26th March, 1999. 11:44 p.m.
A soft tapping distracted Severus from his reading. It was hardly the most interesting reading—the legislation he needed to understand in order to register HaDeS Potioneers, as they’d decided to call themselves, thinking the name rather appropriate, as a licensed potions provider—but he still couldn’t afford to be distracted from it. They needed to get things up and running as soon as possible. The three of them had a tiny amount of savings left, and Severus was already considering selling Spinner’s End. It may have been run-down, but it could be prime real estate if it were to be demolished, and he had to admit that living anywhere short of Azkaban would have been better than living here.
The sound did not come again immediately, so shaking his head, he went back to his reading. It would be the branches on the window again, meaning that the weather was getting bad. Another storm would probably have most of the top floor sopping wet from the leaking roof. Yet another reason to sell the place. However, a few minutes later, a louder rap came that he now identified as a knock on his bedroom door.
With a frown and a feeling of trepidation, he rose, tying his robe around his waist as he crossed the room. Opening the door, he found Hermione similarly clad.
“Good evening, Severus,” she said in a quiet, shaky voice, glancing down the corridor to make sure she hadn’t roused Draco. “Can I come in?” she asked, looking up at him but not quite making eye contact.
“If you must,” he almost growled, holding the door open for her. What on earth was she doing? Whatever it was, he was feeling more and more wary by the second.
“Sna—You—”
“Severus,” he interjected, correcting her for what had to be the hundredth time. Names were still a sticking point sometimes.
“Severus,” she said without sounding at all relieved. “You’ve been so good to me.” She raised her head to meet his eyes now, and he was alarmed by what he saw in them. A fiery determination, but to do what, he didn’t want to guess at.
“Hermione,” he broke in once again, hoping to end this as quickly and painlessly as possible. “Whatever I have done for you, and I doubt it has been much, I have done very willingly.” <i>Because I couldn’t bear to see you sacrifice your youth and intelligence like I did mine. Like Draco was threatening to do.</i> “We do not need to discuss this.”
“Yes. We do. I want to repay you somehow. Trying to help me when I first was cursed, trying to save me from myself, helping me through Azkaban, housing and employing me now…”
“Nothing, Hermione. Nothing. Please.” Severus was almost pleading now. This was going somewhere he couldn’t bear to go. They did <i>not</i> need to talk about why he had done all of that. They did <i>not</i> need to talk about why the ex-best friend of Harry Potter deserved as much from him as his godson.
“I need to repay you. I don’t have anything but… Well…” she tried again, but failed equally dismally to express herself. Suddenly, her eyes dropping from his and a flush rising on her face, she clutched her hands to her chest and pulled open her robe to reveal her semi-naked flesh. She had not had the guts to come completely naked, and so it was her underwear and sharply defined ribs and hips that she was exposing to him now.
“Hermione!” he gasped out, averting his eyes after one searing look.
“Please,” she said, taking a step toward him and reaching out to his chest. He clutched her wrists forcefully and refused to turn his head to look at her. “I’m attracted to you. I was… before.” She did not want to say ‘at school’. “It’s not like I’m not willing. I want to. Please. Let me repay you.”
“Hermione Granger, I am going to let go of you now, and then I want you to retie your robe”—<i>because heaven forbid that Draco see you like this</i>—“and leave. This is… unnecessary. This is definitely not what you want. This is not something I would want”—<i>not like this</i>—“and I think that in the morning you will regret this. Let us agree to never speak of it again, Hermione.”
“No!” she protested. “I know I’m not as pretty as I might have been, but…”
“Silence!” Severus almost yelled, no longer really caring about waking Draco. <i>You’re still beautiful, don’t you realise?</i> “Hermione, you have to go now. Please.” He was begging her, and somehow she knew it, even though it confused and disappointed her.
“Very well. I had thought—But never mind. I’m sorry. I’ll go. You can let go now.”
With a terse nod that was directed at her even if he was still looking at the wall, he released her. In his peripheral vision he saw her hands busy at her waist for a second, and then she moved toward the door.
“Good night, Severus.”
He couldn’t bring himself to answer. The second she had closed the door, he flung himself onto the bed, dragging in huge gulps of air and trying desperately to calm his racing heart. Thrusting his furious, quaking hands beneath the folds of his robe was the only thing he could think of to try and manage it.
13th January, 2000. 10:25 a.m.
Severus paused in his narration now. He would elide the memory of that fateful day when she had almost blown up the new house and he had finally succumbed to her. In this pause, however, he lost his power of the moment.
“Yeah, I’m sure that the fact that you might or might not be fucking my best friend is thoroughly relevant.”
“Ex-best friend,” Severus interrupted. He opened his mouth to continue talking, but Harry was on a roll.
“While this is an interesting story and all, what the fuck is going on, Snape? I’m here to see Hermione. I want to know where Ron is and what happened between them!” Harry finally managed to exclaim, having been waiting for a pause for some time.
“I see, Mr. Potter. I understand your concern, but this is all very important background. However, if you want me to cut to the chase, here it is,” Severus sneered. “Your friend is dead.”
A sudden gasp rang out from the corner of the room followed by the clattering of the door flying open and Hermione launching herself into the room.
“Hermione! Finally. What—I mean, I don’t—He’s not making any sense!” Harry finished angrily.
“Draco!” Severus bellowed, and a sudden rumble from directly overhead told him that Draco was on his way. Where had the stupid boy been when he should have been watching Hermione? How could he have let her listen at the door? How could he have forgotten the charms to keep this conversation private? He was getting stupid.
“It’s not true, Harry. It’s…”
“Yes, it is,” Severus growled.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Draco asked, stumbling in through the door.
“What the hell have you been doing? Will you take Miss Granger upstairs and both of you get back to work?”
“I’m sorry, I—” Draco began, realising at once his mistake.
“No. I’m not going anywhere, Severus! I can’t let you—You shouldn’t—Don’t!”
“Hermione, please,” Severus urged tenderly but with great anxiety in his voice, moving towards her. “Go back upstairs with Draco. Let me deal with this. Please? Draco!” Draco moved forward to catch Hermione by the arm, but she shook him off.
“No! Severus, what’s going on? Why are—Harry!” She suddenly turned to her former friend. “He’s lying, Harry—”
“He better fucking had be. Now why don’t you tell me what the fuck is going on before I Floo the Ministry and just send the Aurors to clear up this whole mess?” Harry threatened.
“Mr. Potter, my story that you had found rather uninteresting was actually just getting to the worthwhile part.”
“Seriously,” Harry threatened, moving toward the fireplace. “If one of you doesn’t tell me what the fuck is going on in the next five seconds, I’m Flooing the Ministry.”
“I killed him!” Hermione and Severus let out at once.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Draco muttered to himself in the background. He had known this was going to happen, but still. If he were to be completely honest with himself, he was a little jealous of Severus’ reaction to all of this. Not so very long ago, Draco would have wished to be in his shoes, protecting the woman he loved from anything, even herself. Now, however, he’d moved on, found a woman he would probably marry, and he could see the tragedy more clearly. Still, no matter how stupid the two of them were being, he had his wand half-out, ready to hex—and maybe kill, although he didn’t want to admit that to himself—Potter if things turned <i>really</i> bad. From the position of Snape’s hand at his waist, however, it looked like he was thinking along similar lines. Of course.
They appeared now to be in a stand-off position. Harry flicked his eyes between Snape and Draco, and he clearly knew that their wands were poised to hex him at any minute.
“Let’s just take a minute and calm down, now, shall we?” Harry said finally in a hostage-negotiator tone. He backed away from them all slightly and sat down in the nearest chair. Draco took a few steps into the room towards Hermione.
“Come away, Hermione,” he muttered at her insistently. If he could only get her out of there, he and Snape could potentially fix the damage done here.
“No. She’s not going anywhere,” Harry’s voice broke in loudly. “I want an explanation from you three—all <i>three</i> of you, Draco—and I’m not going anywhere until I get it.”
Severus, Hermione and Draco exchanged looks now. Hermione looked mutinous, but Severus could see in Draco’s eyes that the younger man would back him all the way in whatever he chose to do next. Severus turned his attention back to Hermione, and with an elevation of his brows and a slight pursing of his lips, he tried to ask whether or not she would let him speak for them. She frowned, but nodded nonetheless.
When Severus turned back to Harry and met his eye, the younger man spoke again. “Where is Ron and what has happened to him? I need to know,” he added in a low voice.
“Mr. Potter, What I told you was the truth. Ronald is dead.”
“You killed him?” Harry demanded in a low, troubled voice. Was this true, what he was hearing? How could it be? Ron couldn’t be dead. He was getting married soon. The idea was ludicrous. And yet…
Severus avoided answering that question. He could see Hermione in his peripheral vision, shifting her weight uneasily from one foot to the other, and beyond, Draco was watching her like a hawk. He needed to play this safe now. He <i>did</i> have a plan. And if he was any judge of character, it would work. As long as Hermione let him do it his way.
“There was a point to my story,” he said at long last. “The point was to remind you of how much Hermione suffered because of you and Ronald. How much she was changed.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Harry interrupted thickly. His eyes were wide and gleaming now, and his face was pale, his chin trembling a little.
“Ronald tried to force himself back into her life, tried to force her to repeat all of that pain…”
“And so you killed him?” Harry demanded.
Severus sensed rather than saw Hermione lunging forward to answer the question, and he instinctively shot out an arm and gripped her hand tightly. “Yes,” was the hollow, heavy answer he gave to the dark-haired man in front of him. He only just heard the sound of Hermione’s protest catching in her throat as he squeezed her hand harder. If she would just hang on…
“Think about it, Harry. You might have done the same, had things been different.” The was the psychological point that Severus was betting on, and he felt terrified now, in the moment of confession, that he might be proved on. That would mean Azkaban for him, and he could hardly suppress a shudder at the thought, but he had been serious when he had told Draco he was willing to take on that responsibility. Hermione would be free, that would be the main thing. Draco would take care of her. He realised now that part of the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach was jealousy. If he were in Azkaban, Draco and Hermione… they might… Well, Draco might rediscover some of his old feelings, and Hermione might find herself reciprocating… It was almost too much to bear, and it was only when Harry began to speak that Severus realised that the tension the other three were feeling was due to a totally different cause to his own.
“I can’t… I don’t…” Harry stuttered. “I need to leave. I can’t deal with this. This is insane!” He rose to his feet and hurried to the door, but Draco barred him.
“I’m not sure we can let you leave, Mr. Potter.”
Harry turned to Severus with a sickly pallor on his face and a crazed gleam in his eye. “Oh, your secret’s safe with me, Snape. Who am I going to tell? Ginny? How could I tell her that? You killed one of her brothers to save the woman who killed another? It makes me feel sick just to think about telling Ginny…”
And there it was. Point number two that Severus had been hoping to score. Harry now had every reason to conceal Ron’s death, just as they did. It would just take him a day or two to realise it and to come around to how to go about it. Their tenuous peace had to be preserved at all costs. Severus and Harry were the two people in the world most likely to know that after all they had been through. Even Draco and Hermione, much as they had suffered, had little conception of what could truly be sacrificed for a semblance of happiness.
“Very well. For now, perhaps you need time to think. However, we will need to talk again, Harry.”
The sound of his first name on his enemy’s lips struck Harry deeply. His lip quivered, and Severus realised he might have gone too far. He had shown him their similarity too soon. Harry might be disgusted, might take the ‘right’ path and go straight to the Aurors. Severus’ heart was in his throat as he stared Harry down. <i>Tell me I’m right, Harry. Tell me we’re going to talk about this again and you’ll come to the right decision.</i>
Harry glared at him and then turned away. “Let me out, Draco.”
Draco, his wand now raised at chest level, looked over Harry’s shoulder at Severus, and a nod told him all he needed to know. For now, Severus thought they were safe.
“I’ll see you out,” Draco replied in a low voice, still wary about what Severus was doing. How could they just let Harry walk out? Toying with the idea of Oblivating the other man, he held the door open and followed him into the corridor. He closed the door and had only taken two steps towards the front door when Harry threw his body weight against him and pinned him to the wall.
“Move and I’ll kill you,” Harry threatened, his hand clutching the other man’s shirt and his wand pushed into the hard lump of his Adam’s apple.
“What do you want, Potter?” Draco rasped, keeping his voice as cold and disdainful as he possibly could.
“Which of them was it, Draco?” Harry demanded hoarsely. “Severus or Hermione? I need to know, don’t you see?”
“You heard what Severus said,” Draco said. He wasn’t going to answer that question.
“It was her, wasn’t it? All this is bullshit. I don’t know what Snape’s playing at… It was her!”
“Harry—”
“Don’t say anything. I know the answer. I’ll see myself out, Malfoy. Don’t worry. The secret’s safe for now. Until I can figure out what the fuck to do…”
The door slamming closed barely registered above the sound of blood thumping in Draco’s ears. Shit. What the fuck was he going to do about that? Probably <i>not</i> tell Snape, that was for sure.