Chapter Text
Severus was putting out the fire when he heard the scream.
He wouldn’t have lit a fire that night, had it not been unseasonably cold after a string of sweltering, humid days that struck the nation down with a suffocating lethargy and scorched the grass till it resembled bare parchment. The slanting verge outside Spinner’s End was drained of colour: a facsimile of early autumn, giving the impression to the few who walked along the stretch of canal path each day that they were passing through a subtle warp in time.
There was a gentle itching sensation beneath his skin. It was the tell-tale sign of someone attempting to unpick his wards. They’d been at it for half an hour, and hadn’t relented when the downpour started. Hadn’t even put up an umbrella charm. Severus watched the sodden creature from one of the twin dormer windows in the attic, vaguely curious but mostly bored, and relaxed in the knowledge that his wards were impenetrable. Of course they were; he had set them. The somebody could stay out there all night if they liked.
At a quarter to midnight he decided to retire to bed, drawing his wand to extinguish the lamps and the faltering glow amongst the coals in the hearth.
A scream pierced the air, punctuating the night with grief and tangible hopelessness. It left behind it a hollow, ringing silence that trampled across Severus’ chest, stole his breath and, only for a moment, paralysed him like a startled deer. He Apparated in a blink.
“Can I help you?”
She shrieked and whirled around, for he had Apparated right behind her. Trepidation in her eyes suggested his tone had been interpreted as sarcastic rather than sincere.
“Please,” she begged, gasping for breath but wasting no time catching it. “I’ve been cursed. Mother’s Blessing.”
Severus rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. Few wizards had such extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts, but he was not inclined to share it with anyone who turned up on his doorstep.
“And you couldn’t find a Weasley to save you? I’m sure Molly has more than one eligible son to spare.”
She shook her head. In the darkness of the night her skin was as grey as the smoke-stained bricks of the terraced houses behind her.
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t,” he scoffed, for she may have looked like a drowned rat at that very moment, but this was Miss Granger. Decorated war hero, devastatingly intelligent, and charmingly pretty to boot. She must have them lining up around the block. “You come to my house, in the middle of the night, expecting me to break a fatal curse at your whim, so that you can remain a spinster to the end of your days. Am I understanding the situation correctly?”
She stared up at him, thick curls darkened and diminished by summer rain, lashes framing a look of plaintive reproach. It was like the cruel shock of a trip jinx, the reminder that this was one witch who could never take no for an answer.
“Mother’s Blessing is old magic,” he went on. “Blood magic. A curse of that nature would not cease to hold power even in the event of the caster’s death. One day, Miss Granger, you will learn that there are rules in this world that even you cannot bend.”
“It’s about freedom,” she hissed. “I thought you’d understand. Can you break it or not?”
He was irked, yet she had tugged at a reluctant heartstring. He could be in bed right now, if he had left well enough alone. What did he know about freedom? He had always been prisoner to his own bloody instinct to interfere.
“I make no promises. How long do you have?”
She brushed clinging droplets of rainwater from her cheeks, though they could have been tears. Coupled with the fierce set of her jaw she resembled a mermaid from the Black Lake: damp and formidable.
“Thirteen minutes.”
“Christ,” Severus bit out, reeling back. “Jesus— fucking—!”
He hadn’t thought he used Muggle invectives anymore, he thought distractedly, as he seized her by the arm and pulled her over to the shelter of the ancient sycamore tree, stumbling over gnarled and twisting roots. Funny how parts of childhood stayed with you, how the past he most wanted to escape remained just beneath the surface.
He knelt where the earth was dry and bare of grass and clover, revealing that his feet were bare, too, and scrabbled with long fingers until he had scraped away the dust and gleaned a handful of soil. He pressed it carefully into her hands, cupping them around it even as she flinched from his touch.
Severus turned from Hermione and gestured impatiently, an orchestral conductor of the inanimate and mundane, to which every window of his narrow house flew open in obedience. He summoned the necessary items: an apple came tumbling out of the blackness and smacked against his open palm. He bit into it and discarded the flesh until he reached a seed, which he picked out and pressed into the crumbling mound of earth in her palms.
“In this earth I plant a seed, that our love may grow,” he recited breathlessly, thinking of the cyanide within it, how too much of a good thing could be a lethal dose.
Hermione stared at him, shivering and bewildered.
“You’re telling me you don’t know the rites?” he exclaimed. “Repeat after me: You be the rosebush, and I the rose.”
“You… be the rosebush… and I the rose.”
The tallow candle he had summoned was waiting patiently in the air beside them. With a wave of his hand the charred wick was aglow, burnishing her cheeks with gold.
“With this hand I light a flame, that love may guide us. You be the cathedral,” he said, indicating with the tilt of his head that the words were for her to repeat, “and I the chandelier.”
“You be the cathedral, and I the chandelier.”
His nails were stained with earth, his tongue sweet with apple. He was dimly aware that he became impulsive in a crisis, and this was one, but it was too late to stop himself.
He took the third object he had summoned: the golden goblet from his bedside table, almost empty. He tipped it to her lips, a stain of red wine blemishing the skin.
“From my cup pray thee drink, that your heart may ne’er be wanting. You be the river, and I the bird.”
She sipped and swallowed, unable to hide a grimace at the taste.
“You be the river, and I the bird,” she repeated.
“If thou wilt never leave me, I too will never leave thee.”
Hermione hesitated, an anxious slant to her brows betraying her reticence.
Severus could not believe her. Yet at the same time he could; her moment of hesitation confirmed a fear he had always been led to believe was truth. That being tied to him was a fate worse than death.
It was approaching midnight. A sudden breeze rattled the dessicated leaves of the canopy above them. The street was black and empty.
“You would rather die than marry me?” he asked, his voice cracking like a bough.
“No!” she cried, horrified. “Of course not! But–”
“Then say it!”
“If– if you..”
“If thou wilt never leave me,” he pressed, “I too will never leave thee.”
“If thou wilt never leave me,” she repeated, brown eyes darting searchingly between his, “I too will never leave thee.”
Silence hung in the air between them, until he broke it with a kiss.
It was necessary to seal the spell. It was abrupt, dry, and almost sent her off balance.
Pulling away elicited a lancing pang of melancholy deep in Severus’ heart: it had been a very long time since he had kissed anyone, and he would likely never have the chance again.
Hermione swayed, her delicate hands still clasped around the mound of earth, and when she looked down she saw that the apple seed had bloomed into a single rose.
She exhaled a laugh, a rush of shrill relief, then leapt up on the tips of her toes and pressed her mouth to his once again.
The world returned to him gradually in the few seconds they dwelled in a kiss: the trickle of the canal behind them, the cool ground on the soles of his bare feet, and the soft skin of her cheek where he had reached for her instinctively. Soon she dropped back on her heels, dazed, still holding the rose.
“I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re welcome,” he said faintly.
If she had still been his student, he would have taken her to the hospital wing for a drying charm and a Pepper-Up. But she wasn’t anymore, and she was already backing away.
“I won’t trouble you,” she said, shaking her head, joyful. “I’ll be out of your hair. I won’t ask anything of you. You won’t see me again. I promise.”
Without another word, his bride slipped away into the night.