Work Text:
“Is that Snape?”
At Ron’s exclamation, several heads turn to search the crowd and rest on a figure lounging beneath one of the arches of the cloisters, with his arms folded and legs crossed at the ankles. He’s wearing dark trousers, a shirt in a soft, pale grey fabric, and a relaxed smile as he listens to a gesticulating Marcus Flint, who has come to watch his younger brother graduate and used the excuse to down half a bottle of bubbly.
It’s a bit like Muggle school uniform, Harry thinks. It makes him look younger. Not that he’s old — he was the youngest of their teachers by about seventy years.
The same age as Sirius should be. As his parents should be, if only they had lived to watch their son toss his pointed cap in the air along with the rest of the Class of ’99.
“Retirement suits him,” Ron remarks, jerking Harry out of his reverie.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “He looks… happy.”
“Urgh. Weird. Think he’s got a long-lost twin brother?”
They leave a gap for Hermione’s opinion, but she’s not listening. She’s watching Snape. Her fingers roll absent-mindedly across the stem of her champagne glass. Snape’s head falls back as he laughs at something Malfoy has said, and the corners of Hermione’s mouth lift as if she had heard it too.
“We think it’s the influence of a woman in his life,” interrupts a familiar voice that makes them all jump. “Not that he’d ever say as much, but the staff have their suspicions.”
McGonagall arches an eyebrow and smiles conspiratorially at the three of them. She can’t share any more information as she quickly spots a pair of students trying to set off No-Heat, Wet-Start fireworks and has to hurry across the courtyard to intervene.
Ron has to rush off too, as he’s meeting Charlie and doesn’t want to miss the Portkey. His brother organised a trip for him, offered to show him the sights of Romania before he starts Auror training. It’ll be strange to be apart from each other, Harry thinks as he hugs him tightly goodbye. They’ve been thick as thieves since they were eleven, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready for that to change.
The courtyard is abuzz with pleasant chatter rising and falling in waves, overflowing with families and smiling faces. Neville bumps into them and tells them that most of the members of Dumbledore’s Army are meeting in the Hog’s Head. They promise to join at some point, although Hermione has to visit the headmistress’s office to return her Head Girl badge, and Harry wants to see Hagrid’s hut one last time.
“So, um, is your boyfriend coming?” Harry asks Hermione, once Neville has wandered off.
Her head turns sharply, eyes wide.
“What?” she says, short and sharp as the crack of a whip, surprise dialling her voice a few octaves higher than normal.
“To the pub. You said we could meet him after graduation.”
Hermione splutters.
“I didn’t mean literally as soon as we graduated!” she argues, and tosses back the rest of her champagne to recover. “I meant… sometime. After. One day.”
“You can’t hide him forever,” says Harry, who has been eager to meet this stranger for months.
Not a complete stranger, though. Apparently they’ve met at least once before, but she wouldn’t say when or where.
“Indeed,” drawls Snape, who has silently sidled up behind them, the way he used to in the corridors to try and catch them out. “People will think you’re ashamed to be seen with him.”
Hermione glares up at him.
“I’m not ashamed to be seen with him,” she snaps, with more hostility than Harry’s ever seen her use towards a teacher, except perhaps Umbridge. “I just don’t want anyone’s arm blown off in a duel.”
“I’m not gonna duel him, Hermione,” Harry whines. “Seriously.”
She closes her eyes and presses her fingers to either side of her temple.
“Bland civility is all I can ask for,” she sighs.
“Surely you can aim a little higher than that,” says Snape.
What’s happening, Harry thinks wildly, privately applying the moniker New Snape. The Snape he knows would never join in on one of their conversations like they were a bunch of Slytherins.
“Oh, can I?” Hermione whirls on her former professor. “Because they do not have a history of being civil to each other. In fact, I cannot think of a single occasion on which they have been civil to one another in eight years. Do tell me I’m being unreasonable!”
Her expression dares him to defy her, and Snape looks sheepish suddenly.
New Hermione, Harry thinks. Is there something in the champagne?
Then: Eight years?
He tries to calculate who he has known for eight years — that would be everyone at Hogwarts. Someone he’s been hostile to. Malfoy? Goyle? Flint?
“Perhaps, under different circumstances,” Snape murmurs, “With a mutual interest…”
“And what interest would that be?” she demands.
He fixes her with a solemn, meaningful look.
“Your happiness,” he tells her, and slips away.
*
“Hog’s Head?”
Harry half-turns on the earthy footpath, seeking out the owner of the voice and wondering if they are calling to him. And they must be. They’re alone, but for the twittering birds and creatures scampering through the undergrowth.
Him again. Snape, turning up like a bad penny. Harry nods in answer to his question.
“I’ll walk with you,” says New Snape, thrusting his hands into his pockets and catching up to him.
It’s hard to say no because he didn’t phrase it as a question, so Harry deliberately strides quickly in an attempt to outpace him. Snape keeps up valiantly. This continues for a few minutes, but as the incline gets steeper they both get very out of breath, and Harry gives up.
“Weasley not with you?” Snape asks a few minutes later, making a brave choice to break the awkward silence.
It’s obvious that Ron isn’t with them, and it’s none of Snape’s business why not, so Harry ignores him. His mind is busy preparing himself to meet the mystery man who’s been taking up so much of Hermione’s time since last September.
He tries to collate everything he knows about Hermione’s secret boyfriend. From the sounds of it he’s extremely private, verging on reclusive. He’s a researcher, or a writer, or something like that. Clever, like Hermione. A dry sense of humour, she said. He’s going to meet them in the pub.
“What are your plans?” Snape tries again, interrupting Harry’s train of thought.
“Hog’s Head,” he says flatly. Didn’t they already establish that?
“I rather meant longer term,” Snape says mildly. “Not going into Auror training, I hear.”
Harry shrugs, the weight of other people’s expectations still resting heavily on his shoulders. It’s a disappointment. A huge mistake, perhaps. People say he’d make a fantastic Auror, and they’re probably right. He doesn’t know how to explain why he won’t, why he can’t, only that he knows in his gut that he simply doesn’t want to. He wants the fight to be over.
“I wonder that Minerva never suggested a career with animals,” Snape continues over the sound of their footsteps beating the dusty, well-walked path. “I’ve long thought you would be suited to it.”
“Animals?”
“Or creatures. Beasts, beings; the delinations are largely wizarding constructs.”
Harry doesn’t know what to say to this. He sees a vision of himself cleaning out cages in the Magical Menagerie, and wonders what his parents would have thought about it.
“You have a remarkable affinity with them,” says Snape, curiously willing to hold up both sides of the conversation. “I imagine you’d never held an owl before Hagrid bought you one; he often commented on how well you cared for her. And it’s extremely rare for a hippogriff to form a bond with a human.”
“Hermione thinks I should go into politics,” says Harry, uneasy at hearing compliments from the mouth of a man who had so often belittled him. “Make a difference.”
New Snape scoffs extravagantly.
“You are the last person who needs to concern themselves with making a difference. You’ve done enough. Besides, there are countless ways to make a difference, it needn’t affect the entire world. You could work in a sanctuary. Finding loving homes for animals would change their lives forever.”
Harry thinks about that, glancing at Snape sideways a few times. Snape notices this.
“Or don’t,” he says quickly. “Become a hippogriff racer for all I care.”
“Is that a thing?”
“Oh, yes,” he says, and launches into a brief lecture on the history of the Norfolk Derby.
A few minutes later they lapse into silence again, although a far more comfortable one than before.
The path curves around the hill. At this height the castle is visible below them, its myriad turrets reaching towards the sky. They both stop to look at it, absorbed in quiet contemplation.
“Do you miss it?” asks Harry.
Snape considers the question, unable to tear his eyes away from his home of twenty years.
“It was one drama after another,” he says eventually, and Harry can’t tell if that means yes or no.
Birds swoop high above them, blending into a murmuration that flecks the open sky, except one is not like the others. A silver goose is soaring towards them. A Patronus.
It lands on a fence post and speaks in Poppy Pomfrey’s voice.
“Miss Granger is requesting your presence in the hospital wing. There has… there has been an accident.“
Gravel crunches underfoot as Snape turns to move swiftly down the hill, but after a pace he stops abruptly and disapparates. Harry follows suit, reappearing at the castle gates and crashing into Filch, who swears at him. But he doesn’t hear the words, only the pounding of blood in his ears as he hurries up the stone steps after his former teacher, racing to the hospital wing.
*
Hermione can hear the tapping of Madam Pomfrey’s shoe on the stone floor as they wait. Every so often she hears tutting, but decides to ignore it. Somewhere far off the doors creak open, and hurried footsteps approach.
“You needn’t have come, Severus,” Madam Pomfrey says briskly, the footsteps getting louder and then stopping in front of them. “Miss Granger has been involved in an unfortunate accident and she will have to go to St Mungo’s. I have already told her that it is not appropriate to beg favours from old professors to brew healing potions for her. She cannot expect special treatment for the rest of her life!”
“Of course I’ll brew it,” Severus says shortly.
Hermione smiles smugly, making an extreme effort to hold back the words I told you so. They had argued for over ten minutes before the nurse had reluctantly agreed to send a Patronus. Hermione would have cast one herself, except Pomfrey had confiscated her wand.
“Is that all?” he demands.
Hermione hears the nurse make an indignant noise and turn on her heel, muttering all the way to her office. She will maintain years later that the most unfortunate thing about the accident was not being able to see Pomfrey’s face in that moment.
“What happened?” Severus asks softly, touching Hermione on the arm. Not expecting it, she jumps a mile and accidentally bursts into tears.
“I can’t see,” she cries. “Stupid, stupid kids. Letting off fireworks indoors. I bet they thought they wouldn’t get in trouble for it since it’s their last day of term. I can’t see anything, Severus. Madam Pomfrey said it’s temporary, but—”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing. Black. Not even light.”
“I’m not surprised,” he murmurs, hand moving soothingly up and down her arm. “Your pupils are clouded.”
“What!”
She can sense his face is close to hers. It’s there: that frisson that may never fade, the tingle of energy and magic reaching out to grasp hers, intangible and strong.
“I can heal it,” he assures her. “You’ll be alright. It’s temporary.”
She has to feel blindly for his chest and shoulders so she can slump against him, exhausted and relieved. The fabric of the shirt she bought him is soft against her cheek.
“I want to go home,” she sniffles.
“Of course. Will Potter be joining us?”
Hermione’s eyes fly open, despite being unable to see.
“Oh, God! If he finds out we’re living together he’ll have a heart attack, and then we really will have to go to St Mungo's.”
At once an almighty crash echoes around the wing. It was, perhaps, the sound of someone having a coronary event, or else falling against a bedside table in surprise and knocking it over, along with a lamp.
“You’re what?!” Harry shouts.
“I may have neglected to mention that he is in the room with us,” says Severus.
Hermione freezes like a deer caught in the headlights of the Knight Bus. She scrabbles for the hospital blanket she knows will be folded at the end of the bed and pulls it over her head.
*
“Harry, please can we talk about this when I can see?” Hermione begs, curled up on the sofa at Spinner’s End.
“You can’t put it off forever,” Harry hisses, gaze flicking to the doorway to the kitchen, through which New Snape is making tea. “I’m beginning to think you blinded yourself to get out of an awkward conversation.”
She reaches out carefully, fingers eventually making contact with the fabric of Harry’s sleeve.
“Is that your arm?”
He nods, then realises he has to speak. “Yes.”
“Good,” she says, and swats him as hard as she can.
“Ow!”
“I did not do this on purpose. I didn’t do anything, I walked round a corner and there was a bright light. It was… it was like a basilisk,” she says quietly, and Harry feels tremendously guilty. “I keep trying to open my eyes, then I remember they’re already open. I can’t read,” she complains.
“I could put the wireless on.”
“Can you bring me some yarn and needles?”
“Er— can you knit without being able to see?”
“I don't know, but I need to do something with my hands or I’ll go mad.”
Harry follows her instructions, finding a wicker basket beside the sofa overflowing with colourful balls of wool and a mason jar on the mantelpiece crammed with knitting needles of all sizes. She selects a ball at random and runs a length of yarn between her finger and thumb, feeling its thickness. She then picks a pair of needles from the jar and begins looping the yarn around it, her eyes moving right and left, trying to track movements she cannot see.
“Go and check if the tea’s ready,” she tells him.
Facing not a little inner resistance, Harry steels himself and trudges across the carpet of this foreign house. He’d never thought of Snape living anywhere but Hogwarts, though if he had, he would have imagined his house to be a mirror of the dungeons. In reality it’s cosy and untidy in a homely sort of way. Every available surface is littered with books and papers. A handmade blanket rests over the back of the armchair and a basket of logs sits by the hearth. He’s not sure how much of it is Hermione’s influence.
Snape is leaning an elbow on the countertop, using a Muggle biro to write out a list of potion ingredients. Three mugs and three tea bags lie forgotten, the water in the kettle long since cooled.
“You bought her the first edition,” Harry says from the doorway. Snape looks up at him, his expression guarded.
“I did,” he says.
Hermione had flooed to the castle on Christmas day with an expression intimating that she wished she were elsewhere. All had changed when an owl dropped a package in her lap after dinner and brown paper was torn back to reveal a rare first edition of Hogwarts: A History. Ron didn’t quite understand her excitement, as the information contained within it naturally wasn’t as complete as later editions, but Hermione refused to listen to him.
“She wouldn’t let go of it for a week. We weren't allowed to have liquids near it. I think she even slept with it under her pillow.”
Snape looks pleased at this. He turns back to his list, hiding his smile.
Harry steps into the kitchen and closes the door behind him.
“You took down Walburga’s portrait,” he realises.
Harry had come home after spending a night at Ginny’s to find his hallway hacked to pieces. The framed portrait of Sirius’ mother had disappeared, along with most of the wall.
At least, that’s what he had thought. A month later he’d ventured into the barren courtyard at the back of the house, half-thinking about getting some plants in pots to spruce the place up, when a shrill scream made him spill his mug of hot coffee all over himself. He found Walburga upside down in a corner, covered in bird shit.
“And you healed that scar on her arm.”
“No. She did that herself. I merely made toast.”
Harry frowns at this, and takes a step further into the kitchen. Snape hasn’t offered him a seat, so he leans against the wall, noticing a calendar hanging from a hook and an unmoving photograph in a plain wooden frame. It’s Snape and Hermione, the green landscape and rock formation behind them recognisable as the Fairy Glen on the Isle of Skye. He has his arm around her waist. Who took it, Harry wonders.
He can see why Hermione kept this a secret for so long. Harry still can’t believe it, although the events of the day thus far are slowly starting to make more sense. Snape intruding on their conversation in the courtyard, his awkward attempts to chat on the way up the hill, his behaviour in the hospital wing. Private, reclusive, clever, a dry sense of humour. Someone he’s known for eight years, someone she doesn’t think he can be civil to.
It must be thanks to Snape that he’s almost completed his chocolate frog card collection. Hermione’s mystery boyfriend kept buying them for her, and she passed the cards on to him and Ron.
How long has he been an important part of her life? Not while she was his student, Harry hopes, feeling sick. His chest clenches tightly as he remembers something.
“You’re going to ask her to marry you?” he blurts out.
Snape jerks away from the counter, shocked. He slips his wand out of his sleeve and slashes it through the air; a thick Silencing charm blankets the room.
“What on earth has prompted you to come to that conclusion?”
“Temperance,” Harry says wryly. “She wanted to practise measuring my ring size, to make sure she got it right for Mistress Hermione.”
The man looks to the ceiling in despair.
“That elf,” he grits out.
“She’s not the most discreet,” Harry agrees. “But Hermione has no idea. Temperance got the measurement while she was asleep.”
He watches Snape exhale a shaky sigh of relief. Disconcerted, Harry looks anywhere but at him and notices the time on a clock on the wall above the sink.
“I’d, um. Best be off. Ginny’s probably waiting.”
Snape comes back to himself and raises an eyebrow.
“No duel, then?”
It seems unreal, that this is Hermione’s boyfriend. Harry can’t quite get his head around it. This might be a dream. Two words float back to him: Your happiness.
“Maybe another time,” he says uncertainly, mostly joking.
New Snape smiles at him.
*
“Have I dropped a stitch?” Hermione asks once her friend has disappeared through the flames. She can feel the weight of Severus dropping onto the sofa beside her.
“Let’s see.”
Severus takes the bundle of knitting from her and examines both sides of the work carefully.
“I don’t know how to tell,” he admits.
Hermione rolls her eyes.
“Never mind. Where are you?”
“Right here.”
Her fingertips trail across the fabric of the sofa cushion until they meet soft flesh. An arm? She explores further, meeting no resistance. A collarbone. Locks of hair. The shell of an ear.
She doesn’t know what time it is. The unending darkness makes it feel perpetually midnight.
Uncoordinated, she climbs into his lap, aiming for her knees to land on either side of him. He remains still, letting her, then slides his hands around the curve of her hips, warm and familiar. She leans forward to kiss him but is embarrassed to find her lips meeting skin that is not his mouth.
He doesn’t care. He tilts his head, kisses her on the mouth, on her cheek, her jaw. He can’t ever get enough of her.
Hermione pulls back for a moment, a tugging sensation in her chest reminding her not to stay apart for long.
“What did Harry say?”
“Not much,” comes Severus’ voice through the darkness, rough with distraction. “He said you liked your Christmas gift.”
“I did. You know I did.”
“I could read to you, if you like. It must be frustrating not being able to read.”
It is. Very. But there’s something else she’d like to be doing right now.
*
Her feet have carried her up and down this staircase a hundred times. She knows it well, and doesn’t need Severus’ hand at the small of her back or his voice telling her when they’ve reached the top. She knows where her toothbrush is, and which tap is hot and which is cold. She can feel the terrycloth of her dressing gown hanging on a hook on the bedroom door, can find her slippers beneath the bed.
He’s only trying to help, she knows that, but is a moment away from shouting at him that she’s blinded, not powerless. She chooses to swallow this argument when he starts to undress her.
It’s overwhelming, being the focus of his care and attention. Her robes are lifted over her head, her hair smoothed behind her ears, a kiss placed at the nape of her neck. With permission she is guided onto the bed, onto her back, the lace fabric of her knickers rolled down her legs and discarded.
Sex without sight is vulnerable, exposing. Sensations are both heightened and incomplete. Afterwards she lurches forwards to kiss him passionately and accidentally bangs their heads together.
The next evening Severus gets to work brewing the cure. One week later, the world returns in full colour.
*
Ronald Weasley is standing on the doorstep holding a battered cake tin.
Severus takes in the dents and the multitude of freckles and stands aside to allow him to enter.
“She’s upstairs,” he says.
Ron finishes wiping his shoes on the mat and looks up.
“Who is?”
Severus hesitates, thrown off balance for a moment, and frowns at the tin.
“Cake?”
“Vials. Empty ones. And a broken compass. Mum sent me.”
Ah. Of course. Severus turns on his heel and opens the door leading down to the cellar, mentally chastising himself. Ron follows, craning his head around to try and catch a glimpse of who might be at the top of the narrow staircase.
“She’s after more Doxycide, I presume?”
Severus unlatches an ancient glass-fronted case with a hundred tiny cubby holes and drawers, inside which are stores of potion ingredients from every continent.
“Er, I've got a list,” says Ron. He draws a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket and tries to smooth out the creases to make it readable.
Severus takes the paper from him and leaves it hovering obediently in midair. He inspects the broken compass, turning it north and south.
“I’ll need to hold on to this for a while.”
Ron nods, and at once there are footsteps above them, quick and dainty feet on creaking treads. The door opens suddenly and knocks Ron in the elbow.
“Severus? Have you seen my copy of—”
She sees red hair and goes pale.
“Hermione?” Ron gapes. “What are you doing here?”
“I… I’m looking for a book,” she says truthfully, turning to Severus. “Far From the Madding Crowd. Have you seen it?”
“Bedside table drawer,” Severus answers.
She darts back up the stairs, and Ron shifts forward as if he’s about to follow her, before remembering whose house he’s in.
The vials have been laid out in a neat row on the workbench. He mutely watches his former professor distil, dilute and decant potions into each crystal vessel.
“You weren’t aware she was staying here?” Severus ventures quietly, not making eye contact and instead consulting Molly’s handwritten list.
“Here? No. She told me she was living with her boyfriend.”
Severus’ gaze flicks to his then, black eyes to blue, alight with a tinge of exasperation.
He turns around and closes the storage case, then busies himself corking each of the vials.
“Do you think she was lying to you?”
“No,” Ron says rudely, immediately defensive. “Hermione wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Then,” Severus says steadily, turning back around and handing him the battered cake tin, “logically, she must be telling the truth.”
Ron takes the tin, frowning. Potion bottles rattle inside it. He follows the rectangle of light outlining the exit from the cellar and is guided out onto the doorstep to be lashed by the biting wind.
He leaves Spinner’s End that day none the wiser.