To Save A Serpent

She couldn’t bring herself to leave his bed. She’d never had any intentions of going to The Burrow, but collapsing into his bed after her bath had been a mistake. So many nights she’d lain under the green canopy tucked into his arms, or gazing into his eyes. It seemed as if she’d loved him all her life, and that they had not just spent one year together, but one thousand years. Even when he had been on the run, hiding from the ministry until the Dark Lord had killed the minister, she’d been with him, however briefly, stolen moments in odd places at odd hours of the night when she’d least expected it. That was how she figured he was in it as deep as she was, him risking his life and everything he’d worked for to see her, just for a glance, or a kiss.

He’d never explained Dumbledore’s death properly, but somehow, even without his short terse answer of “it was something I had to do,” she knew. The memories in the pensieve, his last memories, when she’d finally examined them, had made her wish she too was dead, so that she could be with him, though it occurred to her that if perhaps all their souls passed on, he would most certainly choose Lily over her.

He had been the one to take her virginity in every meaning of the word, and it had been him who had explored her body so thoroughly, become familiar with it, and enjoyed it, ravished it, and loved it. She could only think of him, the way his eyes glittered black, but in just the right light, (usually the glinting candles of his bathroom after they’d lain in the tub for a good hour,) they seemed a rich brown. Her mind could only remember his scent, thick and musky, and yet so unique.

Thoughts of death consumed her mind. If she could only take her own life, perhaps she would find him waiting with arms wide open on the other side. The thought that he might not made her nauseous and she choked back the bile. Hermione was practically dead to the world as far as she was concerned, not even the fondest of memories sparking her will to live.

~*~

“I don’t like the fact that I cannot look at you properly.”

“It would not be a good situation if we were to be recognized by anyone,” he whispered into her ear. Severus held the girl close to him as they strolled down a street in muggle London. They’d finished dinner at a rather up scale restaurant and were on their way to an old fashioned drive-in picture show, only he fully intended to watch it from the rooftop of a neighboring building.

“I just—” she sighed. “I’d like to look into your eyes, see your face.”

Severus frowned. He’d not been thrilled on taking the girl into London. It was too reminiscent of a date, and he was far from suitable boyfriend material, he wasn’t even that sure that he was good lover material. But she’d insisted and they’d come to a point in the relationship where she held more cards than he did at times and her bargaining chip to get out of the castle with him had won out. Merlin forbid Albus should ever find out, though he had a rather sneaking suspicion, along with everything else, that the older wizard somehow already knew.

Hermione had protested over the heavy glamour charms he’d insisted they used, making her look much older and far plainer than she ever thought possible. Her hair was short, a faded sandy blonde and her cheeks were slightly puffy but that aside she had no defining physical characteristic. He was tall, a bit rounder around the middle, light brown hair, also short, and matching eyes with a perfectly proportioned nose. The glamour was his one condition for taking her out, and so she allowed it.

The sky was beautiful and as the movie rolled on the screen which she could see perfectly nestled back in his arms, she gasped as all of the surrounding lights dimmed out, all but the silver flickers of the screen and the many stars above. “How did you—” her eyes were wide as she saw him pushing the silver deluminator into his pocket.

With a smile on her face she leaned back in his arms, him against the door that led them back down through the building. She sighed contentedly and let her eyes float to the picture of the black and white love story playing on the screen.

“Hermione,” he whispered by her ear. “This isn’t a date.” He said.

She was silent.

“I’m not your boyfriend, and I don’t want you to think that—”

At once she turned over and pressed her lips to his, and before he could stop himself he was responding to her kiss, tangling his hands in her hair. Moments later she pulled back. “Hush,” she said and kissed him again.

~*~

Blinking up at the canopy, tears tumbled down her cheeks. It as another moment in which she could have professed her love to him, but instead she’d chosen to verbally taunt him. They’d had amazing sex on that London rooftop, but she would have gladly traded every single moment of their coupling for just one chance to have said those three little words.

“I shall go mad,” she whimpered aloud, her confession falling away into the silence. Wrenching herself from the bed she stumbled forward nearly blindly in what had become evening darkness without candles or torches. Her fingers found the door and she thrust it open. “Oh!”