Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the references to Risky Business, the Owl and the Pussycat, and Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Game'.

A/N: This is very much an AU. If you're looking for something that works within canon, this is not it ;-)

The following is the gift for the 100th reviewer of 'World Enough and Time', DutchGirl01. This gorgeous woman requested a time-travel oneshot, where our OTP meet in the past and their meeting is enough to have an impact on the future, whether through friendship or otherwise. This got out of hand quickly thanks to the wonderful prompt, so it has become a two part story. This is the first part, and I do hope you will enjoy it. The next has been almost finished, so it will be up within a couple of days after I edit it. Thank you again to everyone that has reviewed 'World Enough and Time' and thank you especially to DutchGirl for providing me with such a lovely platform to launch from.

I often refer to Lily in these stories as being 'Lady D'Arbanville' – anyone familiar with the song will guess why, but if you're not, please search for the lyrics and give it a read. I'm not sure if there's anything that describes Severus better; for all the SS/HG shippers, it's also good to know that the song was originally written about letting go ;-)

Hour Follows Hour

Part one

I don't care – go on and tear me apart

I don't care if you do

'Cause in a sky full of stars,

I think I saw you.

Coldplay

"Dobby had to help Harry Potter's friend, Master! Dobby had to save her. Dobby had no choice!" The elf stared at Harry, his bug eyes blinking incessantly. The rest of the group were standing around him, encircling the pair.

"But where is she, Dobby? Where did you send her?"

Ron surged forward from beside him and grabbed the shoulders of the elf, shaking him as he yelled, "What have you bloody done with her? Where is she? I swear on my wand, I'll k-"

"Ron!" Bill hauled his younger brother back and pushed him into the cottage. "Enough, Ron! Get inside. This isn't the time-"

"He's taken her, Bill! He's taken Hermione somewhere, I saw her, she was fucking bleeding out – she needs help!"

"Dobby was helping Harry Potter's friend!" the elf cried between self-inflicted blows to his head. "Dobby was only doing what he was told!"

Harry latched on to the words and knelt down to take a firm grip of Dobby's elbow, taking the other in hand when the elf only tried to twist out of his grip to harm himself more. "Dobby – stop! Who told you to do it? Where did you send her? Did you use elf magic?"

"Yes, yes," Dobby whimpered between sobs. "Dobby used elf magic because Dumbledore always told him that if Harry Potter's friends were hurt by dark magic then Dobby must send them to the only one who can fix them!"

Harry rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the spot of blood in front of Shell cottage. They'd arrived from Dobby's Apparation only moments before after the horrific night in Malfoy Manor, Ron holding Hermione in his arms, until the elf had held onto her hand and flashed away again before returning without the girl who was his sister in all but blood.

"Where did you send her, Dobby?" he hissed, the strain of the entire year building within his stomach until he fought to see through a red haze of anger. "Tell me!"

Dobby gulped and wrung his hands, darting over to the doorway and holding his head inside. The last thing anyone heard before the elf began to slam his head with sickening cracks was a whispered, "Dobby took Harry Potter's best friend to the only one who can save her. Snape is the only one who can save her!"

...

She came to me in a whirlwind of blood and screams; at the time, I thought that she was on the brink of death. To this day I do not understand how it was that she came to me, of all people, yet come she did.

Her gods-awful jumper hung from her too skinny frame, but it was stuck down to one of her arms from rapidly drying blood. Thrashing about as if the devil himself was after her, the screams that erupted from her mouth would haunt me for years.

Poppy called me at midnight, her stern face bobbing in the fire as she bellowed that I'd, "better wake up and do it quickly - Severus, for Merlin's sake, get up!"

We both knew that I was awake, but I growled in response anyway, tugging on a shirt to Floo directly to the Hospital wing. Poppy was a ball of energy, bustling around a bed at the very end of the ward.

"I don't know how she bloody got here, Severus," she barked when she caught sight of me. "One minute I'm having a cuppa and the next she's screaming blue murder on the floor in front of me. There's dark magic all over here, I can almost smell the stench of it."

I hurried to reach her, the tangy, coppery scent of blood flooding my nostrils at the same pace as my striding legs. I was less than eloquent.

"Jesus fucking Christ," I muttered, thinking that, yet again, I was about to see a young woman die. Those days were meant to be over – they should've been over. But here this girl was, a handful of years younger than me, though she wasn't recognisable in the slightest. Her hair was wild and matted with blood; it took washing it all out hours later to know that it was the colour of chestnuts and sunshine. She was slim, unhealthily so, and her eyes were darting between Poppy and I like she knew us. She was not afraid, not of us.

She knew me.

I had never seen her before.

I approached her jerking form warily, my wand out and moving quickly, deconstructing the layers of magic that coated her like an oil spill on water. Most of the curses were easy to remove, yet it was plain where the real damage was coming from.

"Fuck."

Poppy shook her head at my whispered expletive, but the girl just looked and looked and looked, wide brown eyes swimming with tears. There was fear that almost overrode the recognition there somehow, and trust – months later I would contemplate the blatant acceptance that reeled me in but on that night, I was helpless to stop myself from reaching out and pressing my hand to her forehead.

"It's all right," I said quietly. "Look at me," I continued, even though she already was. "You're safe here. With us. Safe. Do you understand me?"

I knew I'd made a mistake when she opened her mouth to reply but another scream issued forth instead.

"It's the fucking Cruciatus," I told Poppy, ignoring her cry of disbelief. The war had ended – recently enough for the horrors to be felt, but it was over – and there was no doubt that there had not been a patient of hers in such a state for years. The girl's limbs were seizing and she threw her head back, the veins in her neck a striking colour of blue against her pale skin. The twitches of her arms and legs were agonising to watch… I knew them as well as my own thoughts. I knew that she would lie like this for hours, writhing and crying on the bed.

But why?

It all fell away when the episode ended abruptly. Her chest heaved and she whimpered like a child. I was lost when she raised her arms to me like a babe to be picked up from the floor; she looked at me beseechingly, and then tried to smile. The painful grimace that eventuated made me surprise myself by reaching out to place a single finger to cover her mouth.

"If you can't speak, don't," I said gruffly, fighting the urge to pick her up and hide her away from whoever the fuck had treated her like this. The worst thing was that I was beginning to feel a sickening sense of familiarity with the curses and magic used – there was no shred in me that wanted to poke and prod further to uncover just who had hurt her. It was too real; too much like those days, where the one on the receiving end of such things was… me.

"I can, I can, oh but fuck, it really fucking hurts," she said between gasps of breath. Just when I thought she would scream again, she spoke in a hurried whisper, "And I'm sorry for my language, Professor Snape – it's you isn't it?" She ignored Poppy, and reached for me again. "Oh God it's you, I know it is – I knew it, I knew you were with us. I'm safe with you, aren't I? This is where I'll be safe?"

Poppy shot me a bewildered look; I returned it tenfold. Returning my attention to the girl, I paused long enough to take another look at her, examining her. The ways to help her were engrained within my brain; Poppy would not be able to do a thing for her.

But I could.

Fuck it.

"Sorry, Poppy," I said roughly. "I don't know who she is, but… bugger it all to hell. This is on my shoulders, yes? Keep it between us for now." I glared when she began to protest, and gestured with a sharp point to the girl, now beginning to seize up again. The screams were silent now; the sight was worse than when they were audible.

Finally, Poppy nodded. "I'll tell Albus. Do what you can. We'll come and check on you both in the morning and find out what her story is."

I bowed my head and stepped closer to the bed. As soon as the tremors finished and she was aware again, she repeated her movements until her arms were searching for me.

This time I answered.

I gathered her up; she weighed less than the first year I'd had to sling over my shoulder a month before. She threw her arms around my neck as if I were her saviour, but all I could think of was that there was another woman who depended on me now, another one whose life was in my hands.

I didn't know her.

I couldn't fail her.

That night, I held her in my arms and walked with her to my chambers, ignoring the Floo to avoid hurting her further. The walk was longer than it had ever been and I ran half of the way, managing to sprint with her for the last lot of corridors and turns.

She whispered to me just before another episode hit her, her strangled voice causing a muscle in my cheek to spasm when her breath ghosted over it. "Thank you."

My answer was to laugh; a bitter, dark laugh. "Live first," I told her, and then thanked whoever or whatever could have been listening in the sky when I managed to fill the bath and get her into the warm water before the screams began again.

I sat on the floor beside her all night, casting charm after charm to keep the heat in. There weren't any bubbles around but a quick spell had the water opaque to return the dignity that had been stolen when I'd had to remove her clothes. I didn't miss the sickening letters carved into the pearl like skin of her arm, nor the older, jagged scar that began just above her breasts and disappeared beneath the water. Any points that the knife had touched were dealt with first, until she had a brand new set of scars instead of wounds. Taking great liberties, I waited until she had fallen asleep within the cocoon of warmth before washing her hair. She was so small, so fragile, like a tiny little bird in my nest.

Potions came next; pain relief, headache relief, bruise pastes, anti-nausea, nerve repairs and finally a smooth, soothing tonic for her throat. She swallowed each from my prompting, her throat soft under my massaging fingers. My mother's words came to me then, previously long forgotten, and I found myself shushing and crooning when she moaned in her sleep, telling her to, "Sleep, sweet girl, it'll be all right, you're here, you're safe, I'll keep you safe."

Eventually, she woke hours later and turned her head to the side and took a deep, shuddering breath. Our eyes met.

"We're not… we're not in 1998, are we?"

Hermione seemed to be the result of an accident. A strange conundrum; something that sent my fingers flying over the tomes shoved into every corner and case in my quarters. She stayed bundled in blankets and a pair of my old pyjamas on the generously sized four poster bed that dwarfed her body. She was watching me with wide, silent eyes as I moved around the rooms.

"How do you know me?" I asked her, having abandoned the mystery of how on earth a house elf that didn't even serve Hogwarts yet had managed to bring her to the Hospital wing of all places.

She eyed me thoughtfully, her head on the pillow. I pulled a threadbare wingback chair from the corner and pushed it closer then sank down onto it until I could lean forward with elbows on knees to meet her gaze. The fire was roaring, casting a gentle, golden heat into the small bedroom.

Her hair was damp and piled up on her head, the result of a haphazard twist I'd arranged it into. Bruises were beginning to ripen on her delicate features; the paste I'd applied whilst she slept would mean that she'd look a right bloody mess for a day or so as the natural healing process of her body accelerated, but she'd be as good as new within three days. A strange thought, really, considering that I had no fucking idea what 'good as new' meant for this unnerving girl.

Hermione – for I had learnt her name when she'd woken in the bath; the uniqueness meant it would never be forgotten – cleared her throat and stared at my knee that was only a foot away from her face.

Her voice, when she spoke, was quiet and hoarse and I bent closer to hear her. "How old are you, Professor?"

Surprising myself (and her, judging by the colouring of her cheeks), I laughed. "Bloody hell. That's the first thing that you want to know? You come hurtling in from the future, and you want to know how old I am? I've never even met you."

"But I've met you!" She was so convinced that it was disarming. Her eyes flashed with determination, and she pushed herself up to a sitting position. "You don't believe me."

"I do," I said carefully, considering my words seriously. "But you're telling a twenty three year old bloke that you know him as a thirty eight year old. It's a bit… mad."

She sniffed haughtily and crossed her arms over her chest. Fuck me, she was pretty. I coughed.

"Well," she began, "don't you think that life is 'mad'? I mean, god, we use wands and do things that should be in fairy tales! Yet here we are, casting spells-"

"Falling into the past," I butted in with a small smirk then continued when she tossed me an indignant harrumph, "Look – it's bleeding obvious that something terrible has happened to you." I tried to ignore her wince; I couldn't, and so my hand found its way to her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze before I soldiered on, though not before filing away her small squeak of surprise at my touch. "And you're safe here. That's the most important thing. Honestly, I've never met you before – not when I was a student here, nor more recently as a teacher. And I reckon I'm the last man that you'd want to be saddled with. If you're telling the truth, that is."

Hermione narrowed her eyes and frowned, then grabbed one of my hands and sandwiched it within her small grasp. I looked down, puzzled at the familiar gesture but Merlin himself knew that I craved touch thanks to being starved of it; I couldn't quite bring myself to extricate my hand.

"You're wrong," she said with a vehemence that floored me. My smile emerged unbidden, inspired by the mysterious truth in her tone. I watched, transfixed, as her eyes darted to my mouth, and then crinkled at the corners.

"All right," I gave her a short half bow. "Let's say that you're right. What do you suppose you are actually doing here?"

Her answer was so matter-of-fact that it left me speechless. "You're the one who was supposed to heal me, of course. Obviously there was no one else capable at the time."

"Ah. And now that you're healed, you'll be popping back I assume?"

"I don't know…" she trailed off and tilted her head, her eyes blank. "I don't feel like I'll be going anywhere. But I don't really feel…"

"What? Keep talking; this is better than going to the pictures."

"Oh, ha bloody ha," she snarled then clapped her hands over her mouth. "Sorry sir."

I snorted and shook my head. "I'm not your Professor, Hermione. Christ, I'm no one to you. Not at the moment. Keep going."

She made a little sound of disagreement but soon shrugged and said, "I should be upset. I was … doing something important. This is quite terrible timing, to be honest. But I'm not. I feel … well, like you said really. I just feel safe. With you. And this last year has just been utter shit, so I'm not as bothered as I should be. Besides, I'll only be here for a little while."

"Oh." My voice was flat; I was disappointed, though it pissed me off to admit it. This strange girl – woman – had suddenly elbowed her way into my life. Whereas before I'd taught and pottered around alone, cooking meals for myself to avoid the Great Hall, now there was someone in my bed, like she had every right to be there. She wanted to be there, so I suppose she did.

Hermione was on my mind so strongly that it masked the fact that, generally, there was nothing else on my mind at all. Not even Lily. Thinking of her always filled me with such bitterness that I had to drink myself blind to get out of it. The pain was still so fresh; she'd only left the world a few short years ago… because of me. And this smiling, bubbling, warm girl had plonked herself into my days, giving me a direction away from my Lady D'Arbanville. Years from the moment that I acknowledged that I was heading down a dangerously familiar road, I would rant and rave, I would destroy my chambers time and time again, I would fall to my knees and beg Lily to return to me, to forgive me for my weakness that came in the form of this girl. But such twisted hate took years to develop; it was far from my mind as I sat there with her, listening to her every breath.

Hermione was a distraction, and I latched onto it more eagerly than an infant at the breast.

I needed to be in someone else's story for a while; my own was already shot to shit.

She turned away and spoke to the wall, "I don't feel like… how to explain it… I don't feel as if I'm attached to this place. Physically. The air feels different… thinner, somehow. But I think I'll be here long enough for us to be friends. Can we? Be friends? Bloody ridiculous, I know, but I've always thought we'd get on well. And… and I want to stay here. With you. Bugger what anyone else says, I'm not leaving." Hermione's head snapped back and she fixed me with a glower. "Don't make me go. I don't have anywhere else to go!"

Well, fuck.

I spluttered and shifted so my hair hid my face. "If it is agreeable to the Headmaster-"

"Bugger the Headmaster!"

"I'd rather not," I said stiffly, my stern expression cracking slightly under the pressure of her peals of laughter. "If he deems it acceptable and appropriate"- because he controlled every bloody facet of my life, this was sure to come under that massive umbrella –"then… then I would not be averse to you staying."

"Staying here?" she pressed, reaching out to put her hands on my knees and digging in. I hissed, shocked at the contact, but she cocked an eyebrow and made a clucking sound with her tongue.

"Ah…" I winced as her nails dug in uncomfortably. "Fine. Here."

I began to fall in love with Hermione Granger. Fuck, who am I kidding – I already half loved her from the moment she offered her arms to me from the hospital bed as if I was the only one she trusted in the world.

She told me everything. Everything.

Albus was told first, of course – he strolled in early the morning after she arrived and the little minx strutted into the sitting room in my track pants and white dress shirt, and demanded that he take an Unbreakable vow never to disclose to anyone ("bar Severus Snape!") what she was about to reveal. The old goat was flummoxed – it took him five minutes and three Sherbet Lemons to stop blinking like a deer caught in the hunt. I simply sat to the side, staring at this little lioness that was perched on the worn out couch beside me; her eyes never left the Headmaster's, and her hand never left my knee.

Albus didn't speak for hours afterward. He left not long after entering her mind and seeing everything, but he seemed… proud of this girl, this girl with her hand on my knee.

And then she waited while I quickly read up on Legilimency (barely believing that I was a master of it in her time) and cast the spell.

I saw everything: her life on the run, Bellatrix fucking Black (who now had a death wish), the death of the Headmaster at my hand, the young Potter boy, my double life.

I would think on it all later, I decided. Let Albus study it all, lose sleep and make plans. Fuck it all; didn't I at least deserve to have some reprieve after being dealt such a god-awful hand? When Hermione left, I would think on it. I had years, after all, something that made my chest uncomfortably tight. I had fifteen years until she would even remember this little sojourn to the past; to me. I would regret that later; I should've asked more questions.

Never had someone given me so much while expecting nothing in return. Never had the greasy git of the dungeons been trusted so completely; had I ever been anyone's first choice?

"You're mine. My first choice," she said simply, pushing me to realise that I'd spoken aloud.

She stayed in my quarters, never once leaving them. Approval had of course been granted – it was a given when she refused to say anything to Albus unless he allowed her to stay with me. No one else knew, bar Poppy, myself and the Headmaster. The war might have been over, we may have had time to plan our next steps when it would all begin again, but the risk was still as real as she was.

Poppy brought her some clothes from the deepest depths of the castle where the 'lost and found' buckets were. Personally, I wasn't shocked when Hermione politely took the clothes but kept her habit of wearing whatever of mine her little hands could dig up.

I could believe, here in the darkness of the night, with her soft tiny snores echoing through the room from the second, newly transfigured bed against the other wall, that she was sent purely for me. To trust me, to be a companion of sorts. Was it right? Possibly not. Was it strange? Utterly. It was selfish, too, but I was too far gone to bother with that.

And yet I cared for her. The days passed and there was no avoiding just how much her presence was welcome; she read aloud in the evenings, her tone snooty and haughty, but I drank it up as if I were dying of thirst. She spent hours each day telling me what I'd see in my future, giving me tidbits, sharing aspects of her life. I learned to hate a sod named Ron, but the feeling left quickly when the understanding dawned that this idiot boy had never sat with Hermione the way I did – with her in my shirts, her hair falling on my floors and clogging the drain. Fuck Ronald Bilius Weasley.

And as I slowly accepted that I cared for her, I began to covet her. There was never anyone more coveted than Hermione Granger. I should know; I've always been a master at wanting what I couldn't have. And why not? I was then as I am now; lank, stringy hair, too tall, too thin, hook nosed, rude, gruff… the adjectives are endless.

But how to show it? How to tell her that she was everything, that she had begun to spread through my blood like fiendfyre, that I couldn't concentrate on marking or planning or anything all really, because all my hands ever wanted was to touch her?

She made it hard; excruciatingly so. She sat close to me on the couch, and if we walked the hallways late at night, there was only a sliver of space between us. Almost as if I were blind and she was my guide; I would have accepted the charade eagerly if our fingers were entwined, but as it was… how to tell her?

I shouldn't.

I didn't want… I don't want to get hurt. Not again. Not ever.

But… fuck.

She'd been with me for a week when we established a routine. I showered first in the early mornings while she tossed and growled obscenities because my fumbling around disturbed her sleep. She read all of my books and rearranged them, ignoring my gaping mouth and incensed storming out of the room. I returned from classes to have lunch with her on the tiny two-person table that she transfigured from doorstops. She had nightmares for days after the attack; I understood that, too. Again, Mam's voice was in my mind as I repeated the soothing words, smoothing a hand slowly over her hair while she inserted herself within my arms and wept, leaving damp spots on my cotton shirts.

Sometimes I would take her to class with me and let her sit at my desk disillusioned; it hurt to stand for the double lessons, but the little faint scratch of her quill on parchment as she listened to my lectures was reward enough. I set her up in my private lab next to the classroom, and when I taught the NEWT level students, I left the door open slightly. No one ever heard the girl brewing on her own in the other room. I did. I found any excuse at all (until I decided that I needed no excuse) to check on her, to stir with her, to catch her blush when she saw how I watched her.

And then she began to teach me.

I came to our quarters (they became ours so quickly) one night after a patrol, and she was sitting with her feet tucked under her body, staring into the fire. I paused in the doorway and when she turned, her face was golden and her eyes dark. A hand reached out to the door frame; I had to steady myself against the overwhelming wave of desire. It was suffocating.

She walked towards me slowly, a look of intense concentration on her pretty features. Her horrid hair stuck out every which way; I wanted it to ensnare me. She wore my dress shirt with her now clean jeans. The sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. I wasn't sure if she'd ever been more beautiful.

Opening her button mouth, she smiled and said, "If the world was on fire, no one could save me but you."

I coughed and spluttered and spluttered and coughed and coughed and spluttered some more. It took every tooth in the top of my mouth to bite my tongue hard enough to stop myself from asking her to sail away with me for a year and a day, to eat quince with a spoon and sit hand in hand on the edge of the sand.

"What?"

She smiled again and laughed. "I thought we might talk about… other things from the future. Music, films. Books, of course. That's my favourite song – the one I just said."

"Oh." My face fell but recovered instantly. "All right. How are we going to go about this?" I held up my satchel that was filled with essays. "I have to finish these first…"

"I'll help you," she said firmly.

"You're not mean enough."

She grabbed the satchel and walked towards my desk. "I can be," she threw over her shoulder. My eyes were trained on her arse.

"Well… all right." I faltered then gathered myself. "All right, then."

It was the wrong decision.

We marked together and then she got up with a twirl and giggled before bending down to slide off her jeans. I gawked at her, and then tried so bloody unsuccessfully to stop staring at her long, long legs.

"Nnnghh," I mumbled, cheeks furiously red. "What… what are you doing?"

"Showing you! Hang on. I've got all of our props ready. Take off your pants, but keep your socks on, would you?"

"Fuck, I've never been seduced so quickly." It was out before I could rein it in, but she snorted and chortled and blushed. Disarmingly so.

She giggled again and ran out into the corridor; students never came down to the very ends of the castle, and so she often walked along it at night. I stood at the end, then promptly fell over when she appeared with smart black sunglasses, her white socks pulled up to her calves. I wasn't about to tell her that the torches on the wall illuminated her body through the white button up shirt; I was no saint, after all.

"What is all of this?"

"From a film that's coming out soon!"

"Eh?"

She didn't reply, instead the corridor was filled with the sound of her hoots of laughter when she ran and skidded along it, her hands out for balance as she struck a pose. The socks carried her for metres.

"Ta-da!"

"Oh god." Muggle sayings flooded through me with no end in sight. "Bloody hell. You're mental. Mad. Barking mad."

Her powers of persuasion were strong in those days, or maybe I was simply extra susceptible. When her soft pink lips touched my cheek and she ducked her head shyly, I raked a hand through my hair and told her I'd give her the world.

Even if the world meant skidding through the dungeons without my bloody pants and in sunglasses that I could barely see through. I gave her that, too.

She stayed for another fortnight before she began to breathe differently. I couldn't put my finger on it; it was as if she was on the top of a mountain, trying to work through the altitude. I'd had a month with her, of living with her, and loving her. It wasn't enough.

"I think I'll be gone soon," she said, her brows puckered together in a puzzled frown. "I don't feel very solid anymore."

It was true. She'd fattened up over the last three weeks with me, but now the weight was beginning to fall off of her again. She would fit into that jumper of hers soon.

"When?" The question came out gruff and short, to hide the knife stuck between my ribs. "When are you leaving?"

"I'm not leaving out of choice," she said softly, setting down her book and coming to fold herself up beside me on the couch. "I'd stay here forever if I could. But I can't."

"No," I agreed in a whisper. "I suppose you can't."

"You healed me," she said next, her hand on my knee again. This time her head came to rest on my shoulder and no fucks were given when I gave in to the urge to tuck her into my side, my arm around her shoulders. I let my head fall onto the back of the couch.

"I did."

"And you kept me safe."

"Yes."

"Maybe we should get married, then."

I laughed and laughed and laughed until tears coursed down my cheeks. "You're amusing when you're feeling morbid."

"Am I?"

"Very."

She burrowed into the crook of my neck. Her hair tickled my chin. "The truth is…" her breath was warm on my skin. I swallowed and made a faint grunt in my throat to encourage her to continue. She nodded, more to herself than to me. "The truth is," she said, clearly and firmly, "I'm completely and utterly in love with you, Severus. And I know that you don't see me that way – you never will at all, I don't think, judging by the past that I remember – but I can't help it. I don't want to leave you, not now, not ever."

I forgot how to breathe.

"How could you love me? I've seen me in your memories… I'm so old. And you're so… so…"

"So?"

"So beautiful," I finished lamely. She sat up and reached out a shaking hand to touch my cheek. Hating myself for it, I leaned into her touch.

I barely heard her whispered, "Do you really think I'm beautiful?"

"Gods," I said immediately. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. It hurts to look at you, to know that I can't have you."

Every word was true. She was real; flesh and blood. She was my redemption, a vessel for forgiveness for all of the sins I'd committed. I almost didn't want to continue further because how could such a goddess, such an angel, ever keep her head and heart when I was the one who loved her? I destroy everything I touch.

But I was selfish.

"And do you…" she paused and leaned closer. The world stopped. "Do you want… to have me?"

No time like the present. "I think I was such a bastard, more than usual, in your time because I couldn't have you and hold you. I want you more than anything. But we can't…"

"Will you let me be the judge of that?"

I stared at her, shy all of a sudden. I should have been a better man. I should have said no.

"Yes."

Her kiss, when it came, was fire and ice and ecstasy. I slid my tongue into her mouth and let my body sink into the couch as she crawled over and sat astride my lap, her hips rolling and rocking until my treacherous throat gave out a strangled moan. I would've finished in my trousers like a wanking third year if she didn't push herself from my embrace and take my hand to lead me to the bedroom.

The feel of her, of being within her, being consumed by her, was the end of me. I lost my sense of reason, lost my control and self-loathing for each second that I was inside of her, kept snug within her warmth. Every cry from her mouth, every touch of her body, sent me further down the spiral until my mouth was suckling on her breast, tongue flicking over the sensitive skin while I drove into her, her delicate ankles crossed and pressing into my hips to urge me on.

For all of my flowery words, the only thing in my head was, fuck, my cock is in her, and she's finally here with me, fucking hell, so tight, fuck –

And her body… gods. There was none of Lily's curvaceous lines; Hermione's hips were almost as sharp as mine. But she fit underneath me as if she'd been made for me. Our scars matched in places, and I found myself bending to lick each silvery line that my tongue could find.

I couldn't believe it when she came apart under me, her head thrown back, hair all over the pillow. I'll never forget it; the way her skin tasted like salt from her sweat, how my fingers – usually so inept in such circumstances – found her clit and stroked until she screamed, how her long slim fingers dug into my arse while her teeth bit into my neck. She branded me. I would never complain.

"So fucking beautiful," I managed, trading eloquence for honesty. "Your tits are the loveliest things I've ever seen." In my defence, I was twenty three. And they were. They still are.

Her answering laugh rang out through the room.

Her skin was like silk as I pushed into her again and again; her dangerous smile was all the warning I was given before she turned over in my arms until she was laying on her stomach, my body above her.

"Oh, oh gods, fuck Hermione!"

I slid into her, pausing every now and then to glance down and see how I disappeared underneath her pert little backside. As if to torment me further, she shoved a pillow underneath her so she was raised just high enough so engulf me completely.

Fuck.

This was better than… better… better than anything in my sad little life thus far.

The light from the charmed window in our bedroom turned to dusk, bathing her in a blanket of grey. And she was mine.

"What are we going to do?"

"I'll wait for you," I said simply. The decision came quickly; her naked body was pressed over mine, her leg slung over my thighs. I'd wait for a lifetime for her, if I had to. Besides, what else had my life been? I'd waited for magic as soon as Mam had told me of it at two and a half. I'd waited for Lily for what felt like an age. For this… beautiful, sweet Hermione in my arms, I could wait for, too. At least I thought I could.

"For fifteen years? It's so long for you, Severus. How can I make you do such a thing? It'd be like being enslaved."

"I could think of worse things to be enslaved to. Have you not shown me that I will know hell? Yes? Then grant me this. Go back and live as long as you need to so that I can see you again. I don't care if you only have to wait weeks or months. I'll wait years. Fuck everything else." I thought I would scare her with surety, but she only nuzzled closer.

"God, I don't want anything else," she whispered into my chest. "There's nothing I'll ever want more. You're everything. Nothing compares to you."

"Did you mean it?" My voice broke at the end.

"Mean what? Oh." Of course she knew what I meant. "That I loved you? I meant it. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you."

I turned our bodies around until I was over her, safely ensconced between her thighs. She eyed me with a slow smile filled with feminine secrets when we both felt my desire rise for her again. "Say it again," I ordered breathlessly, eyes roaming over her face. "I can't believe it."

She shrugged, her hand already reaching down to line me up with her entrance. "I love you. I'll always love you. Every day from now until we see each other again, know that you are loved."

I pushed into her slowly, carefully, gently. My head fell so that our foreheads met. "And I you, Hermione," I mumbled nervously against her lips. "I do love you... More than my life, not that that's saying much."

"It's saying everything," she replied, tilting her hips in welcome.

I was so, so lost in her.

And then she was gone. The next day, she left in the blink of an eye. The elf flashed back into view and grabbed her hand, clicking his fingers so she was clothed again in her now clean old outfit. I clutched at her hand, promising her the earth, shouting that I loved her, that I'd die for her, and all the while her sweet voice was in my mind, in the air, repeating that she loved me, that she always would, that she would wait for me if I would wait for her.

tbc.