Chapter 4: Place of Promise

It had been longer than he cared to remember since he'd lost himself to the heady sensation of a woman's body curled against his. Longer still since those moments had been more than a bridge to what were inevitably superficial...and brief...liaisons. Hazy memory notwithstanding, he was certain that he'd never felt the surreal tangle of dislocation and conviction he did here with her on the hard wooden floor.

The brittle posture of the woman he'd followed into the Tarot reader's rooms had softened, long limbs winding around him as if he were an anchor for her drifting spirit. She was positioned awkwardly on his lap, and he was sure he'd twisted something when they'd fallen to the floor. And yet...he wanted nothing more than to revel in the contented hum under his fingertips as he stroked the skin at the nape of her neck. She seemed in no hurry to pull away, and he relaxed into the unexpected peace that had blossomed in the intersection of two broken souls.

Awfully unexpected, actually. Brow furrowed, he glanced at the closed door to the fortune-teller's room; eyes swept over the shabby wooden table that had hosted the drama of her Tarot cards and their vibrant threads of light. And ours, too.

Perhaps this was all the old woman's doing. It would serve him right, he thought, stomach clenching, to grasp this transcendent feeling with both hands only to have it dissolve at his touch, an illusion, like a Patronus, woven in light.

Hermione stirred, her sigh an echo of the one he hadn't realised he'd loosed. For a moment, he was sure that his pounding heart would dislodge her, but if anything, her body grew more languid in his arms, warm breath puffing against the scarred skin of his neck. Her former weary vigilance had fled, faded like the last strains of the setting sun.

How odd, he thought, that pain, and need, and trust should be wrapped up in such an unlikely package.

It had been years since this rising warmth had sped through him, so long since the last time...and there had only been a handful...that he'd known he was honestly needed. Not in the ways children need their Head of House, their voices a cacophony of demand and expectation. Children in need, needy children. No, real need...for himself and no other, for his voice, his touch, his soul. His and no other. It had been so long he had nearly forgotten.

Dumbledore had made it his business to wrap his need for Severus around the ragged edges of guilt and memory, its every touch a reminder of the penance whose payment would forever be due.

But this... this was nigh on impossible, he thought. An hour ago he'd been stalking the streets of London, the excuses of errands to run and checks to make before returning home hardly convincing even to himself. Anything to delay going back to that empty house, where the echoes of every mistake he'd ever made pounded against the panelled walls.

And now...with the twilight sun long set, the idea of this woman moving out of the circle of his arms made him gasp for breath. He threaded his fingers gently through tangled curls and brushed his cheek against the top of her head. Her hold on him tightened almost imperceptibly.

She needed him, and he, her.

He always had been one to cling to the impossible.

~~**~~

The sinuous voice wrapped around her, smoothing sharp edges of pain as familiar as the hollows under her red-rimmed eyes. She'd had no comfort for so long. There'd been no salve for the blame and recrimination layered atop searing memory... the cup... the Chamber... the Burrow...

She hadn't meant to moan, but the voice just grew firmer until it morphed into arms, and hands, and a heartbeat, steady under her cheek. Oh, thank god... The heat of his body and steady stroke of his fingers across her skin swept through her like a Lumos. All thought chased away, she wrapped herself around the voice... the heartbeat... the man whose presence...whose touch had, for the first time in nearly a decade, beat back the shadow that threaded its way through the cracks in her soul.

How strange that after all this time it should be a dead man's touch that brought back the light. Absurd how quickly her universe had narrowed to the feel of his skin and cadence of his breathing...and the lightening of her heart it inexplicably brought. It all faded in the face of unavoidable truth.

He'd recognised her, seen the shadow, and not turned away. The touch of his hand and sound of his voice cut through the sticky tar of pain and gave her a moment's rest...and a thread of hope. There was light here, radiance where his skin touched hers and air where his breath beat a tattoo through the tangle of her hair. She wrapped her arms more firmly around him, reassured by the curve of his body around hers.

She'd be crazy to let him go...she was hanging on for dear life.

~~**~~

Shadows lengthened; darkness had fallen beyond the grimy window of the Tarot reader's room.

Snape didn't know how long they had been sitting there, but he reckoned the stiffness in his back would tell him soon. He shifted, wincing at the knots in his shoulders and neck.

"What time is it?" a sleepy voice asked from about the middle of his chest.

"I was just wondering that myself," he replied.

He felt her nod as she shifted off his lap, her arm still securely around him as if afraid she might sink into the floorboards, otherwise. She'd kept her eyes averted, and he saw there a hope that he might not notice how she'd adopted him as her personal anchor.

But decades of feeling small in the face of his own blinding need had laid the seeds of understanding. He moved slowly, bringing his hand to cup the curve of her jaw, thumb stroking the gaunt angle of her cheek.

"Miss Granger?" She flinched. "Miss... Hermione, look at me. Please." Her surprised expression would have irritated him in her student days, but today it only left a lump in his throat.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"You weren't afraid of me a moment ago. Why now?"

Her head jerked up. "I don't know," she answered. But the question brought her back to him, and she met his gaze at last.

"It's better when you're closer." It wasn't a question. She lowered her eyes again and he continued. "For me, too."

"For you?"

"It's not only you who felt better." He paused, his inquiry a tilt of the head. At her nod, he went on. "I can't remember the last time I felt... like that... peaceful..." His voice trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable with his own disclosure.

"Like light," she murmured.

"Light?" he whispered.

"Your touch makes the light come back. Or maybe it makes the dark go away...I don't know," she said, an echo of the anxious, swotty student in her words. "It's darker now, next to you..." She glanced at his empty lap. "It felt like the dark corners were lit up..." She paused. "When you... I mean, when I..."

"When I held you." His voice was rough, but he didn't care.

She nodded at the same time as he reached for her.

An experiment, he told himself as she scrambled onto his lap again.

Testing... hypothesis, he thought distantly as her lips left a trail of fire along the rough stubble of his jaw.

Gathering.... Data.... Mmmm Her breath was hot and sweet, and he was dizzy from the blood pounding through his body as she brought her mouth to his...

And in a blaze of light, blew the darkness away.

~~**~~

The row house at the end of the block was dark, and the scattered street lamps cast fractured shadows along the path. Hermione was grateful for the cool air on her skin and that side-along Apparition required close bodily contact. She was still shaky, knees wobbly, hours after falling apart in the fortune-teller's room.

Her companion glanced at her, not remarking on her unsteadiness, and drew her closer. Hermione shivered, and he just tucked her to his side more firmly still.

Soon enough, they were inside, the air barely warmer and far more stale than outside. But there were walls and a roof and a threadbare couch that looked serviceable enough. She didn't dare think about the inevitable plunge into darkness that would come when he unwound her from his body and retreated to his bed. Perhaps she could delay a few more moments...she could try to store up the feeling and maybe that would carry her...

"No need to look so frantic, Miss Granger." His sharp voice interrupted her, and her heart galloped in her chest as she wondered what she'd done wrong. "I assure you, you are perfectly safe here."

He'd schooled his expression into the one that had always chilled her when he was her professor...distant, indifferent. The cold, vacant one that, she remembered, used to make her wonder where he had gone. She hadn't realised her hands were shaking until she brought one to stroke the skin of his face; had she paused to think, she never would have presumed she had the right to try to bring him back from wherever the pain took him. Instinct drove her, anything to relieve the tightness in her chest and the edge in his voice.

"I've not felt this safe in a long time," she said. "Just now... I was distracted... thinking that your couch would be more comfortable than a lot of places I've slept lately."

"Where have you been sleeping?" he asked, and the softening of his voice gentled her racing heart.

"Here and there," she demurred. He didn't need to know about the lost jobs and flat, how she'd pinched her Galleons to stretch them as far as she could, keeping a room at the Leaky Cauldron in exchange for the odd magical job. But her magic had grown fractious at the same rate she had, and she couldn't rely on Hannah's compassion any longer...not when Neville...

"How long has this been going on?"

She shook her head, a knot in her throat. When she met his eyes again, the pain she saw there surprised her. "A long time." A glass of water would be nice, she thought absently. Her mouth was so dry. "Things have been falling apart for so long that I can't remember what it was like... before."

Side by side, they moved to the couch and sat, letting the spectre of before dissipate before he broke its silent thrall. "Perhaps tomorrow you can tell me more about what I have missed these ten years."

Hermione nodded. "I will. I'll tell you everything..." She paused. "Whatever I know, anyway."

"I have developed an appreciation for generosity in the sharing of information," he said. "We may discover that I have knowledge that will supplement yours...though until a few hours ago, I would not have recognised its relevance."

"Everything is harder when you're alone, isn't it?"

"It is, indeed."

"Thank you for not leaving me alone," she whispered into their shared silence.

"I believe that I could do nothing less," he answered. "And I find myself... not displeased with your company."

"Well, that's a relief, then," she murmured, grateful for the dim light that hid the blush staining her skin.

He'd not said a word since they'd left about what transpired between them amidst the cobwebs and dust on the fortune-teller's floor. Hadn't mocked the urgent kisses, or the way she'd moulded her body to his and pushed his layers of clothing aside to find the hot skin underneath. His hands, too, had roamed, finding the skin of her belly, tracing the outline of her spine, fingertips feathering long strokes along the curve of her back...his touch like water on parched earth.

Only the faint shuffle of the fortune-teller outside the door had pierced the bubble around them as, with a jolt, they recalled where they were. Disoriented, Hermione had watched him reassemble his armour of cloth and silence. But she'd had the oddest feeling that his barriers had shifted now to include her behind them...that these shields hadn't been erected to keep her away.

The cloud of pain that always hovered around her had burned away, gone for the moment but lurking still, as if biding its time until it would find her alone again. Snape seemed to understand, or maybe he felt it, too. Whatever his reasons, she was grateful for the touch of his hand at the small of her back and the press of his leg against hers, even as he rearranged his clothing. He'd kept contact with her as they bid farewell to the Tarot reader and had paused to brush his hand along her arm when the old woman bade them return. "Later," she'd said. "You will know when."

She'd been shameless when he'd offered his home as a place to rest for the night and hadn't even tried to hide her relief at his suggestion that he Apparate them both. Hours had fled in the fortune-teller's room and she felt the exhaustion heavy in her bones. Perhaps tonight would finally bring some sleep.

Threadbare or not, his couch was comfortable. She had no memory of drifting off to sleep, her head resting on his shoulder. Nor would she be able to say how it was that in the night they came to rest, spooned together on the narrow couch, her smaller body curled into the curve of his.

All Hermione knew was that she was here, in the deepest part of the night, that time when the shadow would always stalk her until every last tendril of light had been chased away. But now, for the first time since the Battle of Hogwarts, she felt safe enough to fall asleep in his arms.

~~**~~

He thought she might be awake from the shift in her breathing. Unsure what had woken him, he lay still, waiting.

The night had brought more than its quota of surprises, he thought. None were more stirring, though, than the moment she threaded her fingers through his and began to speak.

At first he thought she might be dreaming, her voice so low, words tumbling out one over the other, running together like so many drops of water. Soon enough, the rhythm of her words took shape for him.

"It wasn't his fault," she murmured. "Not really." She sighed. "He couldn't help it any more than I." He nodded into the familiar darkness of guilt and sadness, but this time, she was there. "None of us noticed until it got to be really bad." She gripped his hand more tightly. "Ron would get so angry at me...well, at everyone, but he'd direct it at me, usually. I mean, he'd always had that way about him when he'd be insulted or felt inept." She paused. "But it was nothing like how he was... after."

"I do recall some discussion in the staffroom involving Mr Weasley's proclivity for sulking," he murmured. Her soft laugh made him smile, and he pillowed his cheek on the cushion of her hair.

"I'd do anything to get back those days of innocent sulking," she said, and Severus had an unwelcome flashback to his own schooldays, the memory of unforgivable insults clashing with the searing memory of Unforgivable Curses.

"This was different," she added. "After a while, there was an edge to him I'd never seen. It took a while for me to realise that we'd each developed an edge, of sorts."

"What sort of edge?" he asked.

"The sort that makes being around other people intolerable," she whispered. "That makes you feel as if, no matter what you do, it's bound to be wrong...the sort of wrong that gets other people hurt or killed, or so angry at you that you can't even breathe anymore."

"Is that what happened? Was someone hurt, or killed?"

"Nearly." He held his breath.

"We were all together at the Burrow. Molly would have everybody over for dinner on Sundays whenever she could twist enough arms, but it was getting harder and harder to be in the same room. Whatever it is that's wrong with us all seemed to magnify exponentially whenever we'd get together as a group." He felt her shake her head.

"I guess it made it harder to deny that there was a real problem. I'd been begging them...Harry, Ron, Ginny, even Arthur...to come with me to St Mungo's, to tell them what was happening to us. They accused me of needing to create a new crisis." He felt her begin to shiver. "Ron said that I couldn't stand to not be the centre of attention...that I hated not having a new catastrophe to uncover."

"He hit you where it hurt, then?"

"Always," she murmured. "But that last time, I hit back. Not intentionally, but..." She turned towards him, then, and he could make out her silhouette in the moonlit room. "I hadn't had an episode of uncontrolled magic like that since I was a child," she confessed. "I'd forgotten how frightening it is." The fine tremor he felt under his hands was proof that it was terrifying even to remember.

"I know it is."

"I nearly killed him... Ron. They were all horrified...I was horrified." She paused and he felt her shiver as she cried. "They didn't have to throw me out. I ran." He could feel the tears as they fell, bathing the skin of their clasped hands. "By that time, I was in even worse shape than I'd realised."

"I can hardly imagine you acknowledging..." He stopped short.

"Something else you can relate to, then?"

"Indeed."

Silence enveloped them again, rich with shared understanding, leavened with their grief. Their grief, not his alone, he thought. When has it ever been more than me alone, bearing my own burdens?

"I'm afraid," she whispered. His heart began to pound; he hadn't realised how much he hoped she felt safe with him. He hadn't recognised that what he was feeling with her was safety, too.

But she cried out when he pulled away, tears turning to sobs again and he knew he'd missed something.

"Why are you afraid?"

"It's too late, I've already ruined it," she croaked.

"Ruined what?"

"This. You... me being here... it being ok to be here, like this.... I knew I would ruin it. I always ruin it."

"You have ruined nothing, Granger." He turned her to face him in the dark. "It was I who...I misunderstood." There, she would have to figure the rest out for herself.

"It's not supposed to be this important to me. I haven't seen you for years. I thought you were dead for Merlin's sake." She tried to pull away, but she didn't have room to shift on the narrow couch, and he didn't make any move to help her.

"You don't have to explain to yourself or to me why this matters, Granger." The words fell from him before he could stop himself by thinking. "It matters. That's all. To me, as well." He swallowed thickly, aware that here was a moment for him to capture or destroy. "I want you to know you are safe here, with me. I don't want you to be afraid... not because of me."

For a moment, he wasn't sure if the strangled sound that came from her throat was a laugh or a cry. But the way she wrapped her arms around his neck and her body shook meant it didn't matter.

"I'm not afraid because of you." She tilted her head to drop feather kisses along the line of his neck, over the scar he always wanted to hide from the world. "Afraid for you, maybe...afraid for both of us," she whispered. "Please, just don't go when you see all the ugliness inside of me. All the need." Her body had started to shake again and his hands knew what to do, how to knead the tension from her back, how to keep her flush against him...his heartbeat alongside hers.

"There is no ugliness in you that would ever make me go. None." He didn't know how he knew this; only that it was true.

And tonight of all nights, knowing the truth was the first step towards the light.

***

Thanks to Cecelle for this jaw dropping sketch of my favorite scene from the chapter. :) *hugs