Love Songs: Loving the Dark Wizard

Whatever It Takes

By: Snapes_Goddess





SONG: Whatever It Takes

ARTIST: Lifehouse

YEAR: 2008







Premise: Hermione and Severus are a couple, they’ve been together awhile. They’ve broken up because she feels like he keeps himself from her and she wants to get married, but he doesn’t think he can be what she needs









~@~





A strangled smile fell from your face

It kills me that I hurt you this way

The worst part is that I didn\'t even know

Now there\'s a million reasons for you to go

But if you can find a reason to stay











HERMIONE:







I stood on the small wooden bridge curving over the creek behind our house and stared up at the moon. Oh how I wish that the water burbling over the stones below me could drown out the sounds of the argument echoing in my head.





”You’re never going to marry me, are you, Severus?”





“Why isn’t it enough that I love you more than anything else? Why does it have to be marriage?”





Oh how those words hurt me as I sat on the end of our bed and tried to figure out why I keep holding on. I know the answer. I love him. I have loved him all of my life it seemed. I admired him long before I ever realized that I loved him. In fact I didn’t see him for nearly eight years after the end of the war. I heard all about him of course, how he had recovered from his injuries and resumed his position as school headmaster.





But it wasn’t until a cold winter’s eve in Diagon Alley that I actually saw him again. I had been walking along, minding my own business when someone smacked into me with their shoulder. My feet slipped on the icy cobblestones and I grabbed onto the nearest thing to stop my fall, it turned out to be someone’s robes. It didn’t stop my fall; I still wound up flat on my back on the frozen ground only now I had another person on top of me.



I groaned and opened my eyes, startled by the familiar black eyes staring back at me.





“Hello, Professor.” Was all I could manage in that moment as we lay nose to nose in the middle of a crowded street. I still don’t know how we ended up in that coffee shop together, talking until the proprietor forced us out just after midnight. He walked me home and to my surprise and amusement, he barked out a dinner invitation. It was more of an order than an invite, but Severus wasn’t a practiced suitor, he didn’t date or engage in relationships so I learned to overlook his lack of…charm.





Our first date was…incredible. He took me to dinner in a little hole in the wall Italian place where we sat in a private booth and enjoyed each other’s company. Then he took me to the cinema, something I hadn’t done much of since joining the wizarding world as a child. After he had walked me home, the snow falling softly. And in the dim glow of the porch lantern he kissed me. His lips barely brushing against mine before he tried to pull away. I wasn’t having it, though; I wanted more of his lips and put my arms around his neck, pulling him back to me.





Kissing Severus was, and still is an incredible experience. He is so cold and hard most of the time, but not with me. With me he softens, he’s warm and passionate, loving. And he does love me. I know that. I have known it since the first night I spent in his bed. He was so tender, gentle to the point that I wanted to scream. I gave him my innocence that night and he tried to hide it, but I saw the shock, the love and the gratitude in his eyes when he realized that I had saved myself. For him.





Five years I have been with him. Loved him unconditionally. I have lived with him in the little house he bought us near the school, I cook his meals, tend to our home, share his bed, for all intents and purposes I am his wife. He simply refuses to give me his name.





I don’t know why it matters so much to me, I am a modern woman, I know we can live a lifetime together, in love and happy without that little piece of paper. But it doesn’t change the fact that I want to be his wife in name as well as in deed. He didn’t understand why, he often asked me why I love him, why I stay with him when he can’t be what I want him to be.





Sometimes I think he behaves this way to make me angry, like he wants me to leave him because he is always so surprised when I don’t. He can’t see that I don’t want to lose him, that I love him more than my own life and will do anything to make what we have last. Whatever it takes, even if it means giving up her dream of marriage.







I\'ll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what\'s at stake

I know that I\'ve let you down

And if you give me a chance

Believe that I can change

I\'ll keep us together whatever it takes









SEVERUS:







She said "If we\'re gonna make this work

You gotta let me inside even though it hurts

Don\'t hide the broken parts that I need to see"

She said "Like it or not it\'s the way it\'s gotta be

You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me







I stand in our bedroom window and watch her crying on the bridge. Standing there in her long white gown as the summer breeze whips her hair around her shoulders. She is so beautiful, even with the tears on her cheeks glittering in the moonlight. She deserves better than me. I know I am no good for her.







I have hurt her again and again over the years by refusing to marry her, to make our commitment legal and legitimate. It isn’t because I don’t love her. I do. I thought that my love for Lily was as deep as it could go, but I was so very wrong. Loving Hermione is now a necessity, like breathing, like eating. I can’t live without her, she saved me.





I never imagined I would fall in love, that I would find myself living in domestic bliss with a witch who loves me. Oh yes, I know she loves me. She tells me so everyday. Every morning when I wake it is to a whispered I love you. When she kisses me goodbye when I leave for work it is a smile and an I love you and it is the same when I come home to her at night.





I love you said for no reason at all as we sit in the living room reading quietly. I love you cried against my lips as I move within her, loving her in our bed. I love you murmured sleepily as she curls against me beneath the blankets with her head resting against my chest.





She loves me alright; I don’t doubt it for a single moment. But I don’t deserve it. Why does she want to marry me? Why does she want to be with me period? What kind of husband would I be to her? I am not now, nor will I ever be the kind of man who whispers pretty words or makes grand romantic gestures. I don’t know how to be a husband.





My father destroyed my mother slowly; he was a cold and angry man. What if I turn out to be like him? How could I live with myself if I turned Hermione into a broken shell of the woman I loved the way my father had done to my mother?





Merlin I can’t bear seeing her cry. She should leave me, find someone better for her but I can’t let her go. I will die without her and I know that. She never asks me for anything, just this. My name, tarnished and black as it is, she still wants it.





I\'ll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what\'s at stake

I know that I\'ve let you down

And if you give me a chance

And give me a break

I\'ll keep us together, I know you deserve much better











TOGETHER:









But remember the time I told you the way that I felt

That I\'d be lost without you and never find myself

Let\'s hold onto each other above everything else

Start over, start over







He walked across their back garden, her soft sigh carrying to him on the breeze as he neared. He stopped at the foot of the bridge and stared at her for a moment before coming to stand behind her.





“Why? Why do you want to marry me?” She didn’t turn around to face him.





“Because I love you, Severus. I love you and I want to belong to you completely. I am yours, body, heart and soul, all I lack is your name.” She said softly.





“What if I am a lousy husband, Hermione? My father was a lousy husband…”





“Darling, we have lived together for nearly five years. In every way but one you are my husband.” She said, finally turning around to look at him. He took a deep breath and wiped away the tears staining her cheeks.





“And look at what a great job I am doing. You are standing in our garden crying your eyes out because of me.”





“You love me. I know that. I know what your father was and you are nothing like him. You don’t shout at me, you don’t hit me, you don’t gamble or sleep with other women. I can think of maybe three times in five years that we have had a row that got too heated and when you lost your temper you walked away. If you were like him you wouldn’t have done that.” She laid her hand against his cheek.







“What if I change?”





“You are fifty-six, Severus. Don’t you think that if you were going to be abusive to women you would have figured that out by now?” She shook her head, a soft smile on her lips. “You aren’t him.”





“And if you wake up one day ten years from now and realize you married an evil, brooding wizard who is way too old for you, then what?”







“Think about who you are talking to, Severus. I’m not that shallow.” She slid her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against the center of his chest. “I love you, and I want to marry you. But if you cant, I will try to understand. I won’t leave you, ever. If I cant have your name…well, at least our child will have it.”





He stiffened in her arms, his fingers biting into her shoulders as her words registered.







“Our child?” He croaked. She hugged him tighter.





“I found out this morning, you are going to be father, Severus.” She said softly.







“But, how?” He never imagined a child, a family. Just having her love him was more than he dreamed possible.





“Well….when a man and a woman love each other very much…”







“Don’t joke.” He said roughly, pushing her back so he could look at her, his eyes sliding down the front of her.







“It’s no joke, Severus. Come December you and I are going to have a child.” She said. She became worried when his face paled even more than its usual wan color.





“A child. I…I got you pregnant.” He said.





“Yes you did.” She smiled, amused by his shock.







“I got you pregnant…my child grows inside you…right now.” He stammered as he pressed his palm low against her tummy. “Mine.”





“All yours.” She said. “Severus!” She grasped his shoulders as he fell to his knees; she thought he had collapsed until she felt his face press into her abdomen. She felt the warmth of his tears soaking through her nightgown as he kissed the still flat surface again and again.





They stayed that way for a long time. Her standing on the bridge while he knelt in front of her, his arms around her waist, her hands in his hair. He looked up into her eyes and smiled, a real smile, something he rarely did.





“I love you.” He said, his voice rough with tears. “I don’t deserve you.”





“Deserve me or not, you’re stuck with me, Severus Snape.” She laughed.





“Let’s do this right, Hermione. Let’s get married…”







“Not because of the baby…”







“No, not because of the baby, because I love you. Because I need you. Marry me.” He said. “Marry me and make me whole.”





“I love you.” She whispered, sliding down to her knees with him and wrapping her arms around his neck. She kissed him, pouring all of her love into him. “If its what you really want, then yes, I will marry you.”





“It is. It’s what I really want. You are what I really want, Hermione Snape…I like the sound of that.” He pulled her to her feet and lifted her gently into her arms as he carried her back into their house and laid her in their bed.





He removed his clothes and climbed in beside her, pulling her into his arms and holding her tight. He had everything he could ever want right there in that bed and he knew that no matter what, he would never let it go, he would do whatever it takes to make her happy and keep her with him, always.





I\'ll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what\'s at stake

I know I\'ve let you down

And if you give me a chance

And believe that I can change

I\'ll keep us together whatever it takes







~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~





OK, my first contribution,….no smut….but come on…anyone who reads my fics knows it’s coming….so come on everyone, join in the fun! Wow me with some wonderful oneshots!!!!!!!!







Whatever It Takes By Lifehouse



A strangled smile fell from your face

It kills me that I hurt you this way

The worst part is that I didn\'t even know

Now there\'s a million reasons for you to go

But if you can find a reason to stay



I\'ll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what\'s at stake

I know that I\'ve let you down

And if you give me a chance

Believe that I can change

I\'ll keep us together whatever it takes



She said "If we\'re gonna make this work

You gotta let me inside even though it hurts

Don\'t hide the broken parts that I need to see"

She said "Like it or not it\'s the way it\'s gotta be

You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me"



I\'ll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what\'s at stake

I know that I\'ve let you down

And if you give me a chance

And give me a break

I\'ll keep us together, I know you deserve much better



But remember the time I told you the way that I felt

That I\'d be lost without you and never find myself

Let\'s hold onto each other above everything else

Start over, start over



I\'ll do whatever it takes

To turn this around

I know what\'s at stake

I know I\'ve let you down

And if you give me a chance

And believe that I can change

I\'ll keep us together whatever it takes