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Severus sits stiffly on the edge of his cot, his hands resting on his knees and his gaze on the floor. Inevitably presses uncomfortably against his chest making it difficult to get a full breath. His fingers flex but he resists the urge to curl them into fists. Whatever happens today, he will not give them the satisfaction of a reaction.
The door to his cell clangs open. He doesn’t look up but quietly awaits instruction. Soft footsteps cross his cell. Just as a pair of worn-out chucks come into view, a guard clears his throat.
“That’s close enough, Miss Granger.”
“Hello, Professor.”
He closes his eyes. Instead of asking why she’s here, he allows the silence to do the work for him. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. Then she clears her throat.
“I was going to send a letter, but then I learned you haven’t had any visitors.”
Bleeding heart.
“I am working with your solicitor. Harry and I both are, actually.”
That almost gets a reaction. Granger may be the patron saint of lost causes, but Potter? The boy loathed him.
“He, erm, your memories. They really… He realized—It didn’t seem…”
She trails off into silence as she takes in the shift in his posture. His memories. A necessary exposure but not his most calculated. He’d shared far more than he wished, his mind compromise by blood loss and the desperate need for Potter to trust him so that everything he’d done to atone, everything he’d done for Lily would mean something. At the time, it had not occurred to him that he might live to deal with the aftermath of his vulnerability.
Granger clears her throat. “We are petitioning the Wizengamot for a full pardon, Sir, along with financial reparations.”
Severus raises his head slowly. His hair hangs in lank curtains around his face. Granger’s eyes widen slightly as his eyes meet hers. He smirks as he leans back slightly.
“I wonder what I look like in your eyes,” he muses silkily. “Am I a victim of my circumstances, Granger? Is that what you’re telling them all? That Severus Snape deserves a full pardon because he was a sad little boy that someone should have taken the time to notice and save?”
“No, that’s not—”
“Not that angle?” He purses his lips. “I would think you too pragmatic to buy into the ‘love covers a multitude of sins’ rhetoric, but I suppose you are just a girl, aren’t you? Did you get caught up in the romantic notions of it all?” He shifts his voice higher in a mimicry of her own. “‘Never mind that he’s tortured people and brewed countless poisons, surely a lifetime of pining and a willingness to risk it all for an unrequited love negates an Azkaban sentence? Have mercy on the pathetic man!’”
Her jaw flexes as her hands curl into fists. “Are you quite done?”
“Not that either? Hmm.” He pretends to ponder it for a moment and then shrugs, gesturing towards her with open palms. “I must admit you’ve got me stumped, Granger. Go on then. Tell me.”
She takes a deep breath through her nose and lets it out slowly. Riling her up is the most enjoyment he’s had in weeks.
“You were a spy who had infiltrated the innermost ranks of a megalomaniac. It would have been impossible to hold your position without participating in their heinous acts. When I realized several of your poisons had been flawed—namely that those meant to cause pain until death only caused screaming—I looked into the incidents of torture.” She gives him a pointed look. “Sectumsempra, as dark as it is, is also quite clean. Quite healable. It is not excessive. Furthermore, based on memories of survivors, you appeared to be occluding the entire time. You did not enjoy the torture. You endured it.”
Granger takes a pause. “It is a privilege to not have to dirty your hands in war, and we do not believe you should be unjustly punished because your vital role did not afford you that luxury.”
“And it still all comes down to preying upon their pity.”
“You’re not a man to be pitied, Professor,” she says firmly. “You were not tricked onto this path. You chose it. Willingly. Choices have consequences. Consequences you’ve already suffered. Consequences that you will continue to suffer, no matter how the sentencing turns out.”
Her weight shifts from one foot to the other. Her fingers twist. Severus arches a brow.
“Don’t tell me you’ve finally mastered the art of brevity, Granger. If you’ve got more to say, by all means do continue. As you said, you’ve been my only visitor so I’m simply starved for social interaction.”
“You have made no effort to secure your freedom. That and the way you speak of pity so derisively makes me think you believe that you don’t deserve it,” she begins hotly. There’s a moment hesitation and then he can see the glint in her eyes when she commits to going for blood. “Now, if you want to continue to roleplay as a noble Gryffindor, that’s fine, but I feel compelled to point out that you should then fight for this second chance. If you’re not convinced you deserve it, perhaps channel that Slytherin ambition and go after it anyway.” She gestures vaguely about the cell. “This stoic, self-deprecating acceptance of fate you’re doing right now doesn’t really become either house.”
_______
It is a nine-month legal nightmare. His name is drug through the mud. Skeeter dredges up every facet of his past, delicate matters reviewed painstakingly by a court of law and far less generously by the court of public opinion. Through it all, Severus fights.
Hermione doesn’t allow him to do anything else.
She stands by his side unflinching. She does not shy away from who he was, does not ever suggest that the world as a whole should pardon him, yet still encourages him to attempt individual amends. He starts with her. Then Minerva. He brews potions for people whose names he never learned and then learns them at her insistence; some of them accept him, some curse his name, but he continues to brew because it’s the right thing to do.
The right thing to do.
He thinks about that a lot now, but when the Wizengamot declares him a free man and Hermione wraps her arms around him, he decides to put it to the side. Just for a moment.
“Can I talk to you? Privately.”
Her exuberant smile dims just slightly at the seriousness on his face, but she nods. They thread their way through the court room, refuse comments to all reporters waiting to lunge outside the doors, and eventually find themselves in a small alcove which she wards with privacy spells.
“What is it?”
“Do you remember when you came to visit me in Azkaban the first time?”
She nods.
“You accused me of roleplaying as a Gryffindor.”
At that, she blushes slightly. “I thought if I made you angry enough… well, I thought perhaps spite would motivate you where nothing else would.”
“Clever witch,” he mutters, reluctantly impressed. “I think… I think over these last few months, I might have embraced that role more fully. Not just fighting for the second chance, but fighting to feel like I deserved it.”
“And do you?”
“Not all of it. Not always.” He clears his throat. “That day you also told me that if I didn’t think I deserved the second chance that I should be ambitious and fight for it anyway. Like a Slytherin.”
“Merlin I was really on a tirade that day.”
“No less than I deserved,” he assures her. “You, however, are far more than I could ever deserve—” She opens her mouth to argue but he holds up a hand. He needs to get this out. “—I don’t know that I will ever be convinced otherwise. Regardless, I remain a Slytherin at heart and so I find I still have the nerve to ask for you anyway.”
“To ask for… but you find me insufferable!”
“I apologized for saying that,” he says, wincing slightly at his defensive tone. “And in any case my perspective on a lot of things has changed over the past year.”
“But—”
“Hermione,” he interrupts. “I like you. I want to take you on a date. Either you are interested in that, or you are not. But please, end my misery.”
“You’ve certainly got a way with words, don’t you? Fortunately I didn’t get caught up in the ‘romantic notions’ of it all or this might be disappointing,” she notes drily. He glares and her lips twitch before she softens. “I’m very interested, Severus. In fact, I wanted to kiss you when they announced the verdict.”
“Kiss me?”
His tone is incredulous.
She takes it as an invitation.
And Severus receives his first taste of redemption.