Fortress

[AN-- Lemon Balm and de de Lion (also known as Lady\'s Mantle) are real herbs. Lemon Balm is to be avoided by pregnant women, but it is not an abortificant. de de Lion was once used as a tea to help with the discomforts of morning sickness, but only an experienced herbalist should experiment with that application.]

While her mind seemed numb while she prepared herself for bed, her dreams were the tortured fantasies of the newly widowed. Over and over again she shook herself awake from scenes of Severus walking through the bedroom door, or towards her over the field at their home in the country. Once she wandered in a dream, walking from room to room and finally outside, where in her dream country it was a warm spring day.

Something in her mind wakened when she smelled the fresh air, the pungent yet sharp aroma of things growing up through the long winter's muck. This seemed so real, she realized, as it was really a memory and not a dream. Still, she hurried, around the side of the house, her hands brushing the sun-warmed stones, to the barn, where the old wood warming in the sun gave off a scent to rival the growing things all around it. She jogged carefully down the hill, then hurried to a hedge, where she stood still, suddenly, and began to move quietly, slowly. Knowing what she would in all likelihood find on the other side did nothing to diminish her excitement. She almost giggled to herself at the thought"”she was going to catch him. The earlier realization that it was a memory slipped from her mind as she pivoted around the er aer and saw him as no one else would ever see him.

She reveled in the notion for a few moments as she watched him, a swath of her own hair flapping in front of her face in the breeze, making a sliver web over her sight.

He was kneeling in the dirt, his silver-streaked hair just visible beneath the wide-brimmed hat he wore"”he would insist on black, she thought, though he knew it drew the heat to his head even while it kept the sun from his pale skin. The shirt and the trousers, though"”she suppressed a giggle. If only he knew how much he resembled Arthur Weasley after one of his attempts to dress like a Muggle. The trousers were a worn khaki, once, probably, an army surplus find, now worn to a state where they were good for nothing but kneeling in the dirt, and the shirt was a worn green chamois. In all it wouldn't have been so comical, even with the broad black hat, but Severus had never accepted the idea that a Muggle would wear a tailored shirt with no robe, and the green shirt was of such a size that it flapped behind him almost as a robe would have done. She waited until he had patted a young plant into its new location before she spoke.

"Severus Snape." Beneath the gigantic green shirt he froze, then turned his head and fixed her with a barely amused glare. She walked towards him, admiring the color the fresh air had lent to his normally pale face. "Hrt'srt's most feared Potions Master in years, internationally respected innovator of new potions, and terror to all first years"¦."

"I am not a terror," he said, putting down his trowel with a thump that would have been authoritative had the ground not been so soft. "I am merely stern. But fair."

She threw her head back and laughed. "If only the students could see you like this," she said, crouching slowly until she leaned on his shoulder. "Practically begging me to take your side, not to mention digging in the dirt."

"I am not digging in the dirt," he said, his lips curling back at the words. "I am personally ensuring the quality of my own potions ingredients, thank you very much."

She smiled as she surveyed his garden, the one corner of his world above all others that no one else had ever seen, or would have believed. "What if your students knew that on week ends, their professor Apparates as quickly as he can to his house in the country "“ ("As if Hogwarts itself is not in the very wilds of the country," he interrupted.)"”only to spend hours crouched in the dirt." She leaned on him more insistently. "A gardener."

The word, with all its connotations, hung between them. Of course no one would believe that the so-called reformed Death Eater could possibly be involved with anything so concerned with life.

He let one filthy hand drape itself over her barely curved abdomen. She continued leaning on him, soaking in the comfortable silence they often found themselves in. It had been a long road from their earliest days as a student and a teacher, and now she was hard pressed to believe they were even the same people at all.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Very well," she said, suppressing a smile, amused and touched at once by his solicitousness. She reached forward and snapped a heart-shaped leaf off a low, pale green plant, anticipating the cool tangy taste, only to have her hand grasped before she could place the leaves between her teeth.

"Hermione." His voice held something of the exasperation he often felt as a teacher, only this time the concern inherent in that exasperation was more aparant.
"What?" She dropped the leaves and wrapped her paler, clean fingers around his.

"Don't you remember anything from Herbology?" Now his voice was teasing.

"Of course."

He sighed. The stern teacher barely ever made an appearance outside of Hogwarts"”he simply found it too draining. "And what is that?"

"Lemon balm." She tried to twitch her hand away from his again, to gain the fresh taste once more.

"Breeding women would do well to stay away from that little herb," he said, as if quoting some text.

She let the leaves fall to the ground. "I had forgotten," she said sadly, "if I ever knew."

"You don't have to be clever all the time," he said, taking her hand and brushing it against the soft cloth of his billowing shirt, as if trying to remove even the juices of the plant from her skin. "It isn't terribly harmful," he added, dropping her hand, "just to be avoided." He reached forward and brushed his fingers against another plant, low lying with scalloped leaves, drawing her attention to it even as he was unwilling to pick it yet. "And what is this?" he asked.

"I couldn't say," she whispered, "I never did that well in Herbology."

He snapped a bit of the succulent green stem from the plant, holding one of the leaves in the attitude of a tiny umbrella. "Let Longbottom shine in that class, didn't you?" he asked. "Still, I think you would remember." She was silent. "Someone from Gryffindor." Still she was still, chewing on her lip in embarrassment. Had she the book that told which plant was which she could have devised any number of potions and applications, but in the field she was quite lost. "A Gryffindor who once summered in France, if I am not mistaken," he pressed.

She closed her eyes and tried to let her mind take care of the problem. Something to do with a lion, but not a dente de lion, that was for sure.

"Pied de lion," she said, remembering suddenly.

"Precisely," he said, touching the stalk to her lips. "This one is for you."

Her nose filled with a spicy, sharp scent, almost like the dusky smell of pine needles, but darker somehow. She opened her mouth, wondering only slightly what it would taste like.

His laugh might have been a cough, it was so quiet and low.

"Not now," he said, swiping at her lips with it. "Wait until it is grown." She opened her eyes to look, but he was not laughing at her. "You will not need it until then, I shouldn't think."

It was the closest he would come to asking her outright how she was feeling, but she knew the signs of his concern so well that she took to them more than to some other, more outspoken signs of regard.

"I feel fine," she murmured.

The bright day disappeared as she ducked her face under the brim of his hat for a kiss.

He caught her and held her close with unsurprising ferocity, turning her so her knees were planted firmly in the dirt. Dust from the earth on his clothing tickled her nose, and she struggled between the urge to stay close to him, and the more seemly sense to turn away and sneeze.

She lost even the idea of making that choice when she found herself inverted, face down in the dirt, choking on the powdered stone that was the dusty topsoil. She struggled, trying to right herself, weighed down as much with horror at the sudden turn as by any actual force. It wasn\'t Severus, couldn\'t be, because there was his voice, calling her name as if trying to bring her back.

\"Hermione.\"

She woke, her face smothering in her pillow. She lifted her head weakly and managed to turn over, her damp face cooling rapidly in the open air. She breathed deeply, expecting at any moment to choke on some remnant of the dirt from her dream.
\"So cruel.\" Her own voice, speaking out loud into the still air shocked her, and she realized that it had, indeed, been cruel, the sweet memory of the dream corrupted by the sudden turn. She longed for a presence of someone, anyone else. \"Severus, I dreamed of your grave,\" she said outloud, testing the sound of her voice. Surprisingly, it did not fail her. Then the voice from her dream sounded again, loud and clear but not strange.

\"Hermione.\" She froze, realizing that the voice came from a definite place, the corner by her bedside table, and not from all around the way dream voices often did.

\"What?\" Her whisper seemed more at home in the room, but she froze with the fear that it might actually be answered.

\"Rather strange to dream of my grave, considering Wizards don\'t often burry their dead.\" There was a pause while she attempted to work up the courage to turn towards the voice. \"Not to mention, my body was never found.\"

She turned suddenly at that, moving towards the realization that had stayed burried within her since Cho had called her out of her lab.

\"That\'s true.\" Severus was, indeed, sitting in the wing backed arm chair between her bedside table and the armoire. The striped silk of the chair was just barely visible through his white shirt-- thankfully, his head seemed more substantial. She almost laughed at how right it looked for Severus to be a ghost. \"They never did find your body. You could still be alive.\"

He laughed softly, a sound that seemed to have a feel to it, like a cold yet not unpleasurable shiver moving through her body. As she watched a look of concentration grew on his face, and he floated, still sitting, to the side of the bed.

\"Could I do that in life, Miss Granger,\" he said, echoing the voice of her dream. \"I am quite certain to be dead.\" He looked somber again. \"Besides, would you wish me to be alive, after what they did find?\"

Her heart sank at the thought of her own selfishness. \"No.\" She looked at him suspiciously, not daring to believe that even this incarnation of him could be so near her.

\"Don\'t fret.\" He seemed to grow more transparent. \"I cannot stay for long, not tonight anyway.\" She started forward, almost reaching for him, but staying her touch as her body realized what a crushing disappointment it would be to reach nothing but cold air.

\"Where do you go?\" she asked.

A look that was part concentration, part confusion crossed his features. \"I can hardly say,\" he said, \"but I will come back here, tomorrow night when you go to sleep.\" He floated towards the door, growing thinner and thinner as he went. She almost averted her eyes when she could see the grain of the wood behind his face, but she could not look away. His mouth moved, as if to speak, but he seemed to dissolve into the door before any words could cross his lips.


At breakfast Jason was solicitous, careful, giving no indication that he had fallen asleep on the couch again. Hermione noticed the care with which he made her tea, a look of concentration crossing his face in much the same way his father\'s ghost had looked the night before. As he pushed the cup and saucer towards her, she realized it was the first time that they had taken a meal together without Severus.

\"Thank you Jason.\" She sipped at the hot drink, marvelling that she could obtain any comfort from that simple thing in the face of their loss. Jason moved about the tiny kitchenette, preparing her toast and a soft egg.

\"Some of the other seventh years are coming back today,\" Jason said, his voice measured as if he had been anticipating the conversation. \"Would it be alright if I slept in the dormitory tonight?\"

\"Of course,\" she said, accepting the food. \"I can understand why this place would be uncomfortable for you.\"

\"What about you?\" he asked. \"Will you be alright? I will stay as long as you need me, even during the term. I talked to the headmistress yesterday, and she said it would be alright.\"

Hermione smiled at him. \"I will be fine, I believe, but thank you.\" She ate a bit of her egg, dipping a corner of her toast into it, and chewing as she considered how best to approach the next subject.

\"I saw your father last night,\" she said, the words out of her mouth before she even thought of them. That being said, she simply sat back and waited for his response.

His face closed then, the concern replaced by something harder and dangerous. \"He has been in my dreams lately as well,\" he said, his voice kinder than his expression.

\"He came here as a ghost,\" she said, not daring to expect his defiance even as she saw it forming.

\"Hogwarts has not had a new ghost for over three centuries,\" he said evenly, \"I doubt that my father would be the first.\"

She held his g eve even as he challenged her through their grief. \"He did not stay for long,\" she said, \"it would seem that ghosts are not strong at first, but he promised to return tonight.\"

Jason\'s face was as still as a mask. He cleared his place without asking her leave, then returned to take her plate away. To her surprise, she had eaten every bite without forcing herself.

\"Jason,\" she said as he stood before her again, before she even had an idea as to what she would say.

\"Mother.\" It was a statement that clearly was meant to silence her, and she gave in reluctantly. \"Why,\" he said, his voice unnaturally even, concealing equal amounts of hurt and anger, \"would he come to you but not to me?\"