The Reluctant Detectives

Chapter Eighteen


Severus had thought Hermione had set him an impossible task. But thanks in part to his coconspirators, namely the Weasley Twins as well as their sister Ginerva, Harry Potter was now in Hogwarts. He was unconscious, but he was there. Perhaps he should have told them that he had to be wide awake as well as at the school? It was better this way. At least he didn’t have to hear the boy complaining and demanding abduction charges be brought to bear.


He woke Hermione long enough for her to be able to take the potion he had made for her. Severus held her as she went back to sleep, whispering to her that Harry was there and when she was ready, they would talk.


It wasn’t until a half an hour later that she woke. She listened to Harry yelling and screaming in a fury that he had been brought there against his will. Getting up slowly, she went over to where he was fighting with Ginny.


“You had no right!” he screamed. “No…” His words died as he saw Hermione there watching him.


“Hi Harry,” she whispered, going over and hugging him. “It’s so good to see you.”


He hugged her back, shaking as he did so as he felt a wealth of emotions that he had been trying to hide from for years flooding him. Harry let out a sob, his arms going tighter around her.


“My fault! It’s all my fault!” he cried over and over again.


“Shh, Harry, no it wasn’t,” she cooed, rocking him. “Bad things happened. But it wasn’t your fault.” He pulled back a bit, looking at her.


“I’m responsible for so many…”


She shook her head no. “Voldemort was a mad man. He was a psychopathic killer, who vented his rage on everything he hated.” Hermione brushed one of his tears away with her thumb. “He killed, but it was never your fault.”


Ginny left the room so that the two of them could keep talking in private. She was sniffling in the hallway when a handkerchief was handed to her. She took it with an absent thank you to Severus Snape, still looking over to the medical wing as she did so.


“What has you so upset, Miss Weasley?” Severus asked her.


“Now that they’re together and talking, he-he’ll leave me for her!” she sobbed.


The strength of wanting to roll his eyes at this moment of emotional angst nearly had his toes curling as he prevented it from happening. “I doubt that, Miss Weasley.”


“Why do you say that?” she asked him. “He loves her!”


“Perhaps,” he replied. “But I see it not happening for three reasons, if you care to hear them?”


She nodded.


“First, because there is no way Hermione would do so. She has no patience for what she terms guppies.”


Tears clearing up she whispered hoarsely, “Oh yeah.”


“Secondly, it would require him to move back to England,” he said. “Hermione hasn’t moved from London yet even given everything that has happen. That being said, do you see her moving for anyone else as her motivation?”


“No,” Ginny said, sounding more confident. “What’s the third reason?”


He snarled muttering through gritted teeth, “I’d kill him first.”


***


Hermione stood off to the side as Harry read over her notes to date. Every now and again he would look over to the table where she had set out the evidence for him to examine.


He set the notes down. “Why do you need my help?”


“I can collect evidence, I can even point my finger in the correct direction, but the one thing I can’t seem to do is understand it all. The ever so important motive! The attacks seem so random and there doesn’t seem to be a reason as to why it’s all happening.”


He nodded. “You came up with some interesting ways to collect and look at evidence.” He worried his lower lip. “I’ve been getting letters lately. They started coming to the villa about five months ago.” He looked over to her. “I think you need to see them.”


Taking a deep breath, she whispered, “I do not think I should be traveling…”


“No, no, you don’t have to,” he said to her. “I’ll get the letters and we can meet up over at the Burrow.”


“Well, it has been months since I have been there,” she murmured. “I’ll be bringing Severus. He always has loved Molly’s cooking.”


An arm slipped over her chest, pulling her against Snape’s hard body. She turned her head, going to tiptoe and kissing his cheek. “Harry has some letters for me to read. We are all going to be going over to the Burrow.”


“Hungry?” he asked her.


“Mmm, some of Molly’s cooking would be lovely wouldn’t it?” she asked, rubbing his arm. “Then we can leave before Harry gets reamed for not marrying their one and only daughter.”


“That would be perfect,” Snape said, looking over to Harry who was now blushing. “It’s the least he can do seeing as he has been a selfish git for not only keeping the woman he supposedly loves away from her family, but also not marrying her as well.”


“They are both adults,” Hermione pointed out to him.


“True, but it turns out to be that they are thoughtless adults, as they must have mixed the birth control potion wrong. The Weasley girl did what they tend to do best. She’s pregnant.”


Harry’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell straight back. Hermione gasped at the sight of her friend laying out cold on the ground.


“Is she really pregnant?” she asked him.


“Yes, she is,” he answered, holding her all the tighter to prevent her from going to the rescue. "She informed me of this in the hallway."


She stared at her childhood friend before saying, “I wish you would have let me tell him.”


Severus laughed quietly, pulling her into a kiss. Turning in his arms, she continued kissing him. On the floor Harry stirred out of the faint he had been in, wondering what had happened. He blinked at the sight of Hermione kissing the surly former potions master, speculating if he was hallucinating. He pinched his own arm, discovering quickly that he hadn’t been dreaming up the kiss he was watching.


“You have been gone far too long,” Harry muttered to himself, halfway hoping it was the head hit that he had just taken that had him seeing things.


***

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