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To have loved, and lost (was Missed Chances)	By : professorflo Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 10775 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters within. I make no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Remebrance
- 2-2.
- 3-3.
- 4-4.
- 5-5.
- 6-6.
- 7-7.
- 8-8.
- 9-9.
- 10-10.
- 11-11.
- 12-12.
- 13-13.
- 14-14.
- 15-15.
- 16-16.
- 17-17.
- 18-18.
- 19-19.
- 20-20.
- 21-21.
- 22-22.
- 23-23.
- 9
- 10
- 11
In the end Severus decided to see who it was before deciding whether or not to open the door. The likelihood that it was Minerva was high. He could couldn't think of anyone else who would be bothered enough to come, and while he hadn't got a glimpse of the elf that had been delivering food, he had recognised the crockery and cutlery as coming from Hogwarts, and she was certainly the only member of staff that cared enough to make sure he was fed.
He managed to drag himself up to his feet and stumbled towards the front window and pulled the curtain just back enough to peer out. By the light of the moon and the dim lamp further down the street he could see that it was indeed Minerva standing on his doorstep, her face half hidden by the wide brim of her hat. Reaching into her sleeve she pulled out her wand as he watched, pointing it at his front door. Severus smirked to himself, knowing full well that the many layer of warding he'd spent years erecting around his home would be beyond her skill to unravel, laced through as they were with many dark spells.
Feeling the tingle of his wards, he hurried toward the front door, not realising until he'd reached out for the handle that he'd decided to let her in. His smirk faded as he felt the outer layer of his wards drop. The old windbag must be blasting through rather than using any finesse to take them down. He wasn't why he'd expected any different, not from a Gryffindor, especially this one.
He wrenched the door open, scowling out from the shadows at the witch that seemed completely unsurprised by his appearance at the door, even going so far as to look smug.
"I knew that would get your attention," she crowed as she pushed past him into the front room. She tisked under her breath as she peered around the dark room, before wordlessly using her wand to conjure a few candles. "I'd hoped that elf was exaggerating, but…" she trailed off as he moved forward a pace, leaving the shadows by the doorway so that the candlelight fell on his face.
"Merlin, Severus. What have you done to yourself, my boy?" Her voice was pained. "I should have forced my way in sooner…"
She stepped forward, lifting her hands to his shoulders as if to draw him into a hug, although her expression carried a hint of wariness, as if he were some wild animal that would spook at her touch.
It had the opposite effect however. He hadn't even realised how the lack of human contact over the past weeks had affected him, but the moment she touched him he needed more, and he sank into her embrace, shocking her completely as he uncharacteristically broke down and wept on her shoulder.

1 year earlier
Life had settled back down into a routine fairly quickly after that night. He had feared recriminations from Hermione at some point over the way he'd treated her, and had been surprised when she just continued as before, as if nothing had ever happened. Well, on the surface at least.
Weekends were often spent similarly to weekdays, for Hermione was often called into the office to do extra work, or would spend time with her friends. Severus rarely left the house except to visit his apothecary, to buy or gather ingredients, or on rare occasions, visit the few friends he had. He would usually do more reading that on weekdays, sat in his favourite chair by the fire, or complete the few jobs around the house that he wouldn't allow the house elf to do, but all too often he would have to continue monitoring a potion or two that took a days or even weeks to brew.
Monday to Fridays Hermione would have left for work by the time he crawled out of bed, leaving breakfast waiting for him in the kitchen. He would wolf it down before either descending to his lab to work the day away, or disappearing off to the apothecary that was the front for his business, slipping in the back as always.
It had never been his way to leave important matters, such as the running of a business, to others when he could do them himself, but he'd not been able to deal with the publicity or the sheer number of people who came to gawp at him when he'd first opened the apothecary. He'd quickly started looking for a couple of employees to manage the shop and the simpler brewing. The benefit of having taught the majority of witches and wizarding younger than him was that he already had a good idea of who might meet his exacting standards. Even so, he'd gone through a couple of spineless idiots before he was happy with the small team whom he judged competent enough to not need his constant supervision to brew and run the store and mail order business. The unusual or more difficult potions he brewed himself at home, meaning that on the whole he was able to spend the majority of his time in his own company, which was far preferable to that of the majority of people.
His need for solitude never seemed to extend to his wife, however. She had always been one of the few people whose company he would seek. Some days it was all too easy to curse himself for what he had said to her in the past, not because it was untrue, but because he had done himself out of an agreeable companion. Their conversation was never again as easy and free as it had been before their marriage, and Severus often caught himself wishing things could have been different. But it was impossible. He had made his bed and would have to lie in it. At least it could have been worse, he told himself in commiseration.
The weeks following the ball had been particularly awful, but at least things had eventually begun to improve. For the first couple of months she had spent much of her time in her room, all interactions between them strained, especially at the weekends unless she was out with her friends or doing overtime. Not since that month-long hiatus had she shown any reluctance to come to his bed, although she had continued in the same vein as before; quiet and still, unwilling to let him provide her with any sort of pleasure. She persisted in leaving his bed for her own afterwards, except on one rather memorable occasion when she'd come home drunk, and had promptly fallen asleep, her arms still wrapped around him. He'd left the bed early before she'd awoken in the morning, unwilling to risk her seeing how much he was discomfited by his own enjoyment of her lithe body pressed against his. It had been the first time he'd really noticed that she'd lost weight. When he had reached down to stroke her warm skin, his eyes watching her face warily for any sign of waking, his fingers had encountered ribs and hip bones far more prominent than they had been before. Not that she'd ever had much fat on her to begin with.
He'd started taking an interest in how much she was eating, although it had been hard with her leaving for work so early and spending lunch times at work. In the evenings, however, he had started to make sure there was a good dinner waiting for her at home, and he made sure to sit with her to eat. At first conversation had been extremely stilted, barely more than polite but impersonal questions about each others' days, and his gentle entreaties for her to eat more.
Over the following months he learned what foods she would be more willing to take seconds of, and began to cook them more often. From the looks she would give him it was clear she had caught on to what he was doing, and although she was clearly not sure of his motives, she never said anything, for which he was glad. Telling her that he didn't want to fuck a stick wouldn't have gone down well, and the truth, that he felt hollow and pained whenever he thought of how thin she'd been, probably wouldn't have been believed anyway. Not that the idea that he was worried about her had even crossed his mind, as unused as he was to caring about others.
It wasn't long before she gained all the weight she had lost, and even a bit more. He loved how the extra curves looked at felt, and would have tried to show it in their nights together, only she would shut down any attempt at doing anything more than was required to get himself off. Severus could only wonder at her restraint and determination to refuse all pleasure.
He had begun finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes off her, whatever they were doing. He took most pleasure from occasionally sitting quietly with her in the evenings, both with a book in their hands, sure that it was exactly what they would have been doing had he managed to keep his feelings for Lily a secret. Except, they would have possibly been sat together on the sofa, enjoying the touch of each other's bodies, instead of in separate chairs facing each other. He would have happily spent more time reading with her, except that all too often he felt unable to face her. Something would tighten in his chest at the thought of trying to ignore the occasional glimmer of unshed tears that he would catch in an unguarded moment or the empty smiles she gave him when their eyes met.
When he did manage to push past his own feelings and manage to sit with her for any length of time, however, he would find that whole evenings would go past with him barely taking in a word of his book. If she'd noticed that he rarely turned a page, she'd certainly never said anything. Not that he was trying to be obvious in his silent study of her, either hiding behind the dark curtain of his hair or positioning his book so he could just see her around the edge. She always seemed lost in her own book or her thoughts, rarely looking up at him, but there was something in her face, a quiet melancholy that he knew he had put there. It made his chest ache, and he hated it.
He didn't understand what it was supposed to mean, or what he was supposed to do about it. Hiding in his lab instead of sitting with her seemed the best thing to do to stop the ache, except his mind was constantly filled with thoughts of what she might be doing. What was she thinking about when she stared for long minutes into the fire? Why did the sight of her chewing her bottom lips as she concentrated on her book send a warm pulse through his body, when it had only ever before made him think of filling her mouth with his cock? The level of restrain it took not to pull her into his arms when he saw her holding back tears would always shake him whenever he thought about it later. He couldn't understand what was wrong with him. Why did she torment him with such thoughts?
He couldn't bring himself to change the way he treated her. She would only have been suspicious of his motives in any case. Instead, he contented himself with small, passive-aggressive acts against her, such as leaving potions ingredients in the kitchen when he knew it annoyed her, or moving her armchair back from the fire so she'd be forced to shift it back to its usual position. Such things were done only to irritate her, his silent retaliation for making him feel something he didn't understand.
Only, the satisfaction he imagined every time he did something never materialised. He wasn't quite sure whether his intention was to annoy her, or to actually provoke a rise out of her, but nothing seemed to faze her. Each time she would calmly push her chair back to the spot she preferred, or would move his ingredients out of the way, sometimes with a gentle reminder not to do it again. The strange, considering looks she would give him were a far cry from the response he'd expected, and instead of a sense of satisfaction, he would only feel something like shame curdling through his bones. Not that it would stop him from doing it again and again, but sometimes he wasn't sure who he was hurting more with his petty vindictiveness.
But then things had changed once more, although it had taken him a few weeks to realise what was happening. His wife had a demanding job, and he was never sure exactly what time she would be home, or if she would have to work at the weekend. Which was why, when she started staying later and later at work, and spending more of her weekends there to, it wasn't immediately obvious. But after the second week in which she'd not arrived home until after ten every day, he began to notice.
He still waited for her, the dinner he had prepared sitting under a warming charm until she arrived, but now he began to try and find out what exactly was keeping her so late. He would ask more and more probing questions about what she had been up to, checking the morning papers each day to see what was happening at the Ministry that could explain what she was doing. But besides the usual news there was nothing that could account for the extra hours she seemed to be working. His questioning over dinner only told him that she had a secret. Her skills at lying were no match for his at observation. Years of spying had made him extremely adept at reading people, yet besides the fact that she was keeping something hidden from him, he had no clue as to what it was.
Maybe it was his own fears that made him jump to conclusions, but as her strange behaviour continued he couldn't help but think the worst of her. The way she refused to meet his eyes over their shared dinner, how she seemed not to need to take her pleasure with him the way he did with her, or how she kept tight-lipped over what was taking up the extra hours away from home, all led him to believe one thing: She was having an affair.
- 9
- 10
- 11
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To have loved, and lost (was Missed Chances)