Arden's Refuge

Severus carefully balanced the coffee cups on the silver tray as he climbed up the stairs, appreciating his own agility. This little... excursion was turning out far better than he could have hoped, and yet... it would eventually come to an end and she would leave. The coffee, perhaps, would extend her stay for a few minutes.

When he reached the top of the tower, he found her reading an old leather-bound copy of Beowulf. "You read Anglo-Saxon?" he asked.

"A bit," she said, smiling in a way that made Severus suspect she read it quite well. "I did medieval literature as a secondary field."

"Out of curiosity," he said, handing her the cappuccino, "how many languages do you read?"

"Eight... well, about seven besides modern English--Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Latin, ancient Greek, medieval and modern French, German, and a few varieties of Gaelic. And you?"

"Well... ten, I suppose. English and Spanish of course--my grandmother was Spanish--and Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, as you might have guessed, French, Italian, Russian, German, and... er... Sanskrit." Severus was pleased to see that she seemed impressed. "Not that I can understand all of them of course," he quickly clarified. "I don't speak them all fluently."

"That's quite a list," she said. Noticing that Severus was drinking his own coffee while standing up and balancing the tray in his other hand, she added, "Why don't you sit down here?"

"All right," he said, moving to the window seat beside her. It was comfortable here, he thought; he ought to come here more often. He sipped his own coffee as slowly as possible to prolong the visit.

"Severus, I wanted to tell you... I forgive you for... the other night. I know I seemed angry at first... you have to understand that it was just a terrible blow to realize that I didn't have what I thought I had. I think it was for the best, though. I'm not sure I ever would have realized... that my engagement was a mistake."

"I'm guessing that's what Dumbledore had in mind when he arranged the whole thing," Severus replied. Hermione looked quickly away and fixed her eyes on the waterfall outside the window. "Hermione," he said, "I can't tell you how much it means to me to have your forgiveness. You cannot imagine how... guilty I felt... as if I had stolen something from you by my deception."

"It will be okay," she said, without looking at him. "It wasn't your fault."

"Thank you." With Hermione's small body so near him, he understood now that sensation he had read about before--of barely being able to contain the desire to take a woman in one's arms.

"This is the most relaxing place I've ever been," she finally said, turning her eyes back on him. "I could stay here forever."

A pleasant idea, Severus thought. "Hermione... you know you can come back here anytime you want, right? Anytime. I can give you a key."

"Severus..." she looked so uncertain that it was painful. "I don't want to be a nuisance to you. But thank you for extending your generosity. You don't owe me anything."

"No, not at all, I want you to come," he said, trying to smile, but finding himself too nervous to manage it. "I've put a lot of thought into making the place nice, and sometimes I want someone else to be here to... well, to admire it. I want someone else to enjoy it, too. It's like..." he explained, "like knowing the best secret in the world, and not being allowed to share it... do you know what I mean?"

A small smile appeared on Hermione's face. "I would love to come here, then."

"I'll get you a key," he said, starting to rise.

"No!" Hermione interjected. "Stay in here a little longer, and we can talk."

Now Severus couldn't restrain his smile. "All right. We'll talk."

-----

She left late that afternoon, and Severus reluctantly saw her off. The small part of him that was inclined to be hopeful thought that she was, perhaps, reluctant to leave. He realized soon after her departure that they had completely forgotten about the Neruda book--instead, Hermione had left with an armful of other works and a content, almost smug, smile.

And she would come back.

He would have to make sure to spend more time at Snape Manor from now on.

-----

A few days later, Severus was compelled to return to 12 Grimmauld Place for a meeting with Dumbledore. He rather dreaded the smugness he knew Dumbledore would display when he found out--as he inevitably would, and in fact, probably already knew--that Hermione had visited Severus more than once in the last few days.

Naturally, it was the first thing Dumbledore mentioned. "So you've been playing the host lately, haven't you?" he said with an annoying jolly smile.

Snape smiled back sarcastically. "Whatever do you mean, Albus," he said flatly, then found himself genuinely smiling at the thought of it.

"I've never seen you looking so happy," he added.

"Most likely," Severus responded, "that is because every time you see me, you are around, and that naturally precludes any sort of happiness."

Albus took the comment as a joke, which, Severus realized, he had intended. He turned his face away so Albus couldn't see him smiling.

"Well, I needn't ask if you've been doing well," Albus added.

"I guess I'm doing all right."

"So do you admit now that I was right?"

"Never. Now, why did you call me here?"

"To terrorize you, of course."

"I should have suspected that."

-----

Dumbledore wasn't the only one to notice a difference in Severus. When he went to the Lupins' house a few weeks later to bring Remus his Wolfsbane potion, Nymphadora immediately questioned him.

"Severus, you look terribly smug. I would suspect you'd just managed to get a student expelled, but it is still summer. What did you do?"

"Nothing, Nymphie," he said. "Everything is perfectly normal."

She deliberately ignored the use of his annoying nickname for her. "Does it have anything to do with your little visitor?"

"Does what have anything to do with whom? You're far too cryptic. Where's your husband?"

"And now the pot calls the kettle black! When are you going to ask her out?"

"You know I don't do that sort of thing."

"I heard you were actually pretty good at it."

"If you're referring to the Polyjuice incident, I advise you to forget about it." He glared at her and she laughed. He was losing his touch; he would have practice his mean stare in the mirror some time soon...

"Oh, but can you forget about it?"

"It's too soon, Nymphie, she's only been single for the last month."

"So you admit you like Hermione!"

"I admit nothing of the sort."

"There's no need for secrets among friends."

"Thank you, now, speaking of friends, where is your husband?"

-----

Severus had to admit that his life was taking on a positively cheery quality. There had been a time in his life when he would have been disgusted by the idea. Now he couldn't even managed to feel disturbed. Hermione came almost every day now, usually to read by herself in the tower or to work on her dissertation. Once she came with an interesting device she called a notebook computer, showing Severus how she typed the words onto the screen. He couldn't see how it was any better than an enchanted quill, and told her so. "You narrow-minded Slytherin! Typical anti-Muggle prejudice!" she said, laughing in his face.

He found he didn't mind being laughed at.

Usually, after she had been reading for a couple of hours, Severus brought her some coffee. He was always afraid of interrupting her work, and once told her so. "Don't worry about it," she said. "Come in anytime. I could use a break."

He came in one day and found her asleep on the window seat, with papers scattered all around her and the sun shining across her body. He walked over to leave her frappuccino next to her, kneeling down to place the tray on the floor. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself brushing some hair out of her face and stroking her cheek. Recovering his senses, he quickly left the room.

-----

A few minutes later she came downstairs into the library, sipping the frappuccino. "You did a good job on this," she told him.

"I tried to make it just like you described."

"Actually, it's much better than what I've had before."

Severus was flattered, and told her so. She pulled out a book she'd been carrying--one of Severus's favorites, his copy of Pablo Neruda's Cien Sonetos. Neruda again... he had known somehow she'd find that one.

"I was wondering if you might help me translate this poem," she said, opening the book to Sonnet XVII. "You told me that you could read Spanish."

"I think I have an English translation somewhere."

She looked up at him, straight into his eyes. "But I wanted to know how you would translate it."

"Hermione, I'm sure you've read this poem before; you nearly have your doctorate in twentieth century literature..."

"Please, Severus?"

He liked the way she said his name... "Sev'rus"... as if it were only two syllables... He sighed. "All right," he said, taking the book from her.

"I think I understand the first two lines. I was wondering if you would just help me with the third and fourth."

Severus couldn't look at her. He read the lines. "Te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma."

"What does it mean?"

"I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul," he replied, barely glancing in her direction.

"I thought it was something like that."

"Hermione, you knew it was something like that," he turned toward her fearfully. "What are you playing at?"

"And the last two lines?" she asked, moving closer and placing her tiny hand over his heart.

He felt terribly exposed, his heart racing with her hand right over it. She knew. He sighed and looked away, whispering, "So close that your hand on my chest is my own, so close that your eyes close when I go to sleep." Then he felt acutely the difference between being a Slytherin and being a Gryffindor. He was so frightened he couldn't even do what he desperately wanted to do.

He closed his hand over hers, grasped it, and dropped it down by her side. He gazed at her. "Hermione," he said harshly.

She started shaking and moved away from him. "It's all right," she said, turning so he couldn't see her face. "It's all right," she said again as she walked out the door.

He sat down and buried his face in his hands. Apparently his glare was working again--inadvertently, and oh, so very ill-timed...

He didn't see her again for the next two weeks.