving Severus with a desperate need to find her, but forced to return to the dungeons for N.E.W.T. level Potions and another seat where she should have been but for some insane twist of fate had never been.

He knew in the churning pit of his stomach that she wouldn't be awaiting a private assignment in the storeroom, either.

Which didn't stop his heart from skipping a beat before he opened the door to look.

And didn't stop it from sinking when she wasn't there.

Nothing, however, equaled the quick-boil of his blood when he entered the classroom and found an empty seat where Harry fucking Potter should have been.

How had the significance slipped his attention...the fact that Potter hadn't been with the chattering Gryffindors at breakfast?

He silently swept his wand across the board and revealed the assignment, not trusting himself to speak. He spent the remainder of the class sitting at his desk, not caring whether the bloody brats blew themselves to Hades or not.

XX

His search of the Library had taken twice as long as it should have; he hadn't trusted her not to Disillusion herself and thus had been looking not just for her, but also for any shimmer that might be her. His eyes had ached with a razor-sharp pain since he'd awakened, and the Library search had added acid to the mix.

He'd Disillusioned himself to linger outside the Fat Lady's portrait, straining to hear conversations that might reveal her presence inside, but nobody mentioned her name, though several wondered about Potter's absence.

Which left the Room of Requirement, although if that were her place of refuge, he would have no way of knowing or of getting inside.

Which made it even more likely.

He hadn't expected to find Potter there, however, sitting in the corridor, his head against the opposite wall, staring blindly at the spot where the door would open if she decided to emerge.

Bloody Potter.

He'd known exactly where to go.

And the knowledge that the two of them weren't together wasn't as satisfying as he would have expected.

"Unexcused absence from Potions, Potter? Twenty-five points from Gryffindor and detention with Mr. Filch."

Potter didn't even spare him a glance.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" Snape grated.

Still, silence.

"Are you looking to lose more points? Because believe me, I will be delighted to deduct them."

"Excuse me, Professor," the insolent whelp said, still without sparing him a glance, "but not wanting to lose points is exactly why I have nothing to say to you."

"Indeed." Snape whipped in front of him, forcing him to look up to meet his eyes. "And what is it that you are so eager not to say to me that would cost your house points?"

"What did you do to her?"

His stomach lurched. "What do you mean?"

"She's been here all night. Why wasn't she with you? What did you do to her?"

"And what makes you so sure my wife has been here and not in our quarters?"

Potter averted his gaze. "I have ways."

"I can assure you that whatever reason she may think she has for being here, it does not concern you," he hissed.

"Indeed," Potter returned with an insolent sneer. "I suppose I'll wait and let her reassure me on that score."

Snape turned to stare at the empty wall, his heart in his throat. What was she doing in there? She had to be safe; he couldn't imagine the Room of Requirement not being a safe refuge, and yet....

What if she needed h...

He couldn't even complete the thought. The thought that ended in the word "him" as if there were any reason on earth that she would need him.

Help, then. What if she needed help?

How long could she stay?

He fought down the thickness in his throat that indicated not bile but a humiliating fear.

What if she'd discovered she didn't need him? He knew she didn't want him. She'd taken leave of her senses to ever think she wanted him, and who could blame her for that? But she'd needed him, needed their marriage to protect her, and had been willing to do the unthinkable to secure it.

What if she'd realised she didn't?

He couldn't stand here in this place and fall apart. He couldn't do this, not with Potter there. Not now. Not ever.

"Leave," he ground out, facing Potter again. "Get out."

Potter leaped to his feet. "You can't make me."

"I'm a teacher, and I can make you do whatever I want, and that means you will leave!" He heard his voice echo down the stone corridor, but couldn't contain it, couldn't contain his anger, which was why it took a moment for the change on Potter's features to register, and why Potter managed to dart around him before he reacted...

And spun to see Potter running toward the door opening in the wall...

And hitting it with a dull thud when it disappeared a split-second before he got there.

Snape took two steps forward, his heart hammering in his chest with fear. What was happening inside? Did she need him?

Merlin only knew he needed her.

And without realising the words had formulated, he heard a desperate voice in his mind, Please need me. Need me like I need you....

Potter rose up on one elbow and stared at the wall as the door came into view again. This time, he reached his hand forward tentatively and the door disappeared.

Hating the fear quivering through him, hating Potter for witnessing it, Snape stepped forward and the door opened.

He was inside with the door closed behind him before Potter had even leaped to his feet.

But Potter was no longer on his mind.

The room was an odd yet distinctive refuge, indeed.

A bed he recognised from her childhood room.

A wall of bookcases he recognised from the Library.

A table with books scattered across it.

Her head bent over a parchment, her hand furiously scribbling across it.

This was it?

She was studying.

His own heart was turned inside out in pain, and she blithely studied as if nothing was wrong?

Until she raised her eyes to his and blinked them, squinting, as if slow to realise he was with her.

Her eyes had deep bruises beneath them, bruises that meant lack of sleep and more. Even after his obscene amount of firewhisky, there was no way he could look as ravaged as she did. The quill trembled in her hand, and even from this distance he could see the words on the parchment lacked her usual feminine precision.

As if his presence had finally sunk in, he saw her hand clutch the book in front of her, fumble to close it, turn the spine away from him and flip the cover face down. These were easy movements, if foolish...he was hardly going to exhibit the decency of allowing her to hide her subject matter, not when he found her in this condition. Because even though the simple closing of a book and flipping and turning it was a sequence of movement that she could ordinarily manage with simplicity and grace, now she was fumbling, dropping the quill, smearing her arm across the wet ink.

She was frantic to hide it from him.

She'd been up all night studying...earth magics?

There was no such course of study at Hogwarts or any wizarding school. And there certainly was no connection between the subject matter and any N.E.W.T.s she might be fretting over.

A quick glance showed the bed hadn't been touched.

"When was the last time you ate or slept?" he demanded.

She simply stared at him without answering and then sent a panicked look toward the table and her notes. She crumpled the parchment in her fist and tossed it into the fireplace.

Before he could stop her, she'd tossed the book after it and almost bent double as it went up in flames.

She had destroyed a book? His Miss Granger had been so desperate to hide something from him that she'd actually destroyed a book? He quickly catalogued its appearance from memory while he could--small with a brightly coloured picture on the cover, something with green and orange and red... small children? A child's book, or a book about children...a book about earth magics and children.

He looked quickly at her stomach.

Merlin, fucking hell, bloody hell, it couldn't be that. She'd just had her cycle, and he'd made certain she had her potions and...

She was standing, picking up another book, although whether to hide it, burn it or throw it at him, he had no idea because at that moment she swayed and caught herself, braced her hands wide on the edge of the table and bent over.

"Forget the fucking books," he snapped. "Have you eaten?"

She finally shook her head, something that looked like fear in her eyes. "Why...why are you here?"

He wanted to close the distance between them, touch her, and hold her. But the rigidity of her shoulders, the tension in the arms supporting her weight stilled his movement.

She didn't want him.

He felt a surge of frustration. "Don't be stupid. You're not hurting me by not eating and sleeping. You're just..." He stopped mid-sentence and found himself speaking words he hadn't realised he meant until they were already spoken and it was too late to take them back. "You...you are hurting me. But please, find another way to do it. Not this."

"You think I'm not eating and sleeping to hurt you?" Her clear voice sliced through him. "Because of you, yes. To hurt you? Surely I could find better ways."

"You could find ways that didn't hurt you, too."

She raised her eyes to him at that. Those eyes, dark like the bitterest of tea, framed by shadows and haunted with pain. "It doesn't work that way."

"I know what it looked like yesterday...what I made it look like," he began. "But it's not..."

"Not Bellatrix Lestrange?" she asked, and he stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating, literally stopped beating, because if she thought that...if she believed that...she'd never forgive him, never, and he'd brought it all on himself. Brought it on them both.

And if this didn't prove he didn't deserve anything as good and pure as his Miss Granger, what would? And what could he say to her, to convince her otherwise?

And how had she known?

"She was at the Department of Mysteries," she said calmly. "She smelled of patchouli, absolutely reeked of it."

"It's not what you think," he repeated. "There was no woman, especially not..."

"I know you didn't touch her. You'd have smelled more strongly of her if you had. Dark Magic positively radiated from you, and I'm sure...almost certain...some of it was hers, but I didn't think you'd actually... I mean, I knew you didn't...you hadn't...."

She let her voice drift, and he realised that she couldn't even finish the thought. He didn't know which caused him more guilt, that the pain she suffered was beyond her ability to voice, or that he was so fucking relieved not to hear it articulated in her precise, prim tones. Her wide-eyed innocence and clinical vocabulary could bring him to his knees at the best of times but would rip him open if she applied it to any act that involved him and Bella.

"Professor Dumbledore didn't see you, did he? He wouldn't have let you near a classroom if he'd seen," she said softly. "Didn't he know what would be required of you?" Her eyes dropped to his forearm, and had it been bare, he couldn't have felt more vulnerable and more exposed.

Again, shame flowed through his veins. Bile rose. He clenched his fists to stop them shaking and squeezed his eyes shut to stop from seeing the pain she suffered because of him. "Miss Granger..." he began, his voice choked.

"You always call me that," she said softly. "And others think it odd. They think it indicates a division between us, an inequity of sorts, and maybe it does, maybe you think it does.... Maybe you call me 'Miss Granger' as an act of self-loathing, to remind yourself of who and what I am, lest you ever relax and think of me just as... me." She stared into the fireplace at the fire, the occasional spark thrown by the last remnants of the magical book cover. "But do you know what I hear when you call me 'Miss Granger'? I hear you demanding that everyone else must call me Madam Snape, as if you want to remind them that I'm yours, that you're proud of me and even, maybe, of us. And when I hear you call me 'Miss Granger,' I like to think it's because it's something special, something nobody else can call me but you. And so I do the same. I know it's hard for them to remember, but I can't bear to hear anyone call me that but you because, when you say it, it sounds so lovely in my ears and it goes straight to my heart and..." She looked as if that heart would break. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what you need me to do. I try so hard, but it's as if there's something lacking in me, something you need me to be that isn't within my ability, and..."

"And you should be with someone who doesn't reek of Dark Magic and doesn't have so many sharp edges and a nasty temper and an even nastier tongue and..."

"But that wouldn't be you!"

"My point precisely."

"Oh." It was hardly a word, more a whimper, and she collapsed back onto the bench, her fist to her mouth, her face stricken. "I feel so foolish. I thought...I thought...You aren't supposed to be able to get in here! Don't you understand? And the room let you in, and I thought it was because..."

Her sobs overcame her, and he hated himself for this, for doing this to her, for being the nasty bastard who had reduced her to this state, and he didn't know what to do, didn't fucking know what to do for this creature who was sometimes a woman and sometimes a girl and always exactly what he wanted and needed but could never deserve.

And so he stood there, frozen, absorbing her pain as his own because it was his own, and he deserved it, every word that pummelled him, every sob that melted him, all the guilt that he'd earned time and again just because of who and what he was....

"When I saw you," she whispered, "I understood...I knew you didn't want me there and you were trying to push me away, and I knew why, and even though I just wanted to hold you until it was gone, it was Dark Magic and I knew you and the Headmaster didn't want me around it, and I...I didn't have any other place to go! I don't have a place any more. I don't have a room to go to, or a dorm, or--"

And suddenly, she was rubbing her eyes with her sleeves and fighting the hitch in her breath, and he saw her struggling to regain her composure, and there was nothing he could do or say to help her, he who was on the thin edge of collapse himself.

And he watched her face as it smoothed, and her lips as they formed a brittle smile that never reached her eyes, and her hands as they smoothed her hair out of her face in jerky movements that left strands still clinging to her damp cheeks and eyelashes, and he memorized it all to remind himself of what a bastard he was, what a fucking bastard, and why he didn't deserve her because this was what he'd brought her to.

"I couldn't sleep, couldn't let myself sleep, because I kept hoping...I thought the room would bring you to me, when it was safe."

She swallowed a sob.

"I thought you were here to take me home."

Home.

He didn't even consider the dark quarters in the dungeon a home, yet she did?

Take me home.

And that was it. It was that simple and that horrible and that easy. He couldn't fight that, and instead he closed the distance between them without knowing it, and somehow, he was on his knees, clinging to her, and all he could smell was eucalyptus and spearmint and everything that was good and pure and her....

"Professor," she sighed into his hair, and then she took his hands and pulled him to his feet. "I can't kiss you down there."

And then they were standing and her lips brushed his, tender and gentle. She tucked a strand of hair out of his eyes. "And when was the last time you ate?" she asked, and when he didn't answer, "Aren't we a fine pair?"

She dragged him back to the table and summoned food, and he managed to eat it, every bit she put in front of him, just so she'd eat, as well. But he couldn't remember later what they'd eaten.

He only remembered how fragile she looked, his Miss Granger.

XX

She pretended not to notice how sunken his eyes were, how haggard his features. She held back from touching him, from stroking him, from holding him, because she simply wasn't sure whether he would allow it, or could allow it, in this uneasy state he was in.

But remembering where they were, she thought, Pepper-Up, and two vials appeared on the table.

She pressed her thumb against the cork of the first, popped it open, and leaned close to Professor Snape. "Drink it all," she ordered sternly, "or you'll never make it through your third-year Slytherins and Gryffindors."

He scowled but finally raised it to his lips and swallowed.

She watched his throat move with each swallow and felt something heavy and hot pulse deep inside. It wasn't until she saw his black eyes focused on her lips that she realised she had licked them.

Ducking her head and allowing her hair to fall over her cheeks, she reached for her own dose of tonic, but he closed his hand...warm and heavy and calloused...over hers.

"You need sleep, not potions," he said, his voice rasping with weariness.

"I can't sleep any more than you can. I have to meet with Harry, Ron and Ginny..."

"Absolutely not."

"Absolutely so!" She drained the vial before he could say another word. Now, the pulse she felt was at her temple, and it was not pleasant. She kept her expression and voice calm because to betray even the hint of her coming headache would ignite an argument she didn't have then energy for. "We have so little time and so much to do, and we always meet on Tuesday afternoons."

She looked at the clock over the mantle. "And your class starts in fourteen minutes."

He glared at her but stood without saying another word.

And that's when she remembered. She didn't know. She didn't know for sure...

She swallowed her pride and asked, her voice sounding far more breathy than she intended, "Afterward, should I... come back here?"

He stared at her, as if trying to figure out what exactly she was asking.

"I mean, all right, of course I will, I just wasn't sure if anyone would notice that the Room of Requirement is tied up again all night or if..."

His stare melted into a wince, and then a scowl, and then he held his hand out to her.

Reluctantly, she took it. No sooner did her fingertips brush his hand than he tugged her to him, and held her, and buried his face in her hair...she could feel his breath stirring it all the way to her scalp, and it felt like heaven...and he sighed, "Miss Granger, if you aren't in our bed tonight, I'll tear this castle apart stone by stone until I find you."

Her heart leapt and then calmed. Her eyes stung and then filled. She felt his lips pressed against her temples and fought the urge to angle her face up to his because to do so would expose her damp cheeks to his gaze and heaven forbid he see her crying again.

But he touched her chin with his thumb and most firmly turned her face up until their lips met, and she forgot her tears and her headache and her fears. Oh, god, how he could chase everything else away with the touch of his lips, and the energy that surged through her had nothing to do with potion and everything to do with his kiss. Even her fingertips prickled with it, and she dug them into his hair and pulled him to her not just to get more of him, but to soothe the tingles there.

They broke apart, fighting for breath, and she hated...hated, hated, hated!...that it was Tuesday afternoon and he had class and she had to meet with the others when all she wanted to do was hold this man in her arms and reassure herself that he was there and he was whole and he was hers.

But they would have the night....

He found her robes on the bed and slid them onto her arms, and she ran her fingers through his hair in an attempt to smooth it, and they emerged into the corridor to find...

Harry.

Sullen and fierce, staring at them from under his wild shock of hair as he leaned against the wall on the other side of the hall.

"Are you all right, Hermione?" he asked, his eyes raking down her body as if looking for evidence to the contrary.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" She belatedly attempted to smooth her own hair, but it was too much a mare's nest to respond with any success at all.

"You were here all night and all day." His green eyes narrowed as he looked over her shoulder at the professor. "What did he do to you?"

She felt the professor stiffen, and a movement that could only be him bracing to reach for his wand. She slipped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder, partly to reassure him and partly to make it more difficult for him to hex.

At least, more difficult for him to hex with his wand.

"Oh, Harry, it's nothing like that," she sighed. He looked almost as bad as Professor Snape, and she wondered when the last time he'd eaten or rested had been.

And why had he been looking for her to begin with?

"Get some food before our meeting," she finally said. And then, remembering, added, "And don't forget to bring the lists."

His shoulders slumped, and he seemed to relax, but he still didn't look totally convinced. He finally shrugged, however, and rolled his eyes. "Of course, your lists. We couldn't have a meeting without your lists."

She allowed her lips to curl in a slight smirk.

Then she pulled upright and straightened herself because it really wasn't seemly to walk through the halls clinging to Professor Snape like they were fourth-years.

Besides, they would have the night.

XX

His last class over, Snape entered their quarters with no intention other than to grab another headache potion and drink it before dinner.

But when he saw her, still in her clothes but stretched diagonally across the bed, her face slack and oh, so young in sleep, he knew what he needed worse than any potion.

He had her naked and under the covers in just a few flicks of the wand and soon joined her, curled around her, skin to skin. She nestled into him, and he felt her entire body melt as her tension dissipated, and finally, finally she was in his arms with nobody to see, to watch, to judge.

He stroked her hair, his fingers hitting snags and snarls that he pondered and then tentatively tested with a softly-spoken spell. They each teased free in turn, and he soothed himself that way until a great many of them were gone.

She slept so soundly that she didn't even stir.

He smelled them on her, scents of musty Quidditch locker rooms and bright fresh air and a hint of sweet fragrance that must be from the Weasley girl. He vanished the scents as thoroughly as he vanished Cissy Malfoy's scented parchments, and with the same satisfaction.

And he pondered her loyalty to them. Her blasted determination to help them, no matter how ungrateful they acted.

To forgive them, no matter how undeserving.

And he pondered how fortunate the wizarding world was that the Potter brat had found a friend so fierce and intelligent and fucking forgiving to stand by him because without her...

With a punch to his gut, he realized he'd just described her relationship with him.

And couldn't shake the uncomfortable thought that six years of putting up with the most ungrateful and undeserving Potter and Weasley were what he had to thank for the fact that she was here, in his arms, after all that he had said and done to drive her away.

"Miss Granger," he whispered softly into her hair because he simply had to speak the words, to hear them in the darkness and taste them on his lips.

And even in her sleep, she responded with a sigh, "Professor..."

And his body melted into hers, into sleep, into peace.