Severus stood in the doorway, watching as the three graduate students were obviously hard at work. He almost hated to disturb them. None of them seemed to even notice they were being watched. A true testament to Hermione feeling … safe here. He wondered if she even realized it.
When had it happened? Was it a gradual thing? Or had she felt safe here all along? Did she have nightmares, as he did? He recalled Harry suggest she wasn't the soundest of sleepers.
For his part, the past six years were the first time he'd ever felt safe in his life. He wasn't sure what that said, and hadn't looked too deeply at it either beyond acknowledging it was fact.
What would she think of the … things he'd done, before and after turning spy? Reading through the past issues of the Daily Prophet and Quibbler she'd provided him told him that she had a great number of facts about his past.
And still pursued him.
And still returned his memories to him.
And sent him food and potions.
And his wand, knowing he would want it.
Nay want wasn't sufficient.
Need.
He rapped lightly on the door. It was open, so perhaps it was unnecessary. He did it anyway. This was their office. He was intruding.
Toby looked first and scowled at him. Severus had to refrain from glaring in response. He was … friends with Hermione. He had to remember that. Assuming she was still willing to speak to him.
He cleared his throat. "Hermione," he said.
Her head shot up then. She narrowed her eyes at him, but didn't look upset. Curious maybe? As if he knew how to read people in these types of situations. He knew anger well enough, though, and he wasn't seeing that.
He recognized that she was taking her cue from him. She hadn't avoided his office, but she hadn't stopped by to say hello either. She was … giving him time.
"Do you have a few moments?"
"I do," she said. No hesitation in her response. That was a relief.
"Grab your coat?"
She bit her lower lip, tilting her head a bit before she nodded. She stood after putting whatever she'd been working on away for the moment. She fetched her coat and walked to the door and then to his office with him. He grabbed his coat and then they walked outside.
He held his hand palm up once they'd gotten outside of the building. She set her hand over his and he squeezed it. He hadn't realized how much he'd welcome, and want, that touch. The spark had little to do with it.
He'd missed it. Few touched him willingly. Even as Noah Davies that was the case.
"I appreciate you giving me time."
"Oh, well, I can imagine."
"I should not have left as I did that night."
"It was not unexpected."
So, she'd expected him to leave her? Did she want him to leave? Did she wish to be rid of him? Her words before she'd initiated the legilimens with him told him she did not wish him to leave. (It had taken him days to think about the night of the party. That included what she'd said before entering his mind.) Unless she'd changed drastically, she wasn't a liar. Not about something that counted anyway. Certainly, she'd told her share of white lies as a student. (Who hadn't?)
"And yet you did it anyway."
"You have the right to know. If you choose to continue to be Noah Davies, that's up to you. You have the right to know what and who you are."
"I have not decided yet…"
She squeezed his hand, nodding slightly.
"It's a big decision."
She likely had no idea how big it was.
"Your parents. I was sorry to read that they'd passed. You told me they were deceased, so that wasn't surprising. The circumstances surrounding their absence was, though. I had heard that they were gone. I didn't know what had happened to them, but knew that they were hidden very well."
"Yes," she said.
"You performed a memory charm on them?"
"I did. And sent them to Australia. I tried to get them to leave, but they wouldn't listen to me. I was afraid if I told them everything, they'd do something to me so that I couldn't go with Harry to hunt for the horcruxes."
"You saved their lives."
"I know that, too. The headmaster mentioned Fate, and I surmise my sending them away made something unbalanced."
"Probably so."
"If they'd been captured…"
"Yes," he said. No need to make her think about what would have been done to them. She'd probably thought of all of the various possibilities already the past seven years since she sent them away. "I presume you spoke with Dumbledore's portrait?"
"I did," she said.
"And he was forthcoming with you?"
"For the most part. Surprisingly so."
"Meddling fool."
She stopped walking, dropping her hand from his. He turned to face her.
"You're surprisingly accepting of this, too."
"You did not push. Had you done that, I perhaps would have reacted very differently. And when you did offer me … assistance, you sent Harry."
"Yeah, I didn't have another choice."
"I understood why you did it, and the food and newspapers were appreciated."
"I'm glad."
"I've never had someone fuss over me. I can't say it was a bad experience."
She gave a soft laugh.
"Well, if anyone deserved a bit of fussing over, I thought it was you under those circumstances. It's not often I get to cook a full-on meal like I did. It was kind of nice,"
He stepped closer to her, bringing the palm of one of his hands to her cheek. It felt a bit cool. "It took me years, and being someone else, to get me to even acknowledge that woman may have been right. Let alone allow you close enough to know she was. I wouldn't say that I was accepting."
"Yes, well, if I had been in my sixth year when I did the polyjuice potion."
He smirked a bit. "Likely, I would have viewed it differently, yes."
She was quiet, eyes busy searching his eyes and face. He didn't look away or do anything to prevent her from meeting his eyes directly. He wasn't afraid she was going to perform legilimency on him again without notice first.
"So you have no questions for me?"
"Oh, I have plenty of questions for you," he said with a low chuckle. The irony. He was certain she could appreciate it, too. "I am not going to pepper you with them today."
"Oh," she said. He wasn't sure if that was disappointment in her tone or not.
"I figured I have plenty of time to ask you and Harry everything I want to know."
"I see," she said, sounding less disappointed.
"I am not ready to be Severus Snape again."
"I'm not going to make you be anyone or anything you're not ready for."
"And yet you…"
"Because you had a right to know! I had no idea until the headmaster told me that I was anything but a former student. I talked to Dumbledore to find out if you'd done it yourself. If you had, I would have left you alone. I would want to know. And, well, what if you did accidental magic somewhere and broke the Statute! Forget the Statute, you could have hurt someone and not known how or why. We worked hard to get any and all possible charges against you dropped. I'd hate to see you in Azkaban for a Statute violation!"
He nodded. He understood. He did.
"I liked getting to know you. Our time together was so nice. To have you speak to me as an equal was something I didn't know I wanted. You don't think it scared me that I might do something to lose someone I liked the mind of, on top of being attracted to?"
He tried to push down the feeling of … elation and warmth that washed through him at those words. She liked him. She was attracted to him. And not just his mind. He couldn't do it, though. He'd never had those words said toward him before this moment.
He leaned in then, kissing her and she gasped with what sounded like a stifled sob as she slid her lips along his. They'd never gotten beyond kissing, but he liked to think they'd gotten comfortable with doing it. Certainly, he had. He liked to think that meant she had, too.
"What do you want me to call you," she whispered, her cheek resting against his jaw when they broke to breathe.
"Noah."
She nodded.
"Have you spoken to your parents since the party?"
Interesting that she asked that. It had taken him days to think about them, and what his remembering might have done to them. They were good people, so he was pleased to know that him remembering hadn't altered anything for them.
Unless they were the world's most incredible actors, and they just weren't.
"I have," he said. "I had to know if their memories were altered by my remembering."
"And?"
"They don't seem to be. So, whatever Albus did - or caused - seems intact, even though I remember."
"I'm incredibly curious how that is possible."
"As am I," he admitted. "I have a friend from secondary school, Mikael. And a few from the neighborhood the Davies reside in from childhood: Robert, James, and Lionel, in particular. They are friends. Like my parents, I don't see them often, but for the past six years, I have met them for dinner or drinks. The memories are there. I know, now, they are not real. I have recognized for some time that things were … wrong. That earlier memories seemed … only surface deep. Associated things, the senses, that accompany memories traditionally were never there. I can remember walking to school with Robert and James for the first time. I cannot tell you how the day felt. I cannot tell you if it was warm or cool, sunny or rainy. I cannot tell you what the passing automobiles sounded like as we walked the short way to school."
She nodded and he smiled a bit.
"I can tell you here and now, what King's Crossing smelled like in September 1971. I remember vividly how loud it was. The train itself, but also the crowd of people. I can remember the sound of the train as it moved along the tracks. The feel of the boat as we made our way from Hogsmeade to the castle for the first time. The sound of the water lapping against it. The chill in the air as we made that journey over the water. I can also tell you that I laughed like you wouldn't believe when you had your polyjuice potion mishap."
She scoffed.
"I'd be mad at you, but I imagine it was rather amusing."
"Dumbledore was probably more amused than I was."
"Why?"
She leaned away from him, regarding him now. He missed her closeness. The feel of her against him. The scent of her hair.
"He knew exactly who you were then, and he found it amusing that I had to … deal with your antics."
"I see," she said. She didn't look upset, thankfully.
"Bear in mind, we had little to offer us much amusement at that point. At first, of course, I was livid. Discovering a teenager was my soul mate aside. You stole from me, and brewed a potion most students wouldn't be able to do on their own. You brewed it in a toilet, and somehow Myrtle told no one what you were doing."
"We were lucky. I saw it all as rather necessary."
"Will you come home with me?" He held up his hand when she opened her mouth. He realized too late how that sounded. What it sounded as if he was … suggesting. "There are things I'd like to ask you that I cannot here," he said, gesturing to the muggle university's campus where they were currently standing.
"Oh," she said. "Yes."
"Excellent. Come to me, or I'll find you, whichever one of us is done first. I'm glad to know I did not take too long."
"Oh, well, it's not as if I'm not busy with my studies…"
He snorted. "Spoken exactly as I'd expect you to say."
"It's true. I mean, I wondered, and was concerned, but I'm not going to let anyone interfere with my school. I'm almost done!"
"As should absolutely be the case."
He offered her his hand again, which she took and he led them back to the building. He left her at her office, kissing the top of her head. "Thank you for listening," he said before returning to his office.
*****
It was she who finished first and met him at his office. Not unexpected. He gave her an extra set of keys to his home that he kept here just in case, sending her ahead so he could stop at the store on the way home to pick up something they could make for dinner.
"You're just giving me keys to your home?"
"If you were going to alert the wizarding media, you already would have done so. I'm not asking you to move in. It's a set of keys so that you can go on ahead of me, nothing more."
"Okay. I just…"
"Relax," he said. "I have no qualms about you keeping them, but if you're not ready for that then that's fine."
She had taken the keys so when he walked through the front door he was not surprised to hear activity, more than just Fluxweed's normal greeting.
She was sitting at his dining room table, the box of Daily Prophets she'd sent with Harry in front of her.
"Are you forgetting things?"
She smirked a bit. "No, just some of these things. You know, you're living them and it doesn't seem newsworthy."
He did know. He glanced over her shoulder, saw the edition she was looking at was the one that started talking about the end of the friendship between Weasley, Weasley, Potter, and Granger. He kissed the top of her head, hoping it was comforting.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really," she shrugged. "Not much to say. I couldn't forget Ron abandoned us, and that made me an evil bitch. Ginny couldn't understand why his apologies and assurances that he'd never do it again seemed empty to me."
"Is he planning on there being another war?"
"Exactly my thought! I mean, forget me. He left his best friend." She shrugged. "Not to mention it wasn't the only time he demonstrated he was a bit of a prat. I can forgive him, but I couldn't just put it past me and not wonder what he would do if things got bad somewhere down the line. I realize war bad again is unlikely, but life isn't easy. I got the impression he thought we'd made it that far and from then on it would be Easy Street."
"Mm," he said, nodding.
From the newspaper articles, that did not seem to be true for the younger Weasley children. Percy and the older brothers seemed … good. George, Ronald, and Ginevra were clearly struggling. Ginevra wasn't meeting her potential playing quidditch. Ronald tried his hand at various jobs at the Ministry and even with his brother George. None of which worked out. He didn't get a sense of what the wizard was currently doing for work. George. He seemed to be successful from a business standpoint. It was clear, though, from the pictures in the newspapers that he was quite lost without his twin.
"Anyway. Ginny got mad at Harry because he took my side. I think Ron leaving him just highlighted that his response to Harry being in the Triwizard Tournament was reflective of what type of friend he was."
"Ginevra broke up with Harry for that?"
"Yes," she said. "Delivered an ultimatum. Her or me."
"Oh," Severus said. Obviously, he knew which choice Harry made. He couldn't blame him. Soul mate or not, he would think the same thing. At least he was pretty sure he would. Hermione had saved Harry's life several times, or at least helped keep him alive. "I didn't believe anything printed, and figured you'd tell me if and when you wanted to. I do apologize that you had a falling out."
"You didn't do anything."
"I know, but I do know what it feels like to be in Ronald Weasley's shoes. A friendship ending. It's a loss."
"You think I should forget?"
He shrugged. "I think your circumstances and mine are not remotely similar. Harry, Ginevra, Ronald, and you were not the Marauders." He shrugged. "I tried to apologize, Lily would not listen."
"Ronald has not. Not really. He thinks I'm overreacting. I mean, he's said he's sorry. I've never believed he was sincere because I'm just not sure he understands why his leaving hurt so much."
"I will admit, it took me a long time to realize how hurtful what I said to Lily was. At the time I said it, it was just a word. I didn't mean it in a hateful way. I was mad, among feeling many other emotions. Of course, I know now there is no other way to mean that word. I knew I'd erred." He took a seat. He set his hands on the table, drumming his fingers along the tabletop. "I just assumed she'd realize."
"But she didn't," she said.
"No. I never understood, still don't honestly, how she could accuse me of being evil yet not see what her friends were doing was wrong. I'm not saying my behavior was correct or that their misbehavior justified mine. Obviously, it wasn't and didn't. I didn't fit in anywhere, so I took what was offered to me. I was given the opportunity to learn things."
She set her hand over his.
"I think the difference is, you and Lily were sixteen when that happened, and we were out of Hogwarts. I've thought of it, you know."
"What?"
"If the incident with the troll hadn't happened, I was on my way to be quite like you. A misfit that no one really accepted or liked. I could understand how … good it must have felt to have someone acknowledge what you had to contribute."
"It was," he said.
He'd never quite thought of it that way. That their experiences were somewhat similar. He wagered prior to Hogwarts wasn't much different for her than for him. The only difference, he learned to keep his mouth shut, where she felt the need to prove herself. And her home life had been better than his.
He'd known about magic as a half-blood prior to arriving at Hogwarts, though. He had no idea how he might have reacted if he didn't and had the hatred of being a muggleborn on top of learning new things.
"I think if he'd given me time to think it through. Maybe things would be different. He pressured me. He wanted to get married right away. He couldn't let me … heal."
She squeezed his hand.
"That's my way of saying, I think Lily would have forgiven you with time. I'm confident she has. I'm sure from where she is that she saw that Remus, Sirius, James, and Peter were not entirely innocent. The war, both of them, really did a number on people."
"They did," he agreed.
"I've thought probably a hundred times the past couple of years, since starting my graduate studies, of reaching out to him and Ginny. I don't know what to even say at this point. They were just so … hateful, as if I was being selfish for wanting to be sure I am able to support myself."
"That's not being selfish at all. Speaking as someone whose mother was one hundred percent reliant on my father. Both mothers. Yes, Molly Weasley had it good, but not all do. You absolutely should know how to support yourself."
"Thank you."
"I asked you to come here tonight because I'd like to see your patronus."
"Oh," she said.
"You've completed your animagus training?"
"I have."
"And you are?"
"A puma," she said, with an almost embarrassed shrug.
"I'm not sure what that shrug is for. There is nothing wrong or embarrassing about being one of the fastest animals on earth. They are also solitary. It suits us."
Her eyes widened.
"Yes, that is my form, too."
She reached for her wand then and cast her patronus, frowning. It was not an otter.
"When was the last time you cast one?"
She shrugged. "Six months ago maybe. Harry leaves his owl, Sparx, with me in case I need to use her."
He nodded, reaching for his wand and casting his own.
"Yours was a doe," she whispered.
"It was, years ago. It changed actually, after I realized who you were. I wasn't pleased, but had no real choice in the matter. I didn't send patronuses often. I couldn't."
She nodded, understanding why he couldn't. He could see her thinking, knew what she was puzzling over. That night in Forest of Dean. "So how did we get a doe?"
"I had to manipulate it."
"You can do that?"
"I can," he said with a low chuckle. "It can be done, but it takes effort. I needed Harry to see something he wanted to follow. I knew a doe like his mother's would be that. I wasn't going to cast a stag," he said with a scoff.
"No, I can't blame you there. So, it just changed because of you?"
"It likely changed the first time I touched you. That feeling we experienced. Whether we knew it or not, that was our mind's, and our soul's, way of recognizing one another."
"Interesting. Now I wish I'd had reason to cast one since then."
He chuckled. It was exactly what he'd expect her to say.
"Now you know why I absolutely went out of my way to have no more contact with you than I needed to. I couldn't risk it. Had you told Mr. or Miss Weasley about a spark, they'd know what that meant."
Silence. It wasn't uncomfortable exactly, but they clearly didn't know what to say. She was here. He'd stopped at the market on the way home for groceries. She had released his memories. It seemed there might be something more than dinner needed. He just wasn't sure what.
"Will you transform for me, Noah?" she asked. Funny, he was going to ask her the same question. It … pleased him that she wanted to see his puma form.
Flux trotted off with an almost scolding "meow" when he started the transition. He did not like the idea of a bigger cat being in his midst, Noah guessed. Flux knew by now what he was doing. Until recently, it had been more than six years since he'd done this. It was … off putting, but it took him a bit less effort than the last time the other day.
She watched intently, and the puma let out a loud purr in response to the idea of her paying such close attention to him.
She sat on the floor then, eyeing him as he adjusted to being in this form again. In front of someone. Flux didn't count.
"May I?" she asked, offering him her hand. He batted her hand with the top of his head in answer.
She was immensely thorough, touching and petting him everywhere. His purrs grew louder, more urgent. He wanted her in her animagus form, too.
About ten minutes later, ten minutes too long in his mind, the female counterpart to his puma made her appearance. She gave a throaty purr that had him rolling to his back, letting her nip at his throat.
That side of his throat.
Merlin. Embarrassing. And yet, her purring grew louder the same as his did. So she apparently liked he'd done that.
The two pumas played, mindful they were in a restricted space. Flux for his part sat atop a bookcase looking as if he might wish he could join in on the ruckus.
Eventually, the two pumas curled up together, he was on the outside, wrapped protectively around her. Her content sounding purrs were putting him to sleep.
Was this the feeling that Lupin, Black, Potter, and Pettigrew experienced? No wonder they were close friends. There was something … comforting and safe about this closeness. He nipped at her ear when it twitched before drifting off to sleep right behind her.
When he woke a while later, first he noted, Flux had wedged himself in between the two pumas. Noah gave a soft huff, adjusting so that he could lick Flux's ears.
Story ©Susan Falk/APCKRFAN/PhantomRoses.com