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Rebel Child
“Out of my way!” she shouted, shoving at the gathered mass of jeering students. Shooting stinging jinxes at several, she snapped a short, “Thank you,” and made her way into the center, staring her sister down.
“Really, Lily? You’re a Prefect and he’s our friend,” Hermione sneered in disgust.
“You didn’t hear what he called me! Called us!”
“Oh I heard just fine, thank you. I do have ears you know and witnessed the whole thing.”
Offering Severus a hand, she silently dared him to bite at her as well. Though she imagined unlike her sister — whom he had foolishly and blindly been in love with for nearly seven years — she was safe. She unfortunately wasn’t the object of his affection and therefore an acceptable ally after having just been humiliated.
But that was par for the course with Hermione. Dismissed by Petunia, second to Lily, and an unwanted surprise for her parents.
Purposefully keeping her eyes trained on his as his fingers wrapped around her own, she backpedaled several steps to hoist him up from the ground. Then turning around to offer him cover as he righted his state of being forcibly undressed, she turned her wand on the foursome to blame.
“So what was it this time, Potter? Or was your little lap dog just bored and in need of a new toy?” Smirking as their eyes widened, she nodded, “Yes, I know all about your illegal little secrets. His too,” she emphasized, pointing her wand at Lupin. “It’s the benefit of being the forgotten one. Even with a map people don’t realize you’re there when speaking.”
Feeling Severus’s fingers lace through hers — an innocent gesture of his for when he was readying himself to pull her along — Hermione tried to halt the sudden leaping of her heart as it tried to come free of her chest. Waiting for him to see her as anything but Lily’s little sister was about as useful as waiting for rain in a desert. A message her stubborn fancy of him had yet to receive.
“Come on, little blossom,” he mumbled, shouldering her bag with his, beginning to push their way free of the gathered crowd.
“Hold on, I don’t think the lesson has sunk in quite yet,” she mused, gently yanking him to a stop as she was face to face with towering Gryffindors.
“Hermy,” Potter quietly pleaded using the loathed nickname he had given her in a bid to show his acceptance of her in order to turn Lily’s head. “Your sister is watching.”
Rolling her eyes, she taunted, “I’m well aware, venison,” flicking her wand at all four of the troublesome pack.
As quick and easy as they had done to Severus, she had Black, Lupin, Potter, and their squirrely looking friend up in the air by their ankles. Going the extra mile of humiliation, she added a twist of her wrist, divesting them of their clothes for all to see.
Giving them each a critical appraisal, she hummed in sympathy, “Don’t worry, Potter; size isn’t everything. So long as your vaults are big, my sister will happily lay back and think of England. Have fun up there, arseholes. You’ll find my spells aren’t as easy to cancel as your own.” Looking up at Severus as the corner of his lips twitched, she smiled, “Okay, now I’m ready.”
“Lily, I will stay out here all night,” Severus warned.
“Fine! What do you want, Snape?”
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“Oh gee, I don’t know, maybe because you called me a mudblood! Ever think of that? And I know, I know you say it about the others too. I just let it go because you never directed that nastiness at me.”
“I said I was sorry!” he pleaded, running a hand through his hair. “What else can I do? Just tell me; please.”
“You can get fucked, Severus. That’s what you can do.” Stepping half back into her common room, she looked over her shoulder and seethed, “And stay away from my sister. I mean it. To you, she doesn’t exist anymore. Nor do I!” slamming the portrait door closed behind her.
Sinking to the floor, he rested his elbows on his knees and violently pulled at his hair.
“I didn’t mean it, Lils,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t sure how long he had sat outside of Gryffindor; long enough for a number of students to return from their evening activities and to witness several sneak out for more illicit pastimes. He had been serious though, he would stay all night, every night until the end of term if that was what it took to prove himself again.
At some point he must have fallen asleep because he came awake with a jerk of his head against the railing as caramel brown eyes looked down at him. Rubbing the smarting off spot, he squinted up at Hermione and grumbled, “What do you want?”
“To save what little is left of your pride, you brooding arsehole. Now get up.”
“What is pride in the face of losing her?”
“Oh Jesus Christ,” she swore, her lip curling. “Fine stay but it’s to your own peril. Word is spreading about your pathetic nightwatch as an overture to my sister. Thought you’d want to know.”
Turning on her heel in a snit — a trait all the Evans sisters seemed to have down to an art form — the unnamed flower in their field began to stalk down the stairs, her chaotic puff of curls bouncing in agitation with each step.
“Wait,” he called after her. Pushing up from the unforgiving stone floor, he added, “Please,” his much longer legs quickly eating up the distance between them.
Slinging an arm over her shoulder, he made to kiss the top of her head as he had been doing since he started to shoot up over her three summers ago, only for her to duck away from him.
“What’s wrong, little blossom?”
Moving down a step to face him and looking up more than she normally had to in order to meet his eyes, her face an emotionless mask, she flatly replied, “Nothing; I’m just tired,” before continuing to trot down the stairs. Not waiting for him as she veered off for Ravenclaw, she said just loud enough for the empty corridors to carry her voice back to him, “Don’t humble yourself for someone like her, Severus. And don’t make me watch if you do. It hurts too much to see.”
Staring after her as she disappeared around the corner to ascend her own tower, Severus had to finally admit that he was possibly as much of a dunderhead as the rest of the school’s student body. He had upset his forgotten little blossom but for the life of him, he couldn’t puzzle out what exactly it was he had done.
Scrubbing his hands over his face, he groaned, “Bloody fantastic,” before making his own way down to the depths of Slytherin doubly curious by how much more her quiet distancing hurt when stacked against her sister’s boisterous rage.
Like falling in love, the summer was passing before Hermione knew it had even happened. At the start, it had dragged on as she fought with herself over the distance she enforced between her and Severus. Being with him in the days and weeks following the incident out by the lake had slowly broken and crushed her. And despite it hurting her just the same, she couldn’t bear to continue being in his presence as he seemingly wallowed and brooded over Lily.
Her entire life was a story of being an overlooked afterthought. She couldn’t handle being seen as a mere link of information to the Evans sister he preferred. Though to his credit, he rarely asked after her, instead sitting silently as he studied her as if he were trying to see inside her mind. It wasn’t much but her pride and unwavering standards were all she had. If in order to save that she had to erect barriers between her and the sightless fool she had been in love with nearly all her life, then she would do it. Even if his absence was like a phantom limb, causing her more pain than reprieve.
But life with two older sisters who were at constant war with each other and parents who even from before her birth hadn’t wanted her — as if their lack of precaution shortly after having Lily was somehow her fault — quickly turned unbearable and as it did she couldn’t help but long for Severus. It was why more often than not, she elected to stay at Hogwarts over the term breaks with him rather than subject herself to the hostile environment. The arrangement worked splendidly for all involved.
Hermione was spared from the taunting screeches of being called a freak, abnormal, strange, or demonic from an angry and envious Petunia who had taken her presenting as being magical shortly after Lily as a personal betrayal. Her parents were spared from her snappish and justified attitude when they compared her to her older sister, seemingly unimpressed by everything she did as Lily had already achieved it first. And Lily… well she was spared from being forced to share the small measure of positive attention she did receive when she had forwarded a letter home from Professor Flitwick on behalf of the teaching staff offering Hermione the opportunity to advance a full year ahead in her studies, making her a sixth year come the fall along with Lily and Severus.
She was only two and a half weeks into what she was sure was a time of frivolity for others before finally determining she had enough of her sisters’ insistent bickering and her parents’ overall lack of interference unless she herself tried stepping in. As Lily and Petunia continued their shouted words in the hall, fighting over whose boyfriend was superior and therefore who got first use of the bathroom for their dates that evening — her redheaded sister having relented to Potter shortly before the end of term — she slipped between the two muttering about how both were little more than consolation prizes, earning her a yank on her plaited hair by one and a shove towards the stairs by the other, both caustically reminding her of her lack of male attention.
Flipping them the bird over her shoulder as she stumbled on the first few steps, she made a beeline for the kitchen phone and rang Severus’s number. She let the line trill three times before hanging up and calling back after sixty seconds. On her second dial, she allowed it to ring four times before hanging up again. It was the standard practice she and Lily had been employing since the start of their friendship in order to not piss off his own unbothered parents and bring him further abuse.
Heading back upstairs she didn’t have long to wait before she heard the rumble of his motorbike down the street. Stuffing several items into a purse she had woven with an expansion charm under Flitwick’s watchful eye as he tested her for advancement, she shouldered the small bag and slipped on her shoes. With her sisters still arguing in the hall, her squeaky window opened without disturbing the house aiding in her escape.
It was as she was shimming down the drain pipe towards an afternoon and evening of freedom with the now banned from their property Severus Snape, that her foot slipped, sending her falling. She didn’t hit the ground though as she had been bracing for. Instead strong arms that had embraced her so often over the years that they now felt as comfortable as an old jumper caught her.
“Let’s go ahead and cross trapeze artist off your list of potential careers,” Severus chuckled, sliding her down his body as he put her feet firmly on the ground.
Taking his hand, she quickly began to drag him through her family’s back garden and through the loose fence boards as her sisters’ voices grew, alerting her to them having entered her room. Moving the boards back into place as he elected to hop over the top, she looked up at the dark, mirthful eyes she had been dreaming of and missing, and coyly smiled, “Well it wouldn't be fair if I was good at everything. What would there be left for you to do in order to impress me?”
“You mean other than saving your damsel in distress self?”
“Hermione! You better not be with that boy!” her mother shrieked from the other side of the fence, sending them running as Lily yelled, “Severus, I told you to stay away from her!”
Still laughing as they reached his bike several houses down, he helped her on to the back of it, fastening the link of a second helmet under her chin, leaving a brief but heart stopping kiss at the corner of her mouth as he deemed her safe. Looking over his shoulder at her as he got himself situated, he said, “Hold on tight,” before fixing her arms around him, lowering the visor, and kicking the bike back to life as her dad came running down the street, screaming after them.
Waving at him as they sped past, Hermione moved closer, wrapping her arms more tightly around Severus’s waist, her head coming to rest between his shoulders. A position she went on to spend most of the summer in no matter the measures her parents and sisters took to keep them separated. And with each ride they took — sometimes staying out well past the time of the moon greeting them or leaving just as the sun was ready to begin another day — she fell for him more and more.
Laying beside a sun bathing Hermione with his chin resting in his hand as he studied her, Severus bluntly said, “I think I would like kissing you,” tired of the standoff they had been having all summer.
All those weeks ago, she had called when she needed him — an occurrence he never thought he’d get to experience; being needed by someone, being the one they ran to — and they had spent nearly every waking minute together since then. But despite his best efforts in the form of lingering kisses and constant touches of affection, things had yet to progress. It hadn’t taken him long to see what was standing right in front of him, waiting for him, after his friendship with Lily had ended so spectacularly. However when it came to shifting things between them as he fell for Hermione in a way that illuminated how shallow his idea of loving Lily had been, he was at a loss and had decided being direct was the best approach.
Not bothering to look at him, she responded, “Don’t tease me, Severus. It’s mean.”
“I’m not. I’ve been thinking about it most of the summer and would like to try it before we go back to school in a few days.”
Finally having her full attention, she rolled onto her side and lifted her sunglasses up to the top of her head to stare at him with narrowed eyes. With her small nose scrunched up, she slowly asked, “Why?”
“You mean aside from being driven spare after spending every day these last two months with you pressed along my back and seeing you in little more than a bikini and cut offs?”
Her small hand shot out to shove his shoulder in response. Playfully falling back, he responded, “A simple no would have sufficed. No need to turn violent.”
“I’m not Lily. You can’t swap one sister for the other.”
“I’m not trying too,” he said seriously, coming back up. “I know I’ve been an unnoticing arsehole but I see you, Hermione. I see you and despite my best efforts knowing this would be exactly your response, I’ve grown to care for you more and faster than I should.”
Slowly closing her eyes before lowering her sunglasses, she sighed, “Caring isn’t the same as loving. I won’t settle, Severus; not even for you. Why do you think I so rarely return your affection anymore? I don’t want it unless you love me. It’s far too cruel of you to do so otherwise.”
“But if I loved you, was in love with you, would you allow it?”
“If you were capable of being in love with me, I would allow you everything; only denying you if you tried to leave me. Alas, you’re—”
Cupping the nape of her neck and tangling his fingers in her sun bleached curls, he pressed his lips to hers, silencing her words. For a brief moment she was stiff and unresponsive. Then as slow as the calming ocean before them, she melted into him, kissing him back, and rolling with him so that she was half atop him, her leg fitting between his as his tongue licked at the seam of her lips seeking entry.
Stirring his cock as she whimpered and opened for him, he moved her to sit fully astride his hips, uncaring of the lingering beach goers. Grasping her bum as she moved without practice against him in search of friction, he dragged her back and forth over himself until their kiss turned ravenous. With his tongue stroking hers and entering and retreating in time with his own greeting thrusts between her legs, it wasn’t long before her sweet whimpers grew husky with hunger and she was burying her face in the crook of his neck, her blunt teeth attempting to pierce his skin as a euphoric cry got smothered between them. Interchanging between growing grunts of his own and littering her exposed, sun-colored skin with kisses, he continued the simulation of the things he had been fantasizing of doing to her all summer, spending himself in his swim trunks before too long.
Keeping her cradled to him as he sat up and wrapped her legs around his hips, Severus brushed her wild hair back from her neck and trailed his lips along her shoulder, quietly and emphatically saying, “I’m more than capable of loving you, Hermione. It took me longer than it should have, but I do love you. I am in love with you.”
Quickly kissing him back, she stood up and threw a towel at his ruined lap as she pulled on his t-shirt and said, “There's a motel just down the way,” grabbing her purse and fishing out the keys to his bike and handing them over. “Let me give you everything.”
After staying out all night and not returning home until late in the afternoon the day after she and Severus had made love in the seaside motel, Hermione had been placed on lockdown. It didn’t matter that she only had two more days until school resumed, she had finally found the line and not only crossed it but obliterated it. With bars on her window and locks on the outside of her door, keeping her in unless it was time to eat or she needed to wee, it was a long forty-eight hours. But when September first came, she was packed and ready to go shortly after sunrise. Try as they might, the Evans weren’t going to be able to keep her away from Severus forever and she proved just how wild she was turning under their increasing iron rule after years of being overlooked by leaving Lily and her parents behind — Petunia away at university and unbothered by their annual departure — and running and jumping into Severus’s arms the moment they crossed the barrier, kissing him to the point of indecency.
Then for ten blissful months, they shared in their classes, homework and revision — him helping gear her study for what was on the OWLs she was still required to take despite her year advancement — stolen moments of snogging between lecture change, Hogsmeade trips in the snow, and when they could manage it, sex in the empty classrooms, corners of the library, and in his dorm. James had gotten Lily which had quieted down the Gryffindors’ obsession with Severus; her sister was content to ignore her outside of classes they had together and even then her only attention came in the form of competitive sneers or derisive comments about she and Severus; and after only a few days at school following her risqué display, her parents’ correspondence had dropped off outside of perfunctory missives so she was always seen receiving post along with the golden child. It was everything Hermione had ever wanted and as time went on, Lily’s own concerns and reservations about Severus from before proved to not pan out, his own idealization of the darker sides of magic falling by the wayside as he too finally found someone who filled in the cracks and holes within himself by loving and accepting him as he was.
Upon the sad return of summer knowing that how she had spent the last days would be how she spent the entirety of the coming two months, she once again found herself clinging to Severus on the platform, his hands divided so his fingers could both be plaited through her hair and pressing into the muscle of her bum as they desperately kissed each other goodbye. It was a sight that sent her parents into a rage, her father yanking her free and shoving her towards her mother, setting off Severus’s own temper, the two falling into a brawl for all to see until they were forced apart by the witnessing parents.
“Told you, he’s nothing but trouble,” Lily spat, grabbing her own trunk. “You’ve been acting like a wreckless little slag all year with him. Tell me, have you even thought about your future or have you just gotten lucky thus far?”
“Your sister is right, Hermione,” their mother agreed. “No man or wizard will want you with someone else’s mistake in tow. You need to think of what comes after school. That boy cannot provide you with a good life in either world, let alone the accident you two will inevitably create if you continue acting in such a way. I understand the romanticized notion behind falling in love with a bad boy but you must think of your future.”
“It’s not as if you and dad have provided me with that good of a life either,” she flung. “Poor or not, at least Severus and I would love any child we made, what’s your excuse?”
The crack of her mother’s hand across her face came so quickly, it was over before her brain registered it had happened. Going stoic in place of her shock, she bent down to lift the handle of her trunk and quietly said, “Thank you for proving my exact point, mother,” glancing back at an enraged Severus and mouthing, “I love you,” one last time before her father forced her eyes forward and ushered her to their waiting car to begin serving out her sentence in purgatory.
Being too wrapped up in Potter though, Lily had forgotten to mention the loophole that came with Severus being of age. Able to do magic away from school since January, he was in her room — which as it had been last summer was little more than a prison cell — every night following the heaping pile of evening chores she had. Though if Lily was out for the night, he would come down unnoticed to help her get through it all faster. Then tucked away in her room under a half dozen one way silencing charms and a litany of warning alarms for those approaching her room with the intent of opening the deadbolts, they spent the remaining hours of the late summer sun in each other’s arms discussing magic theories, novels, recent films they had missed and only he was able to catch up on, and their plans for the future with only a single year remaining before they graduated. And as the sun would retreat for the few hours of true night and her house stilled, he would make love to her until they were breathless and spent beyond the quick recovery of youth. It wasn’t endless days at the beach and it often felt as if she were giving into the belief of others that he wasn’t worth more than a handful of stolen hours by allowing him to sequester himself away with her, but they were happy and in love and with that, a little bit of faith, and a forming plan, they were going to make it through.
“If you hold my hand any tighter, I may lose a finger or two, little blossom. And won’t that be a shame given how much you like them?” he purred, leaning down so the thick sin of his voice was only heard by her.
Playfully shoving his shoulder, she admitted, “I’m scared,” somehow managing to tighten her fingers around his even more.
“I’m not letting you go, Hermione. I will Disapparate you in front the bevy of muggles no doubt milling about Kings Cross if they try. You’re mine.”
“But what about—”
“Shh,” he sounded, backing her up against the door of the compartment they had just exited, his lips finding hers with as much lustful aradence as if he hadn’t spent the entirety of their final train ride kissing, exploring, and loving her in the way only a newly bonded couple could manage.
Lingering along her neck, he murmured, “Do you have any regrets?”
“No, of course not,” she adamantly repiled. “I love you.”
“And I you my little wife.”
Humming at the sound of her new title, her eyes sparkled as she repeated and amended, “I love you, husband.”
Growling into her neck until she giggled, he rumbled, “You shouldn’t use that word unless you want me to ravish you again.”
“I wouldn’t complain but…” she trailed off, her head and shoulder pinching together as he continued to tease one of her most ticklish spots.
Feeling the train putter to a stop, he groaned, “Fine, after we get home then.”
“I still can't believe we did this.”
“Well where did you think we were going to live?”
“Not that! Got married,” her own shock melting as she looked at the simple gold band that adorned her finger. “It doesn’t feel real.”
Taking her left hand in his own, so their wedding rings glinted side by side, he said, “But it is and I couldn’t be happier for it.”
“Nor I,” she smiled, turning around and wrapping herself up in his arms.
Stepping on to the platform with one of his arms still slung around her shoulder, they were briefly swallowed up into the mass exodus of students. Once they were through the bottlenecking though and making their way to the barrier, his eyes quickly found her parents already awing over the ring Potter had presented her sister with the night before during their graduation. Bringing Hermione closer as if he could act as a shield upon the coming onslaught — the memory of her father manhandling her and her mother slapping her still fresh in his mind a year later — his steps remained sure when all he really wanted was to take her and make a run for the mainland where they would be starting their lives together in earnest that night.
They weren’t even fully upon her family when her father’s happy pride soured at the sight of him still with his youngest daughter two years later.
“Hermione, what have we told you about associating with him? Are you incapable of listening or just stupid?”
Putting her small hand to his chest as he began to vibrate with rage at the insult, his new wife, primly said, “Neither; I just find I don’t much care for your opinion of Severus, so I ignore it.”
“What is that?” Lily asked, pointing to where her sister’s left hand was still a light and welcome weight upon him.
“That would be a ring. More specifically a wedding ring.”
Gasping at her words, Mrs. Evans’s hand came to her mouth as she denied, “You didn’t.”
Showing more grace than had ever been bestowed upon her, especially where he was concerned, his little forgotten flower bloomed as she patted his chest and left his side. Kissing her still shocked mother’s cheek, she handed over a sealed envelope and said, “Our address is inside if you ever decide you wish to mend fences and be a part of our lives. If not, it’ll be your loss because this isn’t an invitation I’ll extend again.” Then turning to her sister, she bestowed her with best wishes for her upcoming nuptials, kissing her stiff father before returning to Severus.
Lacing her fingers through his just as she had two years ago when she pulled him up from the ground of humiliation and unknowingly saved him from the Devil, she said, “Let’s go, there’s nothing left for us here,” leading him through the barrier and off to the designated spot for the Portkey that would take them to a French village surrounded by fields of flowers that like her, blossomed best under the rays of summer love, their happily ever after being only the beginning.