Severus, Redux: Chapter Twenty-Two
(In which Atreus has enlightening conversations)
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 03 September 1996, 07:43 PM
Severus glanced up idly as several students started vacating the library, and then twisted around to stare at the large clock hanging over the main entrance. He hadn't realised it was quite so late-it would be curfew for the younger years in just a few minutes. The sixth and seventh years had the castle to themselves now for two more hours, and most of them would probably end up in the library. House affiliations aside, it seemed an unassailable truth that most students procrastinated on their homework throughout the day, mucked about during their free periods and then, when suddenly confronted with a much louder common room at eight in the evening, flooded the library to get their work done.
Severus ran a critical eye over his Charms essay and decided that he had made all the major points Professor Flitwick would be looking for. As soon as he wrote a quick closing paragraph, he could be done. He would not be spending his two hours of extra freedom frantically doing homework. He had just stuffed his books and freshly rolled essay scroll back into his bag and was ready to leave when he saw Potter enter.
The other boy sat down and pulled out his charms textbook and writing supplies. No doubt he was about to work on the very essay Severus had just finished. Covertly, Severus studied him. He looked so much like his father that Severus' first instinct was to leave and try to avoid notice. He has an essay to write, perhaps he will not follow… Severus shook himself, and grimaced. The resemblance really was startlingly close. Was there anything of Lily in him at all?
His eyes. He remembered that much from their ill-fated encounter in Diagon Alley. His build looked smaller than James Potter's as well. He was shorter, and leaner. Precious little of Lily seemed to exist in her child. Yet...something inside him had defeated the most powerful wizard Severus had ever heard of...as a toddler. Lord Voldemort had cut James Potter and Lily down with hardly a pause, and yet had burned to ash when confronted with this boy.
Lily. It still hurt, like his heart was being squeezed. He had been petitioning to join the Death Eaters-he had been creating a fabulous elixir to prove he was worthy. He was supposed to be in a position of power so that he might secure her safety. Why, then, was she dead? Why had Lord Voldemort killed her, if Professor Snape sat at his right hand, as he had claimed?
Without even realising he was doing it, Severus found himself walking over to where Harry Potter sat. Potter was so engrossed in flipping through his textbook pages and adding to his essay that it took him a moment to realise Severus was standing in front of him.
Potter looked at him warily, a barely contained tension in his frame that Severus recognised. Harry Potter was a little bit afraid of him. The thought had Severus pausing and then filing the observation away to prod at mentally later.
"Something you need, Prince?" Harry asked tightly.
Severus shook his head, and then contradicted himself. "I want to know how you defeated...You-Know-Who."
To his surprise, Potter suddenly slumped back into his chair and rolled his eyes. "You and everyone else. I don't remember it, at least not much. Professor Dumbledore told me that it has to do with love, and my mum dying. He said that Voldemort couldn't understand love, so he couldn't touch me. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
It made perfect sense, actually. Professor Dumbledore had told Severus at Grimmauld Place that Potter's survival had to do with "complicated blood magic." Once all the clues were there, it was frighteningly easy to understand exactly what had happened. It wouldn't occur to most people, he supposed. Not many were as interested in the Dark Arts as he was.
Blood was powerful. It made any magic more powerful-wards, rites, and potions. Often it could make magic permanent. A willing and innocent sacrifice of blood for another person would create a powerful protection spell. It wasn't the entire story, however. It couldn't possibly be. Otherwise Lily would have lived as well. Hadn't Potter allegedly given his life to protect her as well as Harry? As much as Severus would like to believe that James Potter had failed to die altruistically enough, it really didn't hold water. After all, how many others outside the Potter family had also died in the war to protect their loved ones? There was something else involved that night that had caused the spell to backfire as it did.
"Erm...was that it?"
Severus glanced back down at Harry Potter, suddenly realising he had been standing silently over the boy for a full minute while he thought. He shrugged in response. "I was thinking."
Harry Potter pressed his lips together briefly. "You and Hermione are actually rather alike, aren't you? What is going on with her anyway? Three days ago she said you were seeing each other, but now Ginny says you're not, but then you stood up to Malfoy for her-which, don't get me wrong, I hate the guy, he's up to something and I'm pretty sure he's a Death Eater, so good on you for that-but he's not exactly the kind of person you get in the way of over someone you don't give a toss about, so-"
Severus shook his head and cut Potter off, "Shut up and take a breath, Potter. I can't respond with you nattering like an old woman." Severus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, and then said quietly, "I don't like bullies."
Potter nodded slowly. "I don't like bullies, either."
Severus raised his brows in disbelief.
Potter frowned. "Is it that hard to believe? I've never done anything to you, and I haven't been bullying anyone. Why would you think otherwise?"
"You drew wand on me the first time we met," Severus pointed out, crossing his arms.
"You hexed me first, unprovoked, in the halls here." Potter cut Severus off as he opened his mouth to protest. "We both know you are lying about that, even though you won't admit it. I don't get that, Prince. It's not like I can do anything about it even if you do admit it."
Potter sighed and rubbed his the scar on his forehead, then said reluctantly, "I grew up with my Muggle relatives. My aunt and uncle hate magic-they're afraid of it. My cousin has always been bigger, stronger and spoiled rotten. He used to make it clear in the school yard that anyone nice to me would find themselves cornered and picked on. He would throw tantrums and knock me down if I did anything he didn't like...or if anyone did something he didn't like. He used to convince my aunt and uncle to drop me off at this old lady's house next door so that I wouldn't be able to come on family outings, and I never got food unless my cousin had filled up first.
"Until I was eleven years old, I slept in a cupboard. When they finally did give me a bedroom, they put bars on the windows and tried to keep me from going to school. They still tell all their friends that I go to a school for troublesome children, but not to worry, they beat students there regularly." Potter gave him a hard, flinty look. "I know something about bullying, Prince. I don't hold with it."
Petunia Evans had done that to her own nephew? She had never been a particularly nice girl, and had been clearly jealous of her sister, but she had seemed to care for Lily, too. Severus would not have thought that she'd treat blood that way. Suddenly Potter's smaller, leaner build made sense. Like Severus, he had been neglected and underfed just enough in his formative years that his body had compensated accordingly. Not wanting to empathise, but unable to really help himself, Severus gave Potter a short nod. "Hermione and I are friends, Potter. More than that...I'm not really sure right now. It's not really your business, you know."
"Hermione's my friend, too." Potter's gaze was steady, and nearly an exact replica of his mother's from years earlier. Surprisingly, that thought didn't twist in Severus' guts the way he expected it to.
Severus felt his lips twist slightly, and he glanced down at the nearly empty page in front of Potter. "Enjoy your essay." He turned away to leave just in time to see Potter grimace out of the corner of his eye. The superior feeling the image gave him made Severus feel oddly better. Not everything had to change, and that was comforting.
He found Hermione loitering outside the entrance of the third floor corridor, looking like she was trying to act like she wasn't. Her body language practically screamed that she was either attempting to ambush someone coming out or spying on someone within. Gryffindors. It was almost cute, actually, how she tried.
A glance down the hall behind her revealed that there was no activity. "Is there a reason you're just hanging about instead of waiting inside?" he asked.
She gave him a dark look. "I couldn't just hang about outside the door in the staff wing. The door's only keyed to your magical signature, remember?"
Oh. Right. "Between the two of us I'm sure we can figure out how to alter that," he responded. Checking the hallway again, he led her quickly down the hall to the right door and pressed his palm against it, unlocking it for both of them.
"Did you know," Hermione asked conversationally, "that the door at the end of that hall is a huge room with a trapdoor leading to a series of secret rooms beneath Hogwarts? Many of them are quite large and grand-makes you wonder what their purpose was when Hogwarts was created."
Severus stared at her in surprise. "A series of grand chambers beneath Hogwarts?"
"Yes, at least, I strongly suspect they are beneath-there's a hall after the initial drop that was a bit damp. I think it borders the lake."
Severus interrogated eagerly. "Were there any portraits? Statues? Did you see anything monstrous, or any evidence that something might have lived there once?"
Hermione blinked, then crossed over to sit on the couch and set her book bag down. Tucking her feet up under her, she answered cautiously. "Technically, we weren't supposed to be there, the headmaster had said it was off limits. Though in hindsight I think we were. Supposed to be there, I mean. It was set up to look like a series of layered protections done by the professors, but it was more like an obstacle course than real protections, if you know what I mean? Like what we were talking about at Grimmauld Place.
"They didn't ward the door at all, just locked it. Professor Sprout used Devil's Snare instead of Venomous Tentacula, and Professor Snape provided potions with his riddle that would actually get past his wards instead of just poisoning all of them. The whole basis of Professor Flitwick's challenge was flying-something everyone knew Harry was good at by then. There were monsters, yes, but they could be bypassed if one happened to actually read their homework, or alternatively, was friends with Hagrid." She frowned for a moment, as if just realising he was still standing there, staring at her incredulously. "Why do you ask?"
Severus shook his head, and tried not to be envious that she had actually seen it. "I just...I hadn't realised that someone had found Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets-or if it was really real. They must have tracked it down after the last time it was opened."
To his surprise, Hermione laughed and shook her head. "It's not the Chamber of Secrets."
"How do you know? It makes sense," Severus argued. "It's underground and at least runs by the lake and...what?"
Hermione was shaking her head again."Because the entrance to that is in the girls' loo on the fifth floor-Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Harry found it in our second year."
"Wait...wait, you're telling me Potter found it? But...but…" To his horror, Severus heard himself whinge. "But he's a Gryffindor. He can't just...find it. Especially in the loo. The loo of all places."
Hermione grimaced apologetically. "If it helps, it probably wasn't always a loo-a lot has changed in fifteen centuries, especially plumbing. Harry did use the Sword of Gryffindor to kill the monster-a basilisk-and he probably wouldn't have found the Chamber at all except that he's also a parselmouth and could hear the awful thing."
Severus felt a little sick inside. Harry Bloody Potter had found the Slytherin Chamber of Secrets and had killed a basilisk at twelve after defeating Lord Voldemort as a toddler. He had also apparently traipsed through some other suite of secret grand chambers in an obstacle course set up specifically for him by all the professors-if Hermione was to be believed, and he rather thought she was.
Yet Potter seemed so very ordinary. He didn't radiate power the way that the headmaster did, or his own elder self, nor did he seem particularly talented or intelligent, except in Potions. Even Severus had to admit, as much as it rankled, Potter had made a hell of a Draught of Living Death. Severus tapped his foot as he thought, wishing he could puzzle out what it was that put Harry Potter in a strange class of his own. There was definitely something about him-something intrinsically not right.
Almost as if she were reading his mind, Hermione hesitantly tried to explain. "You must understand, everyone has expected Harry to be a hero and save them from You-Know-Who ever since he arrived here. It's given him a bit of a complex, actually. He's been targeted a lot by You-Know-Who's followers, and given extra attention and training by Professor Dumbledore. It's all just...snowballed a bit over the years, and sucked us all in. He wouldn't have found the Chamber, or been sucked into the TriWizard Tournament. I would never have been brewing polyjuice in second year if it weren't for Harry, and we certainly would never have tried to break into the Department of Mysteries last year."
Severus inhaled sharply through his nose, and couldn't keep himself from bursting incredulously, "You brewed polyjuice in your second year?" Not even Severus had attempted so advanced a potion as early as that! Impressed despite himself, he asked eagerly, "You succeeded?"
"Yes...well, sort of." Hermione's cheeks pinkened. "It worked for Harry and Ron. Mine...uh...I didn't quite get the hair I was looking for, so my results were a bit unexpected."
"Turned into someone you didn't mean to?" Severus couldn't help smirking. "Still, that's really, really impressive." To his delight, her blush deepened and she glanced down at her hands, wringing them a little.
"Oh, it's nothing like you do," she demurred quickly. "I just...did what the book said. I'm better at following book instructions than anybody." She smiled self-deprecatingly. "I'm not creative like you are, able to improve them or make new ones. That's what's really impressive." Her brown eyes flicked up to his briefly, and Severus felt his pulse jump in response.
He cleared his throat as what he wanted to ask seemed to be stuck there. "Why...why do you like me? No one really has before and I mean...you do, still, right?" He hastily asked, suddenly nervous that she had changed her mind, and was about to laugh at him.
Hermione's eyes shot to his again, and then dropped back to her hands. "Yes. I do. I rather wish I didn't, because you can be kind of an arse sometimes, like now, rubbing this whole thing in. Then you do something sweet, like in Defence, or in the library, and I just...Are you playing me?" To his surprise, she suddenly stood, nearly putting them eye-to-eye. Anger flashed in hers and she gestured sharply with both hands. "Were you-are you-just stringing me along because it feels nice to know someone likes you?"
Severus crossed his arms and hunched a little. "I...no. I don't think so."
"You don't think so?" Her eyes snapped and her hands moved to her hips. Her chin jutted dangerously. "What do you mean, you don't think so?"
Fuck. He was in trouble, now. Severus shuffled past her and sat, letting his hair fall forward to shield his face. "I...it's been a lot for me at once. I spent years liking this other girl. Then suddenly I'm in the future and she's dead. Dead, Hermione. She married the boy who made my life hell at Hogwarts, and then died, and then...then there's you, and you just seem to like me, when no one really has before." He allowed confusion to colour his voice and shrugged at her a little wonderingly. "And you're not even faking it so I'll do your homework! You're smart-smart enough to get my references, and you’re soft, and I like kissing you, but then sometimes I remember Lily, and I feel bloody guilty for just forgetting all about her.
"And suddenly I have to be someone else, and live in a different House, and make friends all over again," he lifted his head and glared at her. "Which is something I'm bad at, alright? You already have all your friends and they didn't seem too keen to accept me, and...yes. Yes, I still like you. That bloody potion smells just like your lotion, and oranges. Like the way you tasted on the roof that night. Except it also smells…"
Severus' voice trailed off and completed the thought in his head. ...It also smells faintly of cherry blossoms and grass-like her, and of the heavy candles that I associate with reading my Dark Arts books at night when no one can see. Part of me is relieved that I haven't lost her entirely, that I haven't lost me entirely.
"I'm just...worried that liking you is not enough, or that it's wrong. What does that say about me if I can love one girl with every fibre of my being and just...forget her and like someone else only a month or so after finding out she's dead? What will it do to me if I let go and you bloody well just change your mind?"
Surprise, guilt and sympathy flittered across her face. "I'm sorry. I didn't…" She swallowed and admitted, "I didn't even consider. I feel like a horrible person for not getting that earlier." She sat down next to him and gave him an intense look. "I want to be your friend. I've already said that even if you don't want more, I want that. As for why I like you…" Hermione sighed.
"You don't make me feel...less because I'm smart. You don't look at me like I'm worthless because I don't charm my hair or alter my uniforms to fit more closely. I can say snotty things to you and you think it's funny. You like to learn things, to try things, and you aren't scared off just because it might blow up in your face or you might get in trouble. You were willing to teach me occlumancy-and you have this smile. This one smile that I feel like you only ever show me. It makes me feel like the prettiest girl in the world even though I'm not, just because it's mine." She gave him a sideways glance. "At least, I think it is. I've never seen you smile at someone else with it, and I...uh...I watch you rather a lot." She buried her face behind her hands, letting her own wild hair fall forward in a secondary shield. It was a gesture he knew all too well, and it was fascinating to see her version of it. "Ugh, I must sound like the worst sort of stalker."
She was rather adorable, actually. She liked him. Somehow, against all the odds, he had mistakenly landed in time with a girl that understood. Understood and liked what he had to offer, even though he was too everything. Her admission bolstered his confidence, and Severus reached out and wrapped his arms around the girl next to him, tugging her close.
She started at first, nearly falling over in his arms, and then suddenly, fiercely wrapped her arms around him, too. It felt right; she really did fit just perfectly. He was still trying to decide the best way to go about kissing her when she said, "Oh, to hell with it!" into his shoulder, lifted her chin and kissed him instead.
They kissed for a long moment-a breathtaking tangle of sweetness and passion, before he reluctantly pulled away and gave her a look. "I want...I'd like to try this again. If that's okay."
She stroked his hand softly. "Are you sure it's okay?"
To Severus' horror, his voice actually cracked as he answered. As if I'm bloody-thirteen-years-old. "I'm really sure. Just don't hate me if I occasionally get it wrong, yeah?"
Hermione nodded. "Same goes."
They spent quite a bit of time kissing after that.
A/N: A very extra special thank you to Dragoon811, for calming me down and sorting my head out when I took a look at my outline and started freaking out. You're an angel.
Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 03 September 1996, 07:43 PM
Severus glanced up idly as several students started vacating the library, and then twisted around to stare at the large clock hanging over the main entrance. He hadn't realised it was quite so late-it would be curfew for the younger years in just a few minutes. The sixth and seventh years had the castle to themselves now for two more hours, and most of them would probably end up in the library. House affiliations aside, it seemed an unassailable truth that most students procrastinated on their homework throughout the day, mucked about during their free periods and then, when suddenly confronted with a much louder common room at eight in the evening, flooded the library to get their work done.
Severus ran a critical eye over his Charms essay and decided that he had made all the major points Professor Flitwick would be looking for. As soon as he wrote a quick closing paragraph, he could be done. He would not be spending his two hours of extra freedom frantically doing homework. He had just stuffed his books and freshly rolled essay scroll back into his bag and was ready to leave when he saw Potter enter.
The other boy sat down and pulled out his charms textbook and writing supplies. No doubt he was about to work on the very essay Severus had just finished. Covertly, Severus studied him. He looked so much like his father that Severus' first instinct was to leave and try to avoid notice. He has an essay to write, perhaps he will not follow… Severus shook himself, and grimaced. The resemblance really was startlingly close. Was there anything of Lily in him at all?
His eyes. He remembered that much from their ill-fated encounter in Diagon Alley. His build looked smaller than James Potter's as well. He was shorter, and leaner. Precious little of Lily seemed to exist in her child. Yet...something inside him had defeated the most powerful wizard Severus had ever heard of...as a toddler. Lord Voldemort had cut James Potter and Lily down with hardly a pause, and yet had burned to ash when confronted with this boy.
Lily. It still hurt, like his heart was being squeezed. He had been petitioning to join the Death Eaters-he had been creating a fabulous elixir to prove he was worthy. He was supposed to be in a position of power so that he might secure her safety. Why, then, was she dead? Why had Lord Voldemort killed her, if Professor Snape sat at his right hand, as he had claimed?
Without even realising he was doing it, Severus found himself walking over to where Harry Potter sat. Potter was so engrossed in flipping through his textbook pages and adding to his essay that it took him a moment to realise Severus was standing in front of him.
Potter looked at him warily, a barely contained tension in his frame that Severus recognised. Harry Potter was a little bit afraid of him. The thought had Severus pausing and then filing the observation away to prod at mentally later.
"Something you need, Prince?" Harry asked tightly.
Severus shook his head, and then contradicted himself. "I want to know how you defeated...You-Know-Who."
To his surprise, Potter suddenly slumped back into his chair and rolled his eyes. "You and everyone else. I don't remember it, at least not much. Professor Dumbledore told me that it has to do with love, and my mum dying. He said that Voldemort couldn't understand love, so he couldn't touch me. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
It made perfect sense, actually. Professor Dumbledore had told Severus at Grimmauld Place that Potter's survival had to do with "complicated blood magic." Once all the clues were there, it was frighteningly easy to understand exactly what had happened. It wouldn't occur to most people, he supposed. Not many were as interested in the Dark Arts as he was.
Blood was powerful. It made any magic more powerful-wards, rites, and potions. Often it could make magic permanent. A willing and innocent sacrifice of blood for another person would create a powerful protection spell. It wasn't the entire story, however. It couldn't possibly be. Otherwise Lily would have lived as well. Hadn't Potter allegedly given his life to protect her as well as Harry? As much as Severus would like to believe that James Potter had failed to die altruistically enough, it really didn't hold water. After all, how many others outside the Potter family had also died in the war to protect their loved ones? There was something else involved that night that had caused the spell to backfire as it did.
"Erm...was that it?"
Severus glanced back down at Harry Potter, suddenly realising he had been standing silently over the boy for a full minute while he thought. He shrugged in response. "I was thinking."
Harry Potter pressed his lips together briefly. "You and Hermione are actually rather alike, aren't you? What is going on with her anyway? Three days ago she said you were seeing each other, but now Ginny says you're not, but then you stood up to Malfoy for her-which, don't get me wrong, I hate the guy, he's up to something and I'm pretty sure he's a Death Eater, so good on you for that-but he's not exactly the kind of person you get in the way of over someone you don't give a toss about, so-"
Severus shook his head and cut Potter off, "Shut up and take a breath, Potter. I can't respond with you nattering like an old woman." Severus tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, and then said quietly, "I don't like bullies."
Potter nodded slowly. "I don't like bullies, either."
Severus raised his brows in disbelief.
Potter frowned. "Is it that hard to believe? I've never done anything to you, and I haven't been bullying anyone. Why would you think otherwise?"
"You drew wand on me the first time we met," Severus pointed out, crossing his arms.
"You hexed me first, unprovoked, in the halls here." Potter cut Severus off as he opened his mouth to protest. "We both know you are lying about that, even though you won't admit it. I don't get that, Prince. It's not like I can do anything about it even if you do admit it."
Potter sighed and rubbed his the scar on his forehead, then said reluctantly, "I grew up with my Muggle relatives. My aunt and uncle hate magic-they're afraid of it. My cousin has always been bigger, stronger and spoiled rotten. He used to make it clear in the school yard that anyone nice to me would find themselves cornered and picked on. He would throw tantrums and knock me down if I did anything he didn't like...or if anyone did something he didn't like. He used to convince my aunt and uncle to drop me off at this old lady's house next door so that I wouldn't be able to come on family outings, and I never got food unless my cousin had filled up first.
"Until I was eleven years old, I slept in a cupboard. When they finally did give me a bedroom, they put bars on the windows and tried to keep me from going to school. They still tell all their friends that I go to a school for troublesome children, but not to worry, they beat students there regularly." Potter gave him a hard, flinty look. "I know something about bullying, Prince. I don't hold with it."
Petunia Evans had done that to her own nephew? She had never been a particularly nice girl, and had been clearly jealous of her sister, but she had seemed to care for Lily, too. Severus would not have thought that she'd treat blood that way. Suddenly Potter's smaller, leaner build made sense. Like Severus, he had been neglected and underfed just enough in his formative years that his body had compensated accordingly. Not wanting to empathise, but unable to really help himself, Severus gave Potter a short nod. "Hermione and I are friends, Potter. More than that...I'm not really sure right now. It's not really your business, you know."
"Hermione's my friend, too." Potter's gaze was steady, and nearly an exact replica of his mother's from years earlier. Surprisingly, that thought didn't twist in Severus' guts the way he expected it to.
Severus felt his lips twist slightly, and he glanced down at the nearly empty page in front of Potter. "Enjoy your essay." He turned away to leave just in time to see Potter grimace out of the corner of his eye. The superior feeling the image gave him made Severus feel oddly better. Not everything had to change, and that was comforting.
He found Hermione loitering outside the entrance of the third floor corridor, looking like she was trying to act like she wasn't. Her body language practically screamed that she was either attempting to ambush someone coming out or spying on someone within. Gryffindors. It was almost cute, actually, how she tried.
A glance down the hall behind her revealed that there was no activity. "Is there a reason you're just hanging about instead of waiting inside?" he asked.
She gave him a dark look. "I couldn't just hang about outside the door in the staff wing. The door's only keyed to your magical signature, remember?"
Oh. Right. "Between the two of us I'm sure we can figure out how to alter that," he responded. Checking the hallway again, he led her quickly down the hall to the right door and pressed his palm against it, unlocking it for both of them.
"Did you know," Hermione asked conversationally, "that the door at the end of that hall is a huge room with a trapdoor leading to a series of secret rooms beneath Hogwarts? Many of them are quite large and grand-makes you wonder what their purpose was when Hogwarts was created."
Severus stared at her in surprise. "A series of grand chambers beneath Hogwarts?"
"Yes, at least, I strongly suspect they are beneath-there's a hall after the initial drop that was a bit damp. I think it borders the lake."
Severus interrogated eagerly. "Were there any portraits? Statues? Did you see anything monstrous, or any evidence that something might have lived there once?"
Hermione blinked, then crossed over to sit on the couch and set her book bag down. Tucking her feet up under her, she answered cautiously. "Technically, we weren't supposed to be there, the headmaster had said it was off limits. Though in hindsight I think we were. Supposed to be there, I mean. It was set up to look like a series of layered protections done by the professors, but it was more like an obstacle course than real protections, if you know what I mean? Like what we were talking about at Grimmauld Place.
"They didn't ward the door at all, just locked it. Professor Sprout used Devil's Snare instead of Venomous Tentacula, and Professor Snape provided potions with his riddle that would actually get past his wards instead of just poisoning all of them. The whole basis of Professor Flitwick's challenge was flying-something everyone knew Harry was good at by then. There were monsters, yes, but they could be bypassed if one happened to actually read their homework, or alternatively, was friends with Hagrid." She frowned for a moment, as if just realising he was still standing there, staring at her incredulously. "Why do you ask?"
Severus shook his head, and tried not to be envious that she had actually seen it. "I just...I hadn't realised that someone had found Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets-or if it was really real. They must have tracked it down after the last time it was opened."
To his surprise, Hermione laughed and shook her head. "It's not the Chamber of Secrets."
"How do you know? It makes sense," Severus argued. "It's underground and at least runs by the lake and...what?"
Hermione was shaking her head again."Because the entrance to that is in the girls' loo on the fifth floor-Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Harry found it in our second year."
"Wait...wait, you're telling me Potter found it? But...but…" To his horror, Severus heard himself whinge. "But he's a Gryffindor. He can't just...find it. Especially in the loo. The loo of all places."
Hermione grimaced apologetically. "If it helps, it probably wasn't always a loo-a lot has changed in fifteen centuries, especially plumbing. Harry did use the Sword of Gryffindor to kill the monster-a basilisk-and he probably wouldn't have found the Chamber at all except that he's also a parselmouth and could hear the awful thing."
Severus felt a little sick inside. Harry Bloody Potter had found the Slytherin Chamber of Secrets and had killed a basilisk at twelve after defeating Lord Voldemort as a toddler. He had also apparently traipsed through some other suite of secret grand chambers in an obstacle course set up specifically for him by all the professors-if Hermione was to be believed, and he rather thought she was.
Yet Potter seemed so very ordinary. He didn't radiate power the way that the headmaster did, or his own elder self, nor did he seem particularly talented or intelligent, except in Potions. Even Severus had to admit, as much as it rankled, Potter had made a hell of a Draught of Living Death. Severus tapped his foot as he thought, wishing he could puzzle out what it was that put Harry Potter in a strange class of his own. There was definitely something about him-something intrinsically not right.
Almost as if she were reading his mind, Hermione hesitantly tried to explain. "You must understand, everyone has expected Harry to be a hero and save them from You-Know-Who ever since he arrived here. It's given him a bit of a complex, actually. He's been targeted a lot by You-Know-Who's followers, and given extra attention and training by Professor Dumbledore. It's all just...snowballed a bit over the years, and sucked us all in. He wouldn't have found the Chamber, or been sucked into the TriWizard Tournament. I would never have been brewing polyjuice in second year if it weren't for Harry, and we certainly would never have tried to break into the Department of Mysteries last year."
Severus inhaled sharply through his nose, and couldn't keep himself from bursting incredulously, "You brewed polyjuice in your second year?" Not even Severus had attempted so advanced a potion as early as that! Impressed despite himself, he asked eagerly, "You succeeded?"
"Yes...well, sort of." Hermione's cheeks pinkened. "It worked for Harry and Ron. Mine...uh...I didn't quite get the hair I was looking for, so my results were a bit unexpected."
"Turned into someone you didn't mean to?" Severus couldn't help smirking. "Still, that's really, really impressive." To his delight, her blush deepened and she glanced down at her hands, wringing them a little.
"Oh, it's nothing like you do," she demurred quickly. "I just...did what the book said. I'm better at following book instructions than anybody." She smiled self-deprecatingly. "I'm not creative like you are, able to improve them or make new ones. That's what's really impressive." Her brown eyes flicked up to his briefly, and Severus felt his pulse jump in response.
He cleared his throat as what he wanted to ask seemed to be stuck there. "Why...why do you like me? No one really has before and I mean...you do, still, right?" He hastily asked, suddenly nervous that she had changed her mind, and was about to laugh at him.
Hermione's eyes shot to his again, and then dropped back to her hands. "Yes. I do. I rather wish I didn't, because you can be kind of an arse sometimes, like now, rubbing this whole thing in. Then you do something sweet, like in Defence, or in the library, and I just...Are you playing me?" To his surprise, she suddenly stood, nearly putting them eye-to-eye. Anger flashed in hers and she gestured sharply with both hands. "Were you-are you-just stringing me along because it feels nice to know someone likes you?"
Severus crossed his arms and hunched a little. "I...no. I don't think so."
"You don't think so?" Her eyes snapped and her hands moved to her hips. Her chin jutted dangerously. "What do you mean, you don't think so?"
Fuck. He was in trouble, now. Severus shuffled past her and sat, letting his hair fall forward to shield his face. "I...it's been a lot for me at once. I spent years liking this other girl. Then suddenly I'm in the future and she's dead. Dead, Hermione. She married the boy who made my life hell at Hogwarts, and then died, and then...then there's you, and you just seem to like me, when no one really has before." He allowed confusion to colour his voice and shrugged at her a little wonderingly. "And you're not even faking it so I'll do your homework! You're smart-smart enough to get my references, and you’re soft, and I like kissing you, but then sometimes I remember Lily, and I feel bloody guilty for just forgetting all about her.
"And suddenly I have to be someone else, and live in a different House, and make friends all over again," he lifted his head and glared at her. "Which is something I'm bad at, alright? You already have all your friends and they didn't seem too keen to accept me, and...yes. Yes, I still like you. That bloody potion smells just like your lotion, and oranges. Like the way you tasted on the roof that night. Except it also smells…"
Severus' voice trailed off and completed the thought in his head. ...It also smells faintly of cherry blossoms and grass-like her, and of the heavy candles that I associate with reading my Dark Arts books at night when no one can see. Part of me is relieved that I haven't lost her entirely, that I haven't lost me entirely.
"I'm just...worried that liking you is not enough, or that it's wrong. What does that say about me if I can love one girl with every fibre of my being and just...forget her and like someone else only a month or so after finding out she's dead? What will it do to me if I let go and you bloody well just change your mind?"
Surprise, guilt and sympathy flittered across her face. "I'm sorry. I didn't…" She swallowed and admitted, "I didn't even consider. I feel like a horrible person for not getting that earlier." She sat down next to him and gave him an intense look. "I want to be your friend. I've already said that even if you don't want more, I want that. As for why I like you…" Hermione sighed.
"You don't make me feel...less because I'm smart. You don't look at me like I'm worthless because I don't charm my hair or alter my uniforms to fit more closely. I can say snotty things to you and you think it's funny. You like to learn things, to try things, and you aren't scared off just because it might blow up in your face or you might get in trouble. You were willing to teach me occlumancy-and you have this smile. This one smile that I feel like you only ever show me. It makes me feel like the prettiest girl in the world even though I'm not, just because it's mine." She gave him a sideways glance. "At least, I think it is. I've never seen you smile at someone else with it, and I...uh...I watch you rather a lot." She buried her face behind her hands, letting her own wild hair fall forward in a secondary shield. It was a gesture he knew all too well, and it was fascinating to see her version of it. "Ugh, I must sound like the worst sort of stalker."
She was rather adorable, actually. She liked him. Somehow, against all the odds, he had mistakenly landed in time with a girl that understood. Understood and liked what he had to offer, even though he was too everything. Her admission bolstered his confidence, and Severus reached out and wrapped his arms around the girl next to him, tugging her close.
She started at first, nearly falling over in his arms, and then suddenly, fiercely wrapped her arms around him, too. It felt right; she really did fit just perfectly. He was still trying to decide the best way to go about kissing her when she said, "Oh, to hell with it!" into his shoulder, lifted her chin and kissed him instead.
They kissed for a long moment-a breathtaking tangle of sweetness and passion, before he reluctantly pulled away and gave her a look. "I want...I'd like to try this again. If that's okay."
She stroked his hand softly. "Are you sure it's okay?"
To Severus' horror, his voice actually cracked as he answered. As if I'm bloody-thirteen-years-old. "I'm really sure. Just don't hate me if I occasionally get it wrong, yeah?"
Hermione nodded. "Same goes."
They spent quite a bit of time kissing after that.
A/N: A very extra special thank you to Dragoon811, for calming me down and sorting my head out when I took a look at my outline and started freaking out. You're an angel.
Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter