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The return to Hogwarts was supposed to be a kind of healing. At least, that’s what Kingsley Shacklebolt had said as he personally invited the surviving students back to finish their interrupted education, one final year of study, now known simply as the "Eighth Year," to help knit together the wounds of war.
For Hermione Granger, the castle no longer felt like a sanctuary. Its stone walls had once offered warmth and wonder, but now they loomed cold and vast, echoing with memories of bloodshed, fear, and the screaming silence of missing friends.
She walked the corridors like a ghost in her own skin, thinner than she had been in years, her cheeks hollowed from months of living on stale bread, rainwater, and adrenaline. Her curls, once unruly with youth, now hung lank, as if even her hair had given up.
She had not truly eaten in days. The Great Hall's noise overwhelmed her. Every clang of silver on plate, every burst of laughter or sudden exclamation sliced through her like broken glass. She picked at her meals. Her stomach twisted at the smell of roast meats and rich puddings. The other Eighth Years were adjusting, slowly rejoining clubs, sitting on the lawn again, breathing easier. Even Harry was laughing again, often at Ron's side, while Ron himself behaved as if nothing had happened at all.
And maybe for Ron, nothing had. He hadn't wasted away in forests, sleepless and starving. He hadn't watched a friend die in front of him without time to scream. He hadn’t had Bellatrix carve her name into his skin.
Ron’s version of healing looked like groping hands and unwelcome kisses, pressed too hard, too fast, too much.
"You used to love when I did this," he growled into her neck just yesterday, fingers pinching her waist as she froze in his grip behind the tapestry near the library.
"No, Ron," Hermione had whispered. Firm. Trembling. He hadn’t stopped until she’d shoved him, genuinely shoved him, and he’d stumbled back, eyes burning with insult.
"You’re acting frigid," he’d spat. "Is this what the war did to you? You’re lucky anyone still wants you."
She hadn’t cried. She didn’t have the tears to give anymore.
***
Severus Snape watched her from the shadows. He always had.
When the headmistress had extended the offer for him to return as Potions Master, he had hesitated. Hogwarts had become the graveyard of his soul. But he’d taken the offer, quietly, and resumed his place at the dungeons, keeping to himself, until she walked in on the first day of term.
Hermione Granger. Thinner. Quieter. Her eyes, once bright with righteous fury and endless curiosity, were dull now. Haunted. Her uniform hung from her in a way it hadn’t before. She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Snape saw what others didn’t. Or wouldn’t.
Harry Potter beamed at everyone. Ron Weasley joked about butterbeer and tried to push her into conversation. But she… she sat at the edge of the group like an afterthought.
Snape noted how her fingers trembled while handling ingredients. How she lingered at the back of the class, like she no longer wanted to be seen. How she always wore long sleeves, even in warm weather. She avoided mirrors. She jumped at sudden sounds.
He noticed because he was watching her. Closely.
More than watching. He was… preoccupied.
It had begun with curiosity. Then pity. But now, now it was something else. The girl he had once scolded with sneering disdain had grown into something he could not look away from. She was a woman now, and yet so utterly undone. Feminine and pale, but cracking at the edges. Severus had never believed in beauty until he saw her trying to survive.
Her brokenness called to him. There was something obscene in how much he wanted to wrap her in velvet and quiet and never let her hurt again.
He found himself fantasizing, dangerously, irrationally, of placing his hand beneath her chin and asking her, gently, to marry him. To belong to him. A mad thought, but it stayed.
One morning in October, everything shifted.
***
She hadn’t eaten that day. Again. The food had made her stomach churn. Ron had sneered at her in Transfiguration when she’d stumbled over an incantation.
“You’re not the brightest anymore, huh?” he’d muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.
By the time she reached Advanced Potions, her last class, her limbs felt like water. She could hear her heart thundering too loudly in her ears. The cauldron in front of her blurred. She smelled the asphodel and suddenly everything spun,
Darkness.
Then,
"Miss Granger!"
Voices echoed.
Hands caught her before she hit the stone.
Hermione's vision returned slowly, shapes blooming back into meaning. She was cradled, arms under her knees and shoulders, against someone tall, someone that smelled of clove and parchment.
Snape.
Her head lolled against his shoulder, weak. His arms were solid. Strong. She could hear the tremor in his breath, feel his voice vibrate through his chest.
"You are severely unwell," he murmured, almost more to himself than to her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, ashamed. “I didn’t mean, ”
“Silence.”
But the word wasn’t cruel. It was commanding. Protective.
She let herself be carried, eyes fluttering closed as her thin fingers curled in the fabric of his robes. Warmth. Steady.
He didn’t take her to the hospital wing.
He took her to his quarters.
***
When she woke, she was on a couch in a dimly lit study. Blankets tucked around her. There was a plate of fruit, bread, and a glass of water on the table beside her. Her stomach growled, but she didn’t reach for it.
Snape was in the armchair across from her, long fingers folded beneath his chin, watching.
She sat up slowly. “You should’ve taken me to Madam Pomfrey.”
“I am qualified,” he replied. “And I do not trust the discretion of others.”
Hermione’s throat tightened. “You… noticed, didn’t you.”
He inclined his head, just once. “You are not well. You’ve been suffering in silence. No one has done a damn thing to stop it.”
She stared at the fire. “They’re all fine. Harry. Ron. Everyone bounced back. I can’t…”
“I know.”
Those two words undid her. She wept then, sudden and full, pressing her face into her hands. He didn’t come to her, didn’t interrupt. Only when her sobs turned into quiet shaking did he rise, come to sit beside her.
He didn’t touch her.
But she turned her head toward him, eyes rimmed red. “You’re the only one who sees it.”
“Yes.”
She paused. “Will you… stay?”
Snape’s expression flickered, something raw beneath the usual mask. He nodded.
That night, Hermione fell asleep in his study, curled beneath his cloak, the scent of him calming her more than she could understand.
He watched her, jaw tight with restraint, heart a storm of need and protectiveness.
He would care for her. Properly. He would feed her, heal her, show her that she was precious.
And soon, she would be his. Not because he demanded it, but because she’d choose it. Because she’d want what he already could not live without.
Her.
***
The next morning dawned grey and damp, rain painting silver streaks against the tall windows of the dungeons. The castle groaned with the weather, wood swelling, stone dripping, and in the hush of Severus Snape’s private chambers, Hermione Granger stirred beneath a heavy wool blanket.
The scent of his cloak still clung to her skin: sandalwood, ink, potion fumes. She buried her face in the folds for a moment before she realized where she was.
Her heart thudded.
But not in panic.
She remembered the warmth of his arms. The quiet. The way he had seen her when no one else had even looked.
He was seated in the same armchair, a cup of tea in one hand, a book unopened in the other. His eyes were not on the pages, but on her. She didn’t feel embarrassed. She felt… safe.
“I didn’t mean to stay the night,” she whispered, voice hoarse.
“You needed to sleep,” he said simply. “You did.”
She blinked, adjusting her body. The blanket slipped down one shoulder, revealing the sharpness of her collarbone. He noticed. She saw him notice, and for once, didn’t feel the impulse to cover up.
“I don’t want to go back to Gryffindor Tower.”
Snape didn’t reply at first. Then he set his tea down. “You don’t have to.”
Hermione’s eyes snapped to him. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve made arrangements before. Private accommodations for students with… special needs. I will speak to the Headmistress.”
“And she’ll just allow that?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Minerva owes me a great deal more than a student’s change of quarters.”
Hermione felt her breath catch. “You’d do that… for me?”
“I am doing it,” he said calmly. “You are not safe there. Emotionally or physically.”
Hermione felt tears prick her again. “Ron’s angry. He thinks I’m broken. He said no one would want me like this.”
Snape’s voice was a low growl. “Then he is a fool.”
Hermione looked down at her hands, the half-moons of her nails dug into her own palms. “Do you think I’m broken?”
“I think,” he said slowly, “you are wounded. Profoundly. And I think no one has given you the time, space, or care to recover.”
He paused.
“I would.”
The words hung in the air like an unsaid vow.
Hermione lifted her eyes to his, and for a long moment, they simply stared at each other. Time melted. Her lip trembled.
“I’m not used to someone wanting nothing from me,” she whispered. “Ron… he always expects. My mind, my body, my time. I tried to give it, because I thought that was love. But it just made me disappear.”
Snape’s jaw flexed. “Love does not consume. It builds.”
She felt something splinter open in her chest. He stood then, slow and deliberate, and moved to kneel in front of her, not out of servitude, but solemnity.
He didn’t touch her.
He only looked up at her, black eyes simmering with a devotion so intense it made her breath shudder.
“I see you,” he said. “Every sharp edge. Every bruise beneath your words. And if you allow it, I will protect you.”
She reached for him.
Tentative. Delicate.
Her fingers curled into his sleeve.
His hand rose, slowly, asking permission. She gave it, and he touched her face, the first time he had ever touched her willingly, gently. His thumb skimmed her cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut.
“Stay with me,” she said, barely a whisper. “Let me… fall apart here. Just here.”
His voice was low, dangerous with tenderness. “You may fall. I will hold you.”
***
Hermione didn’t go to her classes that day. Or the next.
Snape handled the logistics, papers signed, Minerva informed, vague language about a “restorative sabbatical” used with clinical vagueness. He brought her meals, light and nourishing, and sat silently as she forced herself to eat, knowing his eyes were on her.
He brewed tonics for sleep, for digestion, for nerves. She drank them all without question.
By the third day, she no longer flinched when he entered the room.
She spoke more, fragments of memory, not always coherent, often painful. Bellatrix’s laughter. The feel of Ron’s teeth scraping too hard. The hunger that turned her legs to jelly after days without food.
Snape listened. Never interrupting. Never judging.
She asked him once, through a quiet haze of tea and moonlight, why he was doing this.
His answer was plain.
“Because I care for you.”
She looked at him like the words were foreign.
“You don’t have to say that,” she murmured. “You don’t need to fix me.”
“No,” he said, standing. He walked to her, slow, careful. “I do not need to. But I want to.”
He reached down, brushing her hair behind her ear. “You are not a burden.”
Hermione’s breath hitched. Her hands trembled.
“I don’t know how to belong anywhere anymore.”
He leaned closer, voice like velvet and smoke.
“Then belong to me.”
Her heart stopped.
He did not kiss her.
He did not demand.
He simply stood there, a fortress in a man’s body, offering her shelter not just in his quarters, but in his life.
“I… I need time,” she whispered.
“You may have it,” he replied.
But his hand lingered against her jaw for a moment longer than was proper.
And in that moment, Hermione Granger understood something she never had before.
She could be wanted.
Cherished.
Not for her brilliance, or her sacrifice, or her body.
But simply because she existed.
And because Severus Snape, in all his darkness, had seen the light in her, and decided to guard it like a flame in the wind.
She let herself lean into his palm.
Just a little.
And he let her.
***
It rained again the next morning. The dungeons, perpetually cold and damp, now felt like the safest place in the world to Hermione. The drip of water down the stone walls, the soft rustle of pages as Snape turned them across the room, even the low bubbling of a brewing potion, it all wrapped around her like a lullaby.
She sat cross-legged on the floor before the hearth, wearing a thick jumper he had left out for her, a deep forest green, long in the arms, swallowing her whole. It smelled like him. It was his. When she’d pulled it over her head that morning, a strange thrill had settled low in her stomach. She hadn’t taken it off since.
She hadn’t said anything about it either.
Snape, ever watchful, had noticed. And yet he hadn’t said a word, only flicked his eyes toward the neckline of it when she passed him by, his expression unreadable. But his fingers tightened slightly on the pages of his book.
She saw that.
She’d started seeing many things now.
Like how his eyes softened when he looked at her for too long. How he never turned his back on her, always facing her when she moved. How he adjusted his voice around her, still deep, still authoritative, but with a gentleness few had ever known he possessed.
And how, when she’d curled up under his cloak on the couch last night, shaking from another fragmented memory, he had crouched beside her and whispered, “You are mine to care for.”
Mine.
Not a burden.
Not a responsibility.
Mine.
Hermione hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.
***
By the end of the week, the school had noticed her absence from the Great Hall. Rumors fluttered. Harry came knocking once. Severus intercepted him in the corridor.
“She is under my care,” he said, flat and final.
Harry looked stunned. “Under your care? What does that mean?”
Snape’s eyes sharpened. “It means I noticed what neither of you did, that she’s barely surviving. That her boyfriend, ” he spat the word, “, was more interested in what she could offer him than what she needed. She is recovering. And I will not permit further harm.”
Harry looked rattled. Embarrassed. But he didn’t argue.
Snape closed the door in his face.
Inside, Hermione sat at the window seat, watching the grey skies. She turned as he entered, her eyes uncertain.
“Did he come?”
“Yes.”
“Was he angry?”
“No. Merely slow.”
She smiled faintly. Then, braver now, “And Ron?”
His jaw clenched. “I expect that conversation will end less… civilly.”
Hermione swallowed. “I don’t want to see him.”
“You won’t.”
She believed him. Entirely.
Snape had not only made her feel safe, he’d proven it.
She walked over to him, small and tired in the jumper, her hair twisted back in a messy knot. “Everyone’s going to think something strange is happening between us.”
He raised a brow. “Is something strange happening between us?”
Her mouth twitched. “Would you be upset if it were?”
He stepped closer. Close enough that she could smell the sandalwood and see the silver starting to grow at his temples.
“No,” he said, voice low. “I would be… relieved.”
Hermione tilted her face up to his. “You still haven’t touched me. Not like...”
“I would never touch you,” he said sharply, “until I am certain you are strong enough to decide.”
“I am deciding,” she said, almost a whisper.
Snape’s hand hovered by her jaw, but didn’t make contact. “You think you want comfort. And perhaps you do. But I… what I want from you is not temporary.”
“What do you want?”
“To possess,” he said plainly. “To protect. To keep. Not to comfort for a moment and then forget.”
Hermione's breath trembled. “You want to own me.”
“No.” He leaned closer, and this time, he did touch her, just his fingers brushing her cheekbone, reverent, like she was holy. “I want you to give yourself to me. Willingly. Entirely.”
She closed her eyes.
“I think,” she said, “I already have.”
***
That night, she did not sleep on the couch.
She stood in the middle of his bedroom, candlelight flickering behind her, her limbs thin and bare and trembling in the firelight. She wasn’t seducing him. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing, only that her eyes found his and didn’t look away.
Snape sat at the edge of the bed, still dressed, watching her with the hunger of a man dying of thirst.
“Come here,” he said.
She did.
He reached for her slowly, giving her time, and when she stepped between his knees, he pulled her to sit on his lap. She fit there, small, breakable, real.
“You don’t want me like this,” she murmured.
“I want you exactly like this,” he replied, fingers tracing up her spine. “Bruised. Real. Mine.”
She curled against him, tucking her head beneath his chin. His arms locked around her like a vise, and something inside her unclenched for the first time in months.
“You’ll never let me go, will you?”
“Never.”
“I don’t want gentle,” she whispered.
“I’m not gentle.”
“I know.”
There was no kiss.
Not yet.
Only his hands smoothing down her back, grounding her. And hers gripping his collar, not letting go.
They fell asleep like that, entwined, clothed, but together.
And somewhere in the dungeons of a battered castle, a broken girl gave herself, completely, wordlessly, to the man who had been waiting to catch her since the very beginning.
And he, at last, let himself feel joy.
Because she was his.
***
It was nearly dawn when Hermione stirred in Severus’s arms.
He had not slept.
Instead, he’d sat upright in the dark, cradling her against him like something both sacred and breakable. Her weight on his chest, her legs curled into his robes, each moment of her breath felt like evidence of a second chance. Her presence lit something inside him he hadn’t known was still alive.
He had imagined her like this for weeks now, more than he dared admit. He had fantasized, yes, but not about lust. Not entirely. It had been about belonging. He had imagined her beside him at the table. In the garden. In his bed, asleep just like this, curled in his arms, trusting him with the pieces no one else could hold.
When she began to wake, her fingers twitched first. Then her nose nuzzled into his throat. He held his breath.
A moment later, her voice came, raspy and vulnerable. “You’re still here.”
His arms tightened. “Of course.”
Hermione slowly looked up at him. Her eyes were glassy with sleep, brown as tea. She searched his face, probably for doubt, or regret, or guilt, but found nothing but stillness. He didn’t pull away.
“Are you… angry with me?” she asked.
“For what?”
“For needing this. Needing you.”
Snape’s gaze turned sharp. “You are allowed to need things. You are allowed to need me.”
Hermione blinked. Her lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came. Instead, she leaned forward and placed her forehead against his.
Snape let his eyes close.
They stayed like that, forehead to forehead, two damaged things stitched together by silence.
***
Hermione didn’t return to her old room. It wasn’t even a conversation. That first morning, she remained in Snape’s quarters without comment, curling into the armchair as he brewed coffee. She still wore his green jumper. He set her tea on the side table before her without asking how she took it. He knew.
The rhythms of their days began to settle. Snape taught classes in the morning, locking the door to his private rooms behind him and warding it against anyone but her. Hermione stayed behind, slowly returning to the pile of reading she’d once devoured without effort.
She didn’t always make it through a chapter. Some days were worse than others. There were mornings she didn’t rise from bed. She wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t speak. On those days, he sat with her. He didn’t force words or food. Just presence. Just him.
When she couldn’t speak, she clutched his sleeve instead. That was enough. That was everything.
***
One night, as the rain lashed the castle again, Hermione stood at the mirror in Snape’s bedroom. She had stripped to her underthings but hadn’t yet moved to the bath. Her eyes lingered on the hollows of her body, the sharpness of her ribs, the fading purple stain of an old bruise across her hip.
Snape entered quietly behind her.
His voice, when it came, was rougher than usual. “Do you know what I see?”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed locked on the mirror.
“I see someone who survived.”
Hermione swallowed.
He came closer, standing behind her, his reflection tall and dark and strange next to hers.
“I see someone still alive despite every reason not to be. I see someone who still chooses to wake up. That’s not weakness, Hermione.”
Her throat tightened at the sound of her name on his lips.
“I’m not pretty anymore,” she whispered.
He stepped even closer.
“I do not desire pretty,” he said, voice grave. “I desire you.”
Hermione’s eyes fluttered closed.
She felt his hand touch her bare shoulder, warm, grounding, firm. Then both hands. He wrapped them around her waist, letting her feel the difference in size. In strength.
“You are small,” he said lowly. “But you are not fragile.”
She turned in his arms and looked up at him. Her chest rose and fell faster now.
“I want you to kiss me,” she whispered.
Snape stared at her. His hands didn’t tighten, didn’t move.
“You’re sure.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
He kissed her.
Slow. Deep. Possessive.
It wasn’t polite or experimental, it was claiming. It was the kind of kiss that rewrote stories. That burned years of pain into ash. Hermione whimpered softly, fisting the front of his robes, rising on her toes to meet him. His hand cradled the back of her skull as he deepened it, as though he had been waiting to taste her for centuries.
When they parted, she was trembling.
His voice was dark and quiet. “You do not need to offer yourself to me to prove you are worthy of care.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But I want to.”
Snape’s jaw clenched. He brushed his thumb across her lower lip.
“Not tonight,” he said gently. “I would take you apart. And you are not ready for how much I need you.”
Hermione’s eyes widened. She didn’t doubt him.
“Then let me sleep in your bed,” she murmured. “Like before.”
He nodded once.
And when she slid beneath the sheets, he came in beside her, pulling her against his chest, breathing her in.
“I am not used to gentleness,” she said into the dark.
“I am not gentle,” he replied.
And yet, his arms around her felt like the gentlest thing in the world.
***
Elsewhere in the castle, Ron Weasley raged.
He knew where Hermione had gone.
He had heard the whispers. Heard about Snape's refusal to let anyone see her. Heard the way McGonagall wouldn't meet his eyes when he asked where Hermione had disappeared to.
He slammed a hand against the stone wall of the corridor.
“If that greasy bastard’s got her under some spell…”
But deep down, Ron knew. He had seen it in her eyes before she stopped speaking to him: fear, yes, but also disgust. Distance. Disappointment.
He had lost her.
Not to another man.
But to her own awakening.
And to a man who had the patience to wait.
**
Back in the dungeon, Hermione drifted to sleep in Severus’s arms, her hand resting over his heart.
And in the quiet dark, she murmured a promise.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Snape didn’t reply.
But he kissed her hair and held her tighter.
She was his now.
And heaven help anyone who tried to take her away.
***
Hermione awoke to warmth. It took her a moment to understand it wasn’t from the blankets, or the fire crackling low across the room. It was him. Severus.
Her hand was pressed against his chest, just beneath his collarbone. She could feel his heartbeat under her fingers. Steady. Strong. He was still asleep, his brow relaxed, his mouth parted slightly, dark lashes resting against pale cheeks. In sleep, he looked younger. Not softer, but less burdened. As if the quiet of the room had peeled the armor off him for a little while.
She stayed there, watching him.
No one had ever let her be still like this.
Ron had always filled silences with noise, with questions, with need. But Severus didn’t need anything from her, not unless she gave it. And he never took. He waited.
Hermione shifted slightly. She was sore, not physically, but in that strange way healing made everything more tender. Every small part of her was starting to come alive again, and it made her aware of things she had forgotten mattered.
Her body. Her breath. Her hunger.
She hadn’t had a panic attack in four days.
She sat up slowly, disentangling herself. Severus stirred, one hand reaching blindly for her in sleep, brushing her hip. She caught it gently, kissed the back of his hand, and whispered, “Just getting dressed.”
His eyes blinked open at the sound of her voice, dark and unfocused at first.
“You’re up early,” he murmured.
Hermione smiled softly. “For once, I actually slept.”
A pause.
He sat up fully then, the covers falling to his waist. His bare chest was pale, scarred. Hermione let her eyes linger. Not with lust, but reverence. She had read those scars like a book the night before as they lay in bed, her fingers tracing one after another in silence. She had not asked. He had not explained. They didn’t need words.
Today, she dressed slowly, tugging on a sweater he’d left folded near the hearth. She felt his eyes on her as she moved, and it gave her a strange thrill to be watched, not judged, not possessed, but seen.
“You should eat,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
And she would. Because he asked. Because he cared.
**
They had breakfast together, seated across a narrow table in his sitting room. Hermione nibbled on toast, dipped her spoon into warm porridge. It wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d eaten the day Ron had grabbed her wrist in the corridor and hissed, What happened to you? You used to be someone.
Now, Severus reached across the table with his long fingers and brushed a crumb from her lip. His hand lingered for just a moment too long.
Hermione’s heart stuttered.
“I want to return to classes,” she said softly.
Snape didn’t answer right away. He set his tea down. “You are not ready.”
“I need to try.”
His eyes narrowed, not unkindly. “Are you doing this for yourself, or because you think you should be better by now?”
Hermione winced.
He saw too much.
“I miss learning,” she admitted. “I miss feeling capable. Whole.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Then you may attend one class. With me. Potions. If you falter, we return to rest.”
Hermione nodded. It was more than fair. It was a kindness disguised as sternness.
***
She entered the classroom that afternoon like a ghost in human skin. The other Eighth Years turned as she walked in, murmurs rippling down the rows. She ignored them. Snape did not acknowledge her beyond the faintest incline of his head.
She took the seat in the front row, closest to his desk.
Ron was in the back.
His voice was too loud when he said, “Look who finally decided to show up.”
Hermione didn’t turn.
Snape’s voice cut across the classroom like a blade. “Mr. Weasley, ten points from Gryffindor for unwarranted commentary. Another word and you’ll find yourself scrubbing cauldrons for a week.”
The class fell silent.
Ron’s mouth twisted. His gaze burned holes into Hermione’s back. But she didn’t flinch.
Not anymore.
***
After class, she lingered.
She waited until the others had gone. Snape remained at his desk, parchment in hand. His quill scratched across the surface in slow, precise strokes.
Finally, she approached.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t look up. “He will push. He is weak, and weak men punish women for strength they do not understand.”
Hermione stepped around the desk. He didn’t stop her.
She placed her hand on the wood beside his, close but not touching. “I’m not afraid of him anymore.”
“You should never have had to fear him at all.”
“I know that now.”
Finally, he looked at her.
“You’re still mine, aren’t you?” he asked softly.
Hermione stepped closer, pressing her fingers against the pulse in his throat.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I always was.”
***
That night, she returned to his chambers without needing an invitation. She let herself in, kicked off her shoes, and climbed onto his sofa with a book tucked under her arm.
When Snape entered minutes later, he stopped in the doorway.
She looked up at him.
“What?”
His eyes darkened.
“I was not prepared for how natural this would feel.”
Hermione smiled and patted the cushion beside her.
“Come sit,” she said. “Tell me what you’ll make me read tomorrow.”
Snape joined her, and when he did, her head found his lap without a second thought. He brushed her curls back gently, his fingers grazing her scalp in slow, grounding movements.
He read aloud to her from the book. His voice rolled like thunder through the stone room. Every now and then, her hand found his wrist, or his knee, or his chest, just to make sure he was still there.
He always was.
***
Above them, the castle stirred. And somewhere in Gryffindor Tower, Ron sat alone, fuming, wondering how Hermione had slipped away from him without a sound.
But she hadn’t slipped.
She had walked away.
Into the arms of a man who knew silence could be holy. That healing required stillness. That broken things could be precious.
Hermione closed her eyes beneath the rhythm of Severus’s voice.
And for the first time in her life, she began to believe she was not just surviving.
She was loved.
***
The second time Hermione attended class, she arrived early.
Snape was already at the board, chalk dancing between his fingers as he outlined the procedure for a new complex healing draught. His movements were swift, precise. Watching him work was like watching music in motion, each gesture purposeful, each line of instruction clear and deliberate.
Hermione sat at the same desk as before, front and center. No one dared whisper when she entered this time. Not even Ron.
There was something different about her now, something unmistakable. It wasn’t confidence, not quite. But stillness. The wild, fraying edges of her had begun to smooth. She no longer flinched when people spoke her name. Her hands no longer trembled when she reached for her quill.
She carried herself like someone kept.
Snape called the class to order, his gaze barely skimming over the room before resting, briefly, but with intention, on her. It wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t romantic. But Hermione felt it like a tether, like an anchor in a storm.
As she bent over her cauldron, chopping ginger root with quiet precision, she heard it again.
“Nice of you to finally pull yourself together, Granger.”
Ron. Low, bitter, but loud enough to cut.
She paused, her blade hovering mid-slice.
She could feel the eyes of the room tighten around her like a noose. Her heartbeat skipped.
Snape’s voice rang out immediately. “Mr. Weasley, another interruption and you’ll serve detention for the remainder of the term.”
“But,”
“Silence.”
The air snapped with tension.
Hermione resumed her work, shoulders square. But her fingers stung. The blade had nicked her.
Before she could reach for a cloth, a folded handkerchief appeared on her table, carried by the slow, familiar flick of Snape’s wand.
She pressed it to her finger and did not look up, but her mouth curved slightly.
When class ended, she was the last to leave again.
***
“You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured once the door shut behind the last student.
Snape stood by his desk, arms crossed. “I will not allow him to touch you. With his words, or otherwise.”
“He hates me now.”
“He hated you long before,” Snape said. “You were too much for him even then. He resented your mind, your will, your power.”
Hermione looked at her shoes. “I think I always knew.”
He approached slowly. “You wanted love so badly, you accepted a lesser version.”
She looked up, eyes shimmering. “And you?”
“I do not offer love the way others do,” he said. “Mine is not flowers or flattery. But it is fierce. And it is permanent.”
He stopped in front of her, tall and dark, his presence wrapping around her like gravity.
“If you belong to me,” he said lowly, “you are mine. And no one touches what’s mine.”
Hermione shivered. But not from fear.
She stepped into him, her hands sliding up the black fabric of his robes, settling on his chest.
“I want to be yours,” she whispered. “I want to choose it. Without shame.”
Snape bent his head, his mouth grazing the curve of her neck. “You have always had the choice.”
“And I choose you,” she said, with a voice so steady it surprised even her.
His arms came around her then, pulling her in completely.
But this time, it wasn’t for comfort.
It was possession.
***
That night, she did not sleep curled against his side. She straddled his lap, her thighs shaking slightly as she lowered herself onto him, breath ragged with anticipation and fear.
“Slow,” he whispered. “We have time.”
She nodded. “I don’t want slow. Not tonight.”
He gripped her hips, steadying her. “Then let me give you what he never could.”
Her eyes met his. “Safety?”
His voice was a growl. “Everything.”
When they joined, it was not frantic or fast, it was deep. Intimate. The kind of intimacy that hollowed her out and filled her again in the same breath.
He did not treat her like glass.
He treated her like something meant to be held.
And she clung to him, gasping into his mouth, feeling the burn of life in her limbs for the first time in months.
When it was over, she lay across his chest, soaked in sweat and wonder.
“You… waited,” she said softly.
His fingers traced circles on her back. “For you? Always.”
***
A week later, McGonagall called her into her office.
Hermione sat upright, nerves prickling under her skin. She wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Miss Granger,” Minerva said carefully, pouring tea. “There have been… whispers.”
Hermione said nothing.
“The kind of whispers that stir quickly. About your absence. Your return. Your proximity to a certain professor.”
Still, Hermione waited. Calm.
“You are an adult,” Minerva continued. “But Hogwarts is not a place that treats blurred lines kindly.”
Hermione lifted her chin. “There is no line being blurred, Headmistress. I am not a girl. I am not confused. I know what I want. And for the first time, someone treats me like I’m allowed to choose.”
Minerva sighed. “And he?”
“Has done nothing I haven’t asked for.”
They stared at each other.
Finally, Minerva sat back.
“I never thought he would allow anyone that close again.”
Hermione smiled, faint but real. “I didn’t either.”
Minerva offered her a rare, quiet smile.
“Then be careful. And be certain.”
“I am,” Hermione said.
And she was.
Because love wasn’t supposed to shatter you. It was supposed to shield you.
And Severus Snape, in all his impossible complexity, had become her shield.
Her stillness.
Her home.
***
It was nearly December when the first snowfall dusted the windowsills of the dungeons. Fat flakes drifted silently past the enchanted glass, frosting the gloom of Snape’s quarters with gentle light. Hermione sat on the rug near the hearth, wrapped in his long, charcoal-gray robe, poring over a textbook she didn’t need to study. Her body had softened slightly in the last month, meals taken, rest accepted, small joys allowed.
Severus sat in his armchair, ink-stained fingers holding a parchment roll of OWL curriculum updates, but his eyes weren’t on the text. They hadn’t been for a while.
They were on her.
She sensed him watching and smiled without looking up. “You’re doing that thing again.”
He arched a brow. “Which thing?”
“Staring. As though I might vanish if you blink.”
He said nothing.
She finally looked up at him, closing the book. Her legs tucked beneath her as she shifted to face him more fully.
“I’m not going anywhere, you know.”
“I know that here,” he said, tapping his temple. “But I don’t always believe it here.” He touched the center of his chest. “Especially not in the dark.”
Hermione stood and padded over to him barefoot, her curls wild from sleep. She climbed into his lap without invitation, as she often did now, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He accepted her immediately, arms closing around her waist, his face resting against her throat.
“I want to talk about after,” she murmured.
“After Hogwarts?”
She nodded. “I don’t want to leave without you.”
He drew back, eyes searching hers. “You still plan to sit your NEWTs, finish your studies?”
“Yes. That’s not changing. But I’ve been thinking…”
He waited.
“I don’t want to live in London, or travel endlessly, or chase some vague Ministry job that will never satisfy me. I want something quieter.”
“And what would that be?”
“I want to teach,” she said. “Eventually. Or research. I want a little house with bookshelves and a big kitchen, and you in it. I want… peace.”
Snape’s face remained unreadable, but his hand moved gently to her cheek.
“You imagine me in that life?”
“I do more than imagine it,” she whispered. “I plan it.”
A long silence passed between them, not heavy but meaningful.
Then his voice, soft and serious: “And if I asked you to marry me after this year?”
Hermione’s heart slammed into her ribs. She stared at him, stunned, but not afraid.
“You’d want that?”
“I’ve wanted it,” he said. “Longer than I had any right to. I haven’t asked because I feared it would feel like obligation. Or worse, rescue.”
Hermione shook her head. “It wouldn’t. Not even close.”
Snape ran his hand down her back. “I think of you in white. Not out of tradition, but because I want to see you stepping toward something new, something untouched. A ceremony is meaningless to most, but to me… it would be a vow I’d never break.”
Tears pricked Hermione’s eyes.
“I’d say yes,” she whispered. “Not out of gratitude. Not out of trauma. But because when I think of waking up next to someone for the rest of my life… it’s only ever you.”
His breath hitched. She kissed his cheek, then his temple.
“I want your name,” she murmured. “I want your books, your coffee in the morning, your silence in the evenings. I want the life no one ever gave either of us.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “You already have it.”
***
Later that night, they lay in bed with the candles low, her head resting on his chest as she traced lazy shapes across the lines of his arm.
“You know,” she said, sleep curling around her voice, “Ron still tries to corner me in the corridors.”
Snape’s body tensed beneath her. “I’ll have him expelled.”
“No,” she said softly. “He’s not worth it. He’s not the villain anymore. Just… the past. Like a dream I’ve woken up from.”
Snape tilted her face up with two fingers, his thumb brushing her lips. “And me?”
“You’re the home I woke into.”
His mouth found hers in the quiet dark, not hungry, but grateful.
***
Before the end of term, word spread that Hermione Granger would be finishing the year under independent study, working closely with Professor Snape in the restricted section and advanced potions labs. Whispers flourished, of course, but none dared challenge them. Not with the way she walked now, shoulders back, chin high. Not with the way he watched her when she wasn’t looking, the faintest curl of something tender at the corner of his mouth.
They belonged to one another.
Not in the frantic, desperate way young lovers often clung to each other after war.
But in the quiet, enduring way of two survivors who had chosen, against all odds, to heal together.
And somewhere, in a drawer in Snape’s desk, wrapped in velvet and protected by spells, was a simple silver ring, unfinished, unoffered.
But not for long.
***
The snow was falling heavier now. By January, Hogwarts had become a landscape of white silence, broken only by the flurry of student cloaks and the quiet hum of magic warming the corridors. Hermione found herself increasingly untouched by the old rhythms of the school. She was still technically a student, but in truth, she now lived somewhere between two worlds, one foot in her unfinished girlhood, and one firmly planted in the future she was building with Severus.
And it was a future. Not a fantasy. Not escape.
A choice.
They moved around one another now with an ease that startled her sometimes. Morning tea was always waiting. Her favorite books began appearing on his shelves before she asked. He had a habit of murmuring in Latin when he read beside her at night. She’d begun to understand him better in silence than most people in words.
And every time he touched her, lightly at her back in the corridor, slowly as he undressed her at night, he did it as if reminding her: you are mine, and you are safe.
Still, Hermione knew something was stirring in him. Something quiet. Measured. Something he hadn’t said yet.
She could feel it in his restraint.
She wasn’t wrong.
***
The ring sat in his palm that evening, weightless and full of meaning.
He stared at it by candlelight, the silver band cool against his skin. No stone. No engraving. Just simple and strong, like the woman who would wear it. The woman who had ruined his solitude, stripped away his defenses, and laid herself bare with terrifying vulnerability.
He had loved her for far longer than he could admit. At first from a distance. Then with guilt. Then with growing awe. And now, with absolute clarity.
He had known darkness. Known obsession, and loss, and hopeless craving. This was not that.
This was peace.
He closed the box with a soft click.
Tomorrow.
***
The next day dawned white and cold. Hermione woke slowly in his bed, curled around his pillow, the scent of him grounding her. She stretched, soft and warm, and reached for her wand.
When she entered the sitting room, Severus was waiting, dressed in black as always, but his hair tied neatly back, and his posture stiller than usual.
She sensed it immediately.
“What is it?” she asked, voice thick with sleep.
He stood, crossing to her, and took her hands in his without preamble.
“I don’t want to wait,” he said, and her breath caught.
“I don’t want to waste another month, another moment, imagining a life without certainty. I know what I want. And I know who.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled the box from within his robes.
Hermione’s hands flew to her mouth, eyes wide.
“I will never ask you to forget the girl you were,” he said softly. “But I am asking you to walk into the future as the woman you are now. With me.”
He opened the box.
The ring shimmered like moonlight.
“Will you marry me?”
She couldn’t speak.
Tears welled in her eyes, joyful, not jagged, and she nodded once, then again, then again, with such fierce emotion she nearly collapsed against him.
“Yes,” she finally managed. “Yes, yes, of course.”
He slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
Then he pulled her into him, and kissed her with quiet desperation. It was the kind of kiss that said I will build the rest of my life around you.
And she kissed him back like she believed it.
***
They spent that night wrapped together, limbs tangled, breath shared. It was slower than before. Reverent. His hand never left hers. He worshipped her body as though it were already sacred by vow.
And when they finally lay still, his lips at her temple, she whispered, “Do you think the world will understand?”
“No,” he said, simply. “But the world doesn’t deserve you.”
She smiled against his chest.
“Then let’s leave it behind. Let’s build our own.”
***
But nothing stays untouched forever.
Two days later, Ron Weasley cornered her outside the Great Hall.
He had waited until she was alone.
“I knew it,” he said, low and tight, his eyes flicking to her hand. “You’re with him.”
Hermione didn’t flinch. She didn’t hide the ring.
“I’m engaged to him.”
Ron looked stunned. And then enraged. “He’s twice your age, Hermione! He’s, he’s sick in the head. He’s been grooming you for years, ”
“No,” she said firmly. “He waited. And respected me. And saw me when no one else did. Including you.”
Ron stared at her like she was a stranger.
“You used to be smart.”
Hermione stepped forward, eyes sharp.
“I am smart. Smart enough to know that love isn’t supposed to make me smaller. Or ashamed. Or afraid.”
Her voice didn’t tremble.
“And for the first time, I’m not any of those things.”
She turned and walked away, leaving him standing there in the shadow of a world he’d never understood.
***
That night, Severus said nothing as she climbed into bed beside him.
She pressed her ringed hand to his chest and whispered, “You’re my choice.”
His arms curled around her protectively.
“And you’re my future.”
And this time, there were no ghosts between them.
Only vows waiting to be spoken.
***
The snow began to melt by mid-February.
The castle groaned with the slow thaw, water trickling along stone gutters and dripping from the mouths of ancient gargoyles. Students stirred with the restlessness of coming spring, talk of Hogsmeade weekends, exams, and summer plans swirled through the halls like pollen on the wind.
But for Hermione Granger, time moved differently now.
She no longer marked her days by the class schedule, or by the awkward silences around her when she passed students who couldn’t quite understand who she had become. Her world had narrowed beautifully, sharply, into something sacred.
Breakfast in Snape’s quarters. Long hours bent over manuscripts and rare texts in the library’s private archives. Dinners spent in front of the fire, her legs curled in his lap, a book open between them, sometimes read aloud, sometimes forgotten entirely.
And the ring.
The ring never left her finger.
It glinted in the candlelight when she stirred her tea, when she took notes, when she laced her fingers with his under the table during quiet moments.
The ring was not a symbol of rescue.
It was a symbol of reclamation. Of her own choice.
***
“Have you considered what comes after?”
The question came one evening, soft and thoughtful, as Severus stood behind her brushing out her hair with the slow patience he’d developed for such intimate rituals. He had come to love these quiet, feminine things about her, the way she tilted her head to expose her neck, the little sigh she gave when he smoothed oil into her curls, how she leaned into him like a cat.
Hermione hummed. “I have.”
“And?”
She turned slightly, her voice clear.
“I want to live with you. Not in the dungeons. Somewhere quiet. Outside of London. Maybe a small cottage. With a garden.”
“A garden?”
“I want to grow things. Potions ingredients. Tea herbs. Maybe some vegetables. Something to tend.”
He was silent for a moment.
Then, “I could take an early sabbatical.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’d leave Hogwarts?”
He nodded slowly. “I’ve given nearly twenty years to this place. That is… enough.”
Hermione reached for his hand. “And what would you do?”
He considered. “Research. I still have connections with several potioneers abroad. Perhaps even write.”
Hermione’s eyes lit up. “Your own texts?”
His mouth twitched in a half-smile. “Why not?”
“I’ll edit them,” she said brightly. “And I’ll build you a study with floor-to-ceiling shelves.”
“Only if you share it.”
She kissed his palm. “Always.”
***
The wedding plans were simple.
No ballrooms. No press. No grand announcement in The Prophet.
Just a quiet ceremony in the spring. A handfasting in a green field beyond the Black Lake, with Minerva officiating, and only a few trusted souls in attendance.
Harry would come. Luna, too. Kingsley Shacklebolt had sent them a quiet blessing from the Ministry, congratulating Hermione on “forging her own path in a world that too often resists brave women.”
Ron would not be invited.
That was not cruelty.
It was protection.
***
One rainy Sunday, Hermione sat by the hearth, writing out lists for the wedding while Severus read nearby. She paused, then looked over at him.
“Do you want children?”
His eyes flicked up from the page. He studied her face, not for panic, or pressure, but for honesty.
“Yes,” he said at last. “With you.”
Her heart swelled.
She crossed the room, slipped into his lap, and pressed a kiss to his jaw.
“I think I do too. Not now. But someday.”
His arms wrapped around her waist.
“When we are ready,” he murmured. “Not when the world says we should be.”
She nodded.
That had always been their quiet rebellion: doing things on their own time.
***
In late March, Hermione stood in front of the mirror in her wedding dress for the first time.
It wasn’t white.
It was deep cream, with long sleeves and delicate lacework that crawled up her neck and over her wrists like vines. She looked like something timeless. Like someone walking out of a story.
Snape entered the room behind her, paused when he saw her, then stopped breathing altogether.
“I know it’s bad luck to see the bride,” she teased gently.
He stepped closer. His voice was low. “You think I believe in luck?”
She turned toward him, and he took her hand.
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,” he said. “Not in my life.”
She smiled up at him.
“I know,” she whispered. “I wore it for you.”
And he leaned down, pressed his lips to her forehead, and exhaled the deepest breath he’d ever held.
***
They would be married under an arch of white blossoms. She would wear her hair down. He would wear all black, of course. And when he slipped the ring back onto her hand, not as a promise, but as a vow, she would whisper the words he had once spoken to her in her most fragile hour:
“You are mine to care for.”
And Severus Snape, who had been a ghost in his own life for so long, would smile, not grimly, not bitterly, but freely, and reply:
“And you are mine to keep.”
Forever.