New Beginning

Chapter 12

Severus stood and crossed his arms. “Are you going to share with me anytime soon or keep laughing, you silly girl.”

Hermione looked up and saw the scowl on his face and tried to stop laughing but she couldn’t. She took some deep breaths and excused herself from the room. Once inside the bathroom she washed her face and looking in the mirror she studied herself. Aside from her face being flushed from the laughter, her freckles stood out more. She never liked those freckles; it reminded her of Ron and his numerous freckles that splashed all over his body.

Taking out her wand she pointed to her head and said the spell to take off the repressed emotions. She had put this spell on her head at the time, because she had the crush, and to her it was only in her head. When the spell broke a wave of emotions rushed through her, it was overpowering with the amount of force they caused to her whole body. Hermione slumped to the floor and leaned back on the cabinet in the bathroom. The emotions she had repressed were more than just the crush on her potions professor.

Each emotion came flooding back one at a time, happiness for passing all her exams for every year including the ones she had taken at the university. The emotion were so over powering she was crying from it. Everything she had been experiencing had been stifled since her fifth year, now six years worth of emotions that had been built up came pouring over her in an instant.

She pushed everything with Ron to the side, not wanting yet to deal with any emotions that had been coming back with him. Her emotions with Harry and with Darien she allowed to swallow her, happiness, grief, pain, longing. By the time those came to the full-heightened awareness that they should have been, Hermione was a wreck on the bathroom floor. She wasn’t even aware of the person pulling her into their arms nor gripping them like her life depended on it.

“You silly girl,” Severus said into hair. “You should have waited to take that off. Six years of emotions.”

Severus held her and rocked her back and forth. He watched as Darien came walking into the bathroom, he had Merlin in his right hand and his bottom lip started pouting out. Darien was watching his Mama cry and it was affecting him. Severus reached out for Darien and he came to him.

“Shh! It’s okay, Darien. Mama is going to be fine. I promise.” Severus said softly to him. Darien sat beside him and kept patting his Mama on the arm.

Severus vowed that he would do everything in his power to make Hermione fine for Darien. What she was going through right now was a good start, though for the next couple of weeks, Hermione might be a time bomb with her emotions, having repressed them for so long was not good. He had to do this on several occasions himself while he was spying. He knew what it felt like to be assaulted by emotions when they came flooding back. It wasn’t fun dealing with them, but they had to be dealt with.

Severus called for Tilly, she was his house-elf here at Hogwarts, they had three that serviced the dungeon, but Tilly was the one that was better suited for this purpose that he wanted to have done.

“Yes, Professor Snape, you called Tilly.”

The squeak of the house-elf got Darien’s attention right away and the little boy turned to her.

“Change Darien’s diaper, and give him a bottle. It’s close to his nap time.”

Tilly smiled wildly at the opportunity to take care of Darien she reached for his hand and Darien went willingly with the house-elf. Severus looked down at Hermione, she was still crying, but the shakes and the trembling that she was first experiencing had started to subside. Severus pulled her closer and rested his cheek in her hair.

“It’s going to get better Hermione,” he stroked her back as he spoke.

When Hermione finally came back to herself she was in bed, and very warm. She felt like she had a heater pressed to her back, she hadn’t felt anything like that since sleeping with Ron. She felt her hair being pulled behind her ear, and caressed softly down her back and the motion was repeated. When she turned her head she felt the caresses on her cheek and saw who was doing the caressing, it was Severus. She felt an enormous amount of guilt wash over her and she shut her eyes and moved away from his touch.

Severus ground his teeth together when he saw the guilt wash over her. Damn you Weasley! She’s not even yours and you’re still playing games with her. She can’t even be touched by someone else without thinking of you. You’ve cursed her life.

“Feeling better?” Severus tried to keep the hurt out of his voice, he didn’t want Hermione knowing that pulling away from him had hurt him. Not that he cared about her in a way that was more than friendship, he reminded himself, but he did care about her on the level that she was Darien’s mother. And Darien would sense the emotions in her. He had noticed Darien was very sensitive in this area, he wondered if all children had this ability.

“Some.” She said softly.

“You’ll need to take it easy for the next week or so. Things t fet feel overwhelming to you. If you need any help come get me.”

Hermione turned to look at him, she wasn’t sure why he was offering her this. The look she saw in his eye was one of understanding. “How do you know?”

Severus leaned on his hand, which propped him up. “Repressing spells can be very good, if used for short stints at a time. The longer one is enacted the stronger the emotions are when they came back. I used repressing spells the whole time while I was a Death Eater, it made life easier.”

Hermione rolled over facing him but kept her distance, as long as she talked to him on an intellectual level she didn’t feel any over whelming emotions of guilt. She wasn’t sure where this came from. She had been broken up with Ron for almost a year and a half now, she shouldn’t be feeling guilty.

“What did you repress?” She was curious, she had always been curious about things, one of the reason why she read every book she could get her hands on. To quench that thirst for her curiosity.

“If I answer that, you have to answer mine. Do we have a deal?” Severus knew he had to get her to talk, this was one of the things that would help. Dumbledore had helped him through the last month of school when his emotions came flooding back.

Hermione rolled over onto her back not looking at him. The only person she had ever felt like she could talk to had been Ron and Harry. More so Harry than Ron, Harry would listen and wouldn’t judge her for anything she talked about. Ron on the other hand would judge almost everything she said.

While Hermione was thinking, Severus rolled over and checked the baby bed, Darien sti still asleep. He turned back to Hermione.

“I don’t know.” She told him.

“It gets easier if you talk about it. Trust me.”

He could see her thinking, she sat up quickly. “Where’s Darien?”

“Asleep. Don’t change the subject.”

She gave him a snarl, Severus rolled over on his back and closed his eyes, and he wanted to laugh at her, that snarl was cute. Cute? Where did that come from? Severus asked himself.

Hermione lay back down and crossed her hands behind her head staring up at the ceiling. The new term would start in a few weeks, she didn’t want to be on an emotional roller coaster when all the kids would be hear, but at the same time, talking to Severus wasn’t like talking to Harry. She could tell Harry anything, she wasn’t sure how much she could actually tell Severus. She had that feeling of guilt again. She was tired of that.

“Why am I feeling so guilty? Do you know?”

Severus opened his eyes. This wasn’t a question he was expecting, he didn’t want to go down that path just yet. He knew full well why she was feeling guilty, that was part of the jealousy spell that Weasley had cast on her. He wasn’t going to lie to her though.

“Yes.”

“Then why am I feeling this way? Does it have to do with the repressing spell?”

“No Hermione, it has nothing to do with that spell. The guilt you are feeling has to do with the jealousy spell.” He turned his head so he could gage her reaction.

He saw her grit her teeth and close her eyes tightly. “How many other spells were cast on me?”

“Only one more.”

She turned and looked at him, “What is it?”

This was the one he didn’t want to tell her about. This was the one that made him angry the most, Weasley had conjured Dark Magic when he used this one. He was so possessive of her, that he didn’t want her leaving, this spell was performed when a Husband had the right to perform it on an adulterous wife. She was barren because Weasley made her barren, he was so possessive that he didn’t want to share her with anyone and that included children whether or not he realized what he was doing, Severus doubted he did, the spell was to make the woman want her husband and no other man, but its proper use was only came inside a magical marriage contract. Using it outside one left complications, drastic in measure, being barren was the most drastic form this spell took, because Severus knew Hermione had wanted children, and the spell took that desire and reversed the process of it, but it had backfired on Weasley because he did it outside the bonds of marriage and hurt Hermione in worst possible way.

“The adulterous spell.”

Hermione’s brow furrowed, “What spell is that?”

Severus sat up, rubbed his face, then slowly explained everything the spell did and did not do. Hermione looked horrified after he got through explaining everything.

“So he did this to me? He blamed me for not being able to get pregnant when it was his own damn fault.” Hermione got off the bed and walked out of the room. Severus got up off the bed and followed her, she was standing in the middle of the living room, holding one of Darien’s stuffed toys.

“Hermione.”

She didn’t respond as he came up behind her. He wanted to comfort her, but wasn’t sure if she would even allow it. This open wound would take a long time to heal, she had wanted a child so bad, Harry gave himself to her, to fulfill that longing, desire she had.

“Hermione, talk to me.”

“Can the spells be reversed?”

Severus walked around to be in front of her, she had her head down, he tilted her face up so he could see her. “One of them can be reversed with no problems, the adulterous spell might have complications with it. I’ll have to do some research on it. You do know how he performed these?”

Hermione shook her head no.

“He did them when he was having sex with you Hermione. It takes the same process to take them away.”

Hermione closed her eyes. “But everything feels so wrong with anyone else. It hurts, I feel like I’m doing something that tears me apart when I’m even thinking of someone else other than Ron.”

“That is what the spells are designed to do. I won’t lie to you, you’ll have to trust the person totally if you want those broken off of you. It won’t be an easy decision either.”

Severus didn’t want to tell her about what the man would go through just to remove those spells. When it came time to take those away, Hermione would feel as if the man who took them away had raped her. Every emotion that came with that vile act she would experience. It would take a very strong man to know that he helping her and not forcing her to have sex, and whoever did it, God help the man if he was in love with her, because she would probably hate him forever.