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Sense and Insensibility Complete	By : Desert_Sea Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 33531 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other characters/things/places created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money from my fan-fiction.

Chapter List
- 22
- 23
- 24
A/N:
OOx3 – I love that this chapter threw you enough to have you on the comment rebound x. ‘I'd better go reread the whole ending one more time. (Or a thousand more times.)’ ;) x ‘Okay, so she's the child of Hermione's future son, Roland Snape, who obviously became a Dark Lord and had a kid with Harry and Ginny's daughter, Lily.’ – see, it wasn’t that complicated after all :) ‘That was family tree fuckery for my brain’ – hahah, I couldn’t make it too easy for you. ‘Is there some kind of plan hatching to de-Voldie the new baby so he doesn't turn out evil?’ – ooh, interesting thoughts! ‘Snape is gonna freak when he finds out Sophie's his granddaughter.’ – yes, he’s not one to take that sort of news well, I suspect. ‘Inner Voldie might be able to inspire lust, but darkness can't beget the light of love.’ – I so loved that xx
Chea – Heyyyy, lovely to hear from you. And congratulations on your new baby. I hope you are finally getting some sleep ;) x Thank you so much for your kind words. ‘I almost wish I had waited a little while longer so the story was finished and I wouldn't have this ache in my chest after this last chapter.’ – I can imagine that this probably isn’t the best story for a new mother. But I would encourage you to hang in there. ‘looking forward to more hot sex since the "damage" is done.’ – well this is true ;) ‘I look forward to your discussions with OO. It's like a FF within a FF!’ – heheh, not creepy at all, I used to stalk OO’s conversations before I met her, she’s hilarious and awesome x
LissaDream – ‘I'm just shocked beyond wit and measure’ – lovely turn of phrase :) Yes, I wondered how the truth would go down once revealed. There were clues sprinkled throughout but I didn’t want to make it too obvious. ‘my last couple reviews were not up to my usual par.’ – it’s a treat to hear from you at all so no expectations whatsoever. ‘mostly because I'm a mom, probably, but more because I love babies and I SO SO SO see Snape being an astounding father.’ – I have 2 kids too, and I do enjoy the thought of Severus as a father . . . though probably not so much in this context of course ;). ‘Snape is quite intimate for me because of this comparison of character’ – you are very lucky to have your own Snape, no wonder you started writing here. ‘What every mother wants is just to unconditionally love their child.’ – yes, and her earlier reflections upon the miracle of motherhood for her makes this all the more difficult to take. ‘You have me so intrigued and honestly you cannot write and post this story fast enough’ – thank you so much for your lovely honesty and heartfelt comments, I so appreciated them. Unfortunately work has been taking a lot of my time but I’m doing my best to keep things ticking along. Thank you x
HG4Eva – ‘I hope they also find a way to not give birth to the next Voldy and somehow accept that they can be happy together despite any lingering horcrux-like curse.’ – yes, quite a few things need to come together for our HEA. Let’s see if this chapter can bring us any closer xx
Discord The Lunatic – Excellent. Like to keep you on your toes x

Chapter 23 – Past and Present
Roland.
Roland.
It was her grandfather’s name. She would always have chosen it for her son. Always.
Even without it, without that corroboration, Hermione is in no doubt that the girl—now trying desperately to keep her chin from quivering—is speaking the truth.
Her grand-daughter. Sophia. Daughter of the Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord. Her baby. Her son.
He who should never have returned. But for her. But for she and Severus.
What had they done?
Instead of making love, they had made evil . . . and returned it to the world.
Pure. Evil.
She reaches for the girl’s hand.
What had she been exposed to? What horrors had she endured?
By way of response, the girl’s face suddenly collapses. Like a dam wall bursting, every emotion pours forth, a tidal wave that she has clearly been holding on to for a long time.
Hermione pulls herself to her feet, tugging Sophia up also.
“Come with me,” she murmurs, holding the girl close as she ushers her toward one of the private study rooms.
With a flick of her hand, she opens it, lights the lamps and shuts the door before wrapping her arms around the girl’s small frame and standing with her, letting the gut-wrenching sobs wrack her body, her face warm and increasingly wet against Hermione’s shoulder.
They remain that way. Leaning into one another. Hermione blinking through her own mute anguish, shock preventing her from feeling anything beyond a hollow despair . . . for all of them.
Even after the tears have subsided, Sophia remains clinging to her—shuddering inhalations interspersed with heavy sighs—until finally she lifts her head, slowly, achingly, as though it weighs far more than her neck can manage.
She is a mess. Hermione uses her shawl to wipe away the sheen of soggy despair, her fingers comb the hair back from Sophia’s face—fine, black hair, so much like Severus’ she wonders why it had never struck her before.
The ghost of a smile eventually creeps onto the girl’s lips . . . a long-awaited release . . . as though the burden she has been carrying has finally been eased, just a small amount.
“Can you tell me how you got here?” Hermione asks, keeping a protective arm around her shoulders.
“This.” Sophia dips her fingers into her shirtfront and pulls out the familiar gold chain and tiny hourglass . . . a time-turner. “You gave it to me.”
Hermione recoils. “Me?”
“Yes. Professor McGonagall left it to you . . . after she died.”
Closing her eyes, Hermione realises that the emotional turmoil of the day is likely to be far from over.
“Perhaps we should sit,” she suggests, gesturing to the table in the centre of the room. They each take chairs, hands remaining fiercely entwined. It is clear that Sophia is extremely reluctant to let her go but Hermione finds herself equally desperate to provide the comfort. She can’t begin to imagine what the girl has been through . . . and is now concerned about how she, herself, may have contributed to her distress.
“Please tell me why you’re here,” Hermione asks, gently squeezing her hands.
Sophia takes a deep breath, releasing it before answering. “We decided that it would be best . . . for me to come.”
Hermione inclines her head slightly. “We?”
“You and I and Grandpa.”
“By Grandpa you mean . . .”
“Severus . . . Professor Snape.” She nods slowly, looking particularly melancholy.
“And what did we expect you to be able to do?”
Sophia’s blue eyes stare until they turn glassy. “We thought that I could try . . . to make it better.”
Hermione hates to see the girl having to endure even more pain. But it is clear that she is here for this . . . for this very conversation. It simply has to happen.
“How bad is it?” she persists. “In the future?”
“Bad.” The tears trickle in runnels down the sides of Sophia’s nose. “The third Wizarding War has been going for two years already. Hogwarts no longer exists. It was one of the first things he destroyed when the war began. That’s when Professor McGonagall . . .” She tails off, eyes sinking down to fix upon the table.
Hermione bites down hard on her bottom lip, trying to control her spiralling thoughts. Hogwarts destroyed? It was almost incomprehensible. However, she could imagine the Dark Lord wishing to obliterate it—the scene of his humiliating demise at the hands of Harry Potter.
“Your father—my son . . . Roland . . . Can you tell me about him?” Hermione dips her head to hide the dread that has suddenly slithered into her stomach.
“In appearance . . . he’s very much like Grandpa . . . a younger version . . . but with brown eyes . . . your eyes.” Hermione feels Sophia scanning her face, as though confirming her appraisal. “I’ve been told that when he was young he was very charming . . . clever and funny . . . talented. My mother fell in love with him when they were here at Hogwarts. He was the year ahead of her. Apparently he targeted her from the start.”
Hermione finds that she can easily imagine him, her son, in her mind’s eye—a young Severus, as charismatic and alluring as her own Severus would have been if he’d not had his confidence shattered so early . . . if he’d received more love and care. But then she realises that no matter how much love her son had received, it clearly hadn’t been able to change the outcome.
“Didn’t anyone know?” A despairing frown slices through her brow. “Didn’t they know his true identity?”
Sophia shakes her head. “He hid it for many years. In fact, you both thought that you’d been mistaken about him. And Harry and Ginny were so happy that their only daughter was in love with your only son . . . It had seemed . . . perfect.” She suddenly looks away, focusing on the reflected torches dancing in the darkness of the window. “My father told Harry that it had been satisfying to take Lily Potter from him . . . twice.”
Hermione’s chest squeezes and tears prickle her eyes. The horror of what they had been through, all of them, is almost too much to bear.
“I haven’t seen either of my parents for over two years—since before the war started,” Sophia continues, her voice now flat, emotionless. “He took my mother away. No one knows if she went willingly or was forced—if she’s alive or dead. He tried to take me too but you fought him—you and Grandpa. I’ve been living with you both ever since.”
Hermione remembers Minerva’s comment about Sophia being home-schooled by her grandparents. It makes so much more sense to her now. But what had happened to Harry and Ginny?
“What about your other grandparents?” Hermione asks, suddenly missing her good friends so much that it aches. She’d convinced herself that she had been protecting them from her affliction. But perhaps she had simply been running away—too ashamed to accept any of their multitude of invitations—to visit, to stay, to spend time with their children.
“They’re both alive at least. I see them occasionally . . . Grandpa Harry mainly,” Sophia responds glumly. “Ginny is too upset still. She hasn’t recovered from the loss of my mother. She doesn’t leave the house very much anymore. Harry comes around as part of the Order meetings. They’ve reformed . . . to fight my father and his followers. But apparently there are far more of them this time. No one is sure of being able to defeat them . . . not again.”
Hermione can’t help the profound guilt that permeates her entire being. But still she releases one of Sophia’s hands and rests it against her abdomen. “And that’s why you’re here?” she asks.
“Yes.” Sophia sighs heavily, tightening her grip on Hermione’s remaining hand. “I’ve been trying to do what you asked of me. But it’s been so . . . hard.” Her voice breaks and Hermione leans toward her, rubbing her fingers soothingly across the girl’s small hand.
After a few moments, Hermione ducks her head to capture Sophia’s watery gaze. “Please tell me what we’ve asked of you.”
Sophia draws a shuddering breath before responding. “You just told me to be myself . . . to behave like a normal student. Not to be too . . . suspicious . . . not to indicate who I was until I’d found out . . . enough. I really tried, but seeing you . . . and Grandpa . . . and having you smile politely at me . . . or not at all in Grandpa’s case, has been really difficult.”
“I can imagine. And I’m so sorry.” Hermione feels even more guilt-ridden for the trauma she has obviously put the girl through. But there had to have been a good reason . . . at least she dearly hopes so.
“You’d told me how difficult things were when you started here—how sad and lonely you’d been, and how confused you were about what was happening to you.” Sophia’s earnest face breaks her heart. “I thought if I tried to make you feel better—helped you work out what was wrong with you—you might be happier . . . and you would get together with Grandpa quicker.”
As Hermione thinks back over her past interactions with Sophia, she realises that they had all been extremely encouraging, in fact the confidence boosts that she’d delivered had, indeed, been the catalysts for some of the key developments in her relationship with Severus.
Had her grand-daughter’s presence already changed what would naturally have occurred between them?
“But the main reason I came here is to give you something.”
Sophia’s gaze now drops away and Hermione has the sense that she isn’t going to want to hear what is to come. But she must . . . the girl has clearly been through hell to get here.
“What is it?”
Sophia stares at their hands. “It’s . . . a potion.”
“What sort of potion?”
Sophia takes a long time to respond, swallowing repeatedly as she works up the courage. When she does speak her voice is little more than a whisper. “Grandpa calls it the ‘Soul Stealer.’”
Hermione’s hand tightens over her stomach. She feels physically ill.
Her next question slides through barely parted lips. “What does it do?”
“I know what it’s supposed to do,” Sophia responds. “But what it will actually do . . . Grandpa couldn’t be absolutely certain.”
“What’s it supposed to do?” Hermione speaks more harshly than she intends, having finally exhausted all of her reserves of patience after this day of bombshells.
Sophia finally looks her in the eye. “It’s supposed to separate the Dark Lord’s soul from your baby . . . to destroy him, whilst preserving your real son.”
Hermione’s brow furrows as she tries to process the girls’ words.
“Are you saying that my baby isn’t the Dark Lord?” Her voice is hoarse with emotion.
“Not yet.” Sophia manages to look both hopeful and hopeless. “You’ll know when it happens. You told me that you felt it . . . you both did . . . when he left you . . . when he let go of you to enter the baby . . . It hasn’t happened yet has it?” Her last words are delivered in a rush.
Hermione gives a small, stunned shake of her head.
“Oh, good,” Sophia sighs with relief.
Hermione doesn’t even know how to respond. “Why is it . . . good?”
“Because there’s only a small window of time. Grandpa says you need to take the potion within a day of it happening . . . otherwise the Dark Lord will permanently take hold.”
“And what would happen if I took the potion late?”
Sophia looks forlornly at the table. “It would destroy the baby too. Grandpa says it could still happen anyway . . . even if the timing is right. And . . . he also says that there is a risk to you too.”
Hermione looks into the girl’s eyes and sees her own tears reflected there. She doesn’t need to say it. Such an outcome would destroy Sophia also. She would be no more.
“Why would we send you here . . . when there is so much to lose?”
Sophia shakes her head, a defiant edge to her jaw despite her tears. “Grandpa has spent the past ten years brewing the potion. I love him. And he might not know it yet but he loves me. I trust him with my life. I have to. It’s my only hope. It’s the world’s only hope.”
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Sense and Insensibility *Complete*

Sense and Insensibility Complete