There is a roadway, muddy and foxgloved

Never I'd had life enough

My heart is screaming out

And in a few days, I would be there, love

Ever here that's lived in me is yours just as it was.

Just as it was, baby

Before the otherness came

And I knew its name

The love, the dark, the light, the flame.

...

And tell me if somehow, some of it remained

How long would you wait for me?

How long I've been away?

The shape that I'm in now, you're shaping the doorway

Make your good love known to me

Just tell me about your day.

Just as it was, baby

Before the otherness came

and I knew its name

The love, the dark, the light, the flame.

The world pieced itself back together around her, slowly reforming. Familiar shapes and features materialized out of the blur, and the flashes of light and bursts of color ceased as the spinning came to a halt. These had been things happening around her, people moving past, torches lighting and extinguishing against the walls depending on the time of day, ghosts drifting or flying by, and more which she could not decipher or imagine, happenings which she had missed in the gap she'd jumped.

The hallway was empty around her, and for a moment she dared to humor the whisper of hope in her chest – was she back? Was this finally the proper year? She pressed her lips into a thin line and rushed to the closest painting on the wall. A small, sallow wizard wearing a great feathery thing for a hat and bright magenta robes peered at her suspiciously, likely having witnessed her sudden reappearance. "What year is it?" Hermione asked, fighting the urge to force the information out of the portrait more quickly when he stifled a yawn and glanced to his left, where a desk of paperwork lay untouched within his painting.

"Odd. Oh yes, very odd," he muttered, straightening a stack of parchment.

"Please, sir." The desperation in her voice shocked even Hermione, and it seemed to reach the indifferent, painted heart of the man in front of her, as well.

"The year is 1995, if you must know. It is Wednesday, the 3rd of May, and you, my dear, ought not be out this early. Since I suppose you'll be demanding the time, as well, know that it is presently four o'clock. Wee hours of the day, mind you, not nearing dinnertime."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Dumbledore had found a way to put her right back where she had started, or nearly. It was slightly past five when she had originally entered this hallway in one year and left in another, which meant she was still an hour early. It meant there were now two of her in Hogwarts, and she must not be seen until at least five-thirty, at which point her second self would have left. Left on the oddest adventure to have the strangest two years of her life. Years which were now close to meaningless in the present . . . She straightened suddenly. If her other self was to be coming along this very hallway in the next hour, it was best that she moved out of sight, and Gryffindor tower was hardly a safe bet as far as hiding places went, particularly from herself.

She fiddled with the ring on her right hand, still very unused to its weight and sensation upon her fourth finger. "Thank you, sir." Suddenly there was only one place in the castle she wished to be, though a thousand questions danced in her mind. Would he remember? True to the portrait's words, it was still early for anyone to be moving about the castle as far as the student body was concerned, but Hermione was privy to the information that some of the house prefects were scurrying around at these times. This was both comforting – an excuse for her own presence outside of her dormitory – and problematic – suppose one of them should see her?

She bid farewell to the wizard on the wall and turned to make her way hastily towards the office of a particular teacher. As she walked she considered the oddness of it; the Hermione Granger who was presently sleepless in her dorm, on the cusp of venturing out to wander Hogwarts, despised the man. Conversely, the Hermione Granger with the altered timeturner resting on its chain against her chest and two stolen years of learning in her head felt quite the opposite.

She didn't think to knock or hesitate outside of the classroom to which his office was connected, walking right in and scanning the empty room before making her way up the stairs to the office door. She set her hand on the knob and paused, swallowing the growing lump in her throat. Would he remember her? Had he forgiven her? What if he was angry? What if he didn't know her? What if he didn't care?

Steeling herself, she turned the knob and pushed the door open. As if he had sensed her – or someone, anyways – coming, he stood on the small second floor within the office, hands resting on the railing in front of him. He gazed coolly down at her, though knowing that face as she did now, she sensed a twinge of confusion in the crease that appeared in his forehead as he drew his brows together. Hermione released the door and clasped her hands in front of her, nervous fingers immediately finding the still-new ring and toying with it subconsciously as she stared up at him.

It was years since she had seen him like this. Her mind – instincts, even? – screamed for caution, dredging up the now deeply engrained understanding within her that the man before her was one to avoid when possible, to never cross, to always despise. But there was another feeling bursting in her chest, a softer but stronger one that called her to examine the familiarity in his features. Only seconds had passed.

"Miss Granger." He sounded cold, annoyed. But there was something else in the deep breath he took after the words. He sounded disappointed, and . . . tired? "I–" He stopped, eyes riveted on her hands.

The disappointment at the way he addressed her rose in Hermione's chest and expanded, clinging to the inside of her ribcage like some oozing, sticky black tar and suffocating the small flame of hope she'd been tenderly nurturing since her return to this time only minutes before. Again she was compelled to treat this version of the man before her with the deference and respect deserved from pupil to professor. But she bit her tongue before the word Sir could escape her lips. "Severus," she said quietly, instead. It was more a scared whisper than anything else, but it was a question in and of itself, the doorway to learning whether the severe man gazing down at her remembered anything at all.

There was a pause with silence so thick it felt like the air between them would ripple if Hermione dared to move. Her mind raced. For her, it had been minutes. Minutes since she'd last seen him, minutes since she'd apologized for having to leave without being able to tell him why, minutes since the ring she now found that she was still fondling absentmindedly had found its way onto her hand. But for him . . . Hermione didn't have to count, because she had done the math before leaving. For him, it had been years. Of course, he'd surely seen her just the day before in class and the Great Hall and . . . But it was different. She hadn't known. She couldn't comprehend how difficult the years could have been, or what her foray into a time she didn't belong in may have done to the present. What had changed? About him? About Hogwarts? About everything?

Even from this distance, she could see the muscles in his jaw tighten. He blinked once, but it was not the calculated expression she had seen from him before. At least, this him. Still, he didn't speak. Fear gripped her. Had she broken time? Had the past she'd visited somehow been one of a different timeline? Was the man standing above her even privy to the memories that for her, had been moments she lived only hours before?

He tried to keep his face a calculated mask of indifference, but behind the black eyes his head was spinning. It couldn't be. He studied her more closely, forcing his eyes away from her anxious hands and the item receiving all of their attention. He still remembered the day as if it had been burned into his mind, branded on his memories like some inescapable photograph that resurfaced at least daily behind his eyelids.

It took seconds to determine that her clothes were right. Blue jeans, that soft brown shirt that she loved so much, and the magical sweater she'd worn everywhere since she'd acquired it. Since he had bought it for her. Even her shoes were right. And her hair . . .

He took a breath, one meant to be quiet and calming but one that was instead very unsteady and halting, much the way he felt inside. So, today is the day. Things bubbled up in his chest, feelings not his own. Or at least, they hadn't been his own for nearly twenty years. And yet, the familiarity of them and ease which with he slipped back into them was dizzying. But Merlin, it had been years. She shifted where she stood and looked around the room. As soon as she did the way the light played on her features changed and he saw the bags beneath her eyes and the redness there, and he understood; she had shed her tears only moments before. Tears he had himself wiped away and soaked into the shoulder of his own robes.

It was too much.

"Hermione."

He hadn't spoken the name, her first name, in years. Only the evening before he had deducted points from Gryffindor as punishment for her snarky words, spoken out of line. But that her was not this her. Not his her. How many times had he studied her and wondered if she was ever going to come back to him? How many times had he watched her nearly die or arrived only after the little trio of trouble-making friends had faced terrible odds and reprimanded them all, furious because he had nearly lost her? She didn't know him, had grown to hate him, even, thanks to the wild imaginations of Potter and Weasley. But if she had died, if harm had come to her and stopped her from reaching the point, whatever day, whatever year it was that she had come from . . .

He knew she'd been in her fifth or sixth year, and tried to wait patiently for time to pass and the years to come. But she was insufferable, refusing to acknowledge his help for what it was, always suspecting an ulterior motive, always believing him to be against her best friend, always taking things he said the wrong way. He had become familiar with her during those two years in his youth, and had to mind himself when she did finally come to Hogwarts as a first year. He was inclined to tease her as he had before, when they were close, but this young and unknowing Hermione did not respond to his picking on her in the way that she would as an older witch. He felt equally concerned that someone would discover his odd fascination with his young student and eventually turned her sour response to him to his advantage, using it to distance them and foster a less than amiable relationship, terrified that someone would suspect him of terrible things, things which never crossed his mind.

He had studied her a great deal as she grew up, innocently desiring to know more about the young person she was, being that he knew so much about the young woman she would become. In the end he had kept her at arm's length, attempting to protect and guide her while also maintaining his aloof, even severe nature around her. It was a complicated game and an exhausting one, particularly as the years passed and the young woman he was so fond of grew closer and closer to being the one he'd known.

But, back to the present. He realized he'd been staring and found now that he had refocused on her that she was staring back, a delighted, goofy smile plastered across her face. She took a halting step in his direction and stopped, still smiling. "You remember."

Her words filled him with a warmth he couldn't explain, hadn't felt in over a decade. The ghost of a smile crept onto his own face, curling his lips. But it vanished a moment later as the self-consciousness arrived on his mind and spread like wildfire. Nearly twenty years . . . She was only just back. Minutes before, the witch grinning up at him had known a very different Severus Snape. He'd been so much younger, seventeen. Only in his thirties now, he still became aware of every line in his face, every millimeter his hair had receded, every new scar on his body since the last time she'd seen it. It must be a jolt for her to see him like this. It must be disconcerting and ugly. It must be horrible. Severus was in good shape, as his double life had demanded, but there was no hiding the fact that he had aged. He felt suddenly terribly unworthy.

She must have seen something in his face, because she took a halting step in his direction. "I'm sorry," she said earnestly, and his heart sank. She was seeing him as he was, and regretting her decision to reveal what she knew to him. But the ache dissipated as she continued, "Dumbledore forbade me from telling you the truth. I'm sorry I didn't. I'm sorry I left. I–" She stopped suddenly, as if something terrible had occurred to her. "I'm . . . I understand if you didn't . . . Didn't wait for me." Her voice grew quiet near the end, afraid.

Severus felt his face crumple into a frown. "Of course I waited." He regretted the severity of his tone as soon as he'd said the words.

But she didn't seem taken aback in the slightest by the bite in his voice. Instead he saw new hope shining in her eyes. "I'm sorry, if it was terrible."

"The waiting was not the worst." That was a lie. Severus had faced murder and Voldemort himself and Dumbledore's blind devotion to protecting the future no matter the cost, and none of it was as bad as the waiting. None of it.

Now she was guarded again. He sighed quietly to himself. He recalled a time when they had been like this, in the beginning. One step forward, two steps back. They'd broken through it, though, and . . . He opened his eyes and refocused on her. So she knew, at last. And she knew that he knew, too. Now what? He wanted to go to her, but years of refraining himself from showing the slightest bit of affection for her held him back. He glanced to his side, to the stairs that separated the two different levels they stood on.

"Do . . . You want me to go?"

His eyes snapped back to her face, darting down towards the ring on her hand. His voice, hardened by insecurity before, softened. "Please, don't."

Her smile had faltered earlier, but it beamed up at him again. She toyed with the ring on her hand for a moment longer and then drew her eyes away from him and to the stairs. Slowly, as if afraid that running to him or even walking to fast would shatter the world around them, she walked to them and took the first step. And then another, and then another. She gazed resolutely at the steps ahead and he watched her approach, fear tightening his chest and swelling in his throat.

Memories he had shut away from himself came bubbling back. Hands, clasping his so tight it hurt them both. Caramel eyes, defiantly staring right back at him in spite of his attempts to warn her away with his own glare. Her wand, something as familiar to him as the same sweater she wore now because it was as present in his memories as she was. Lips, brushing his ear as they whispered to him, pressed against his own, touched to his fingers one by one, murmuring against his shoulder, drawn along the skin of his cheek, his neck, his hip –

She stepped up onto the same floor, now level with him. He met her eyes and found them watching him with a playfulness and joy he hadn't seen in Hermione Granger in a very, very long time. There was caution there, too, and he saw his own insecurities and fear of rejection mirrored in her caramel orbs. She had stopped, hesitating for a moment, but now she moved again, this time more swiftly, with a purpose. Fear overtook him. What did she have a mind to do when she reached him? And what if . . . Unthinking, He waved his wandless hand at the door below – it swung closed and the lock clicked. He searched her face, fearing this sudden action would cause her to stop, or at least give her pause. "Things . . . are not as they were," he began to explain, fearful of driving her away.

"I know." There was a resolute firmness in the words, but her expression was still soft.

She reached him. Severus stiffened. It had been over a decade since he had embraced the witch before him. There had been the rarest necessity to touch her in the past; usually in life or death situations such as the evening three members of that damnable foursome of friends from his own past had come together and one of them had been caught under the full moon. His familiarity with her touch was there in his mind, but no longer did muscle memory drive him to embrace her or even reach for her.

For Hermione, it had been mere minute. Maybe an hour, no longer. The man standing in front of her was perhaps somewhat taller than the one she'd said goodbye to. But his hair was just as long, his eyes just as sharp, legs just as lanky, though now his form was more filled out and the width of his shoulders seemed to match the rest of him proportionately. She didn't allow herself to think or dwell on it or hesitate, and walked right into him, tucking her hands under his cloak and around his middle and pressing herself into him with her cheek pressed into his chest. The heartbeat against her ear was quickened, but sounded blessedly familiar. He smelled the same, if not a tad more like potion ingredients than she remembered.

She bustled into him with such force that he took a step back to accept the impact and his arms came up to steady her automatically. A second or two after the initial collision and when she had quite comfortably folded herself into him, his hands left her shoulders and slowly, hesitantly encircled her and pulled her closer. She felt him trembling against her and dared to look up into his face, surprised by his wet eyes, threatening to spill over.

"It's been . . . so long." He dipped his head and murmured the words into her hair.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You don't know." There was bitterness in his words, forgiveness in his voice.

She tucked her face against him, away where he couldn't see the tears springing to her own eyes. "You're right. I – I'm sorry."

"You needn't be." He withdrew and she sucked in her breath, but he only loosened his hold on her enough to peer down at her. Something in his expression quirked and she thought she saw the shadow of a smirk on his lips. "Unless, of course, you planned to ruin me all along."

"Ruin you." She repeated the words, frowning and shaking her head emphatically. "Severus, I would never intentionally –"

"I know." He stared down at her, and she felt a blush creeping into her cheeks when his gaze dipped down below her eyes, presumably towards her mouth and possibly the rest of her. He drew one hand away from her waist and slid it up her neck to gently cup her cheek. His skin felt the same now as it had hours before, though only the slightest bit more worn.

Hermione marveled at how familiar he was to her still. And how handsome. The young wizard she'd come to be so fond of was still very much there in the angles of his face. The only lines present were those at the corners of his mouth and his eyes. He'd aged, but those near twenty years looked damn good on him. She reached up with her right hand and curled her fingers around the hand with which he touched her face. He felt the scrape of the ring against the back of his fingers and drew in a sharp breath, gaze flitting towards it.

She lowered her eyes, guilty. "You gave it to me to remember you by, but for me it hasn't even been hours. You were the one who needed something to remember me by."

He stroked her cheek with his thumb, eyes intensifying as they now scrutinized her face. Gently he removed his hand and tapped a finger to his temple. "I assure you, I've had plenty to keep me waiting." Now he rested his hand against the side of her neck, thumb absently grazing her collarbone. There was so much familiarity in the action. She was heartened by how easily he seemed to slip back into touching her, despite the years.

Slowly, seeing the unsure look in his eyes and understanding that too much too fast might cause him to shy away from her, she kept one arm around him and moved her touch to his cheek, but it lingered there for only a moment before curling slowly around the back of his neck. She had to tilt up onto her toes to reach him like this, and gently drew his face down closer to her own. The changes in his appearance and demeanor bothered her not at all. He was still Severus, her Severus. She stopped suddenly, seeing something change in his eyes.

"I – I'm sorry. I don't mean to be demanding. I know half a lifetime has passed for you since . . . I don't know what you've done since then, who you are, who you've . . ." She trailed off, suddenly fearful of where this new line of thought was taking her. Her tone wasn't accusatory in the slightest, her words serving more as a disclaimer and apology than anything else. She refused to rush him, if that's what this was.

He rumbled a thoughtful, "Mm," and studied her face, but didn't draw back or pull away from her. His face loomed near hers, and he didn't straighten or turn away. "No one," he said at length, dark eyes boring into her with an intensity she had grown to read as more than what was on the surface.

This gave her pause. ". . . No one?"

He gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. "And," he drawled, voice perhaps just the slightest more gravelly and deep than she recalled that of his younger self, "You've always been demanding."

Hermione scoffed, leaning up onto her tip-toes and straightening, automatically on the defense from his constant – though well-meaning – teasing. "I am not! I'll have you know–"

Severus gave her no time to finish her argument and closed the space between them, pressing his lips into hers. There was an initial energy that dwindled into hesitancy an instant later, but the confidence returned when she looped her arms around his neck and responded enthusiastically. It was slow but passionate, tentative at first and then growing in intensity, lasting several long seconds before he gently extricated his mouth from hers, chuckling. "That was not a complaint," he stated firmly.

Hermione's cheeks burned. "Ah." She mumbled it, having fallen prey to his baiting many times before. It was just like him to tease and pick on her – never with ill will – until he got some kind of reaction. Occasionally she gave it back, but the entire basis of their relationship was built on his gentle prodding and her good-natured acceptance, knowing that it was his way of showing that he cared. She slid her fingers into the hair at the back of his head and ran them along his scalp affectionately. At the familiar touch which he'd nearly forgotten about, a contented sigh escaped him and he folded forward to rest his head on her shoulder, his face in the crook of her neck.

They stood there like that for several seconds, with her one hand gently tracing the lines in his shoulder through his cloak and shirt, the other running itself through his hair. After some time he muttered, "You are . . . increasingly problematic," into her neck, rattling her with the bass of his voice and causing a slight tremor to make its way down her spine.

"Oh?" she asked, smirking.

"Indeed. What am I going to do with you?"

"I don't know. I've had minutes, maybe an hour or two to come up with something. You've had years, Severus." The light teasing in her tone was evident, but he drew back and stood at his full height again, and she sorely missed having him so close.

His face was somber, expression suddenly very serious. His voice was almost hollow when he spoke. "I never knew exactly when – or if – you'd come back. Of course, I worked everything out immediately when your group of troublesome first years arrived. But I was afraid to hope . . ." he trailed off and stared at her again. "I couldn't plan for what I would do if you did 'come back' because I was too concerned you wouldn't even do that."

Hermione bit her lip and then released it immediately, seeing the look of distaste it stirred in Severus' features. "I'm sorry."

He smirked. "Should be."

She snorted. "Well, I'm not a student anymore, not really. I mean, in this time I am, but . . ."

"But the years spent with me in school mean you've technically aged beyond what this . . . era . . . credits you with."

She hummed in agreement, tiring of the distance and stepping forward to press her cheek against his chest and loop her arms around him again. "Dumbledore knows. McGonagall would too."

He stiffened against her.

"I mean about my age and me being here before. But . . . They knew about us too, Severus. Back then. Everyone did. We were joined at the hip."

He growled into her ear. "This could potentially get very complicated."

She laughed. "Already is. Technically I'm of age with the number of years I've lived. Not what my birth certificate says, but time travel does make those things a bit blurry."

He chuckled in her ear, but the sound didn't last. "And how, pray do tell, do you intend to explain all of this to one Mr. Potter and his closest compatriot?"

Hermione shrugged in his arms. "With the truth."

He coughed and drew back to look her in the eye. "I don't know if that's–"

"It's the most logical course of action," she argued. Then added thoughtfully, "And it may paint you in a better light for them." She frowned. "Depending on what's changed, I mean."

His brows drew together in that trademark frown. "Changed?" he repeated.

"Inevitably things change when you meddle with time. And . . . I meddled. For example, were you a death eater? Does Harry hate you? Have things changed?"

He studied her face. "I suppose I wouldn't know what's changed or what it's like to live in a timeline where I didn't fall in love with a fellow student who left me suddenly and with no explanation after her last year of school and then reappeared as a student later in my life."

She pursed her lips and flicked her eyebrows in an expression of understanding. "That's fair." This was hardly the first mention of love passed between them, but her cheeks colored.

He snorted, but then deflated rather quickly. "How did you know about my . . . service . . . to the Dark Lord?"

"Harry," she said instantly. "He saw one of Dumbledore's memories in the pensieve in his office. When Karkarov was summoned to trial and revealed the names of other servants of Voldemort. In the end it was the reveal of Barty Crouch Jr's guilt, but your name was mentioned, among a few others. Harry said Dumbledore stood and spoke in your defense, claimed you were a double agent." She paused, suddenly thoughtful. The man standing in front of her was so familiar, but she was under no delusion that he was the same young man she'd come to know so thoroughly. For that man, many years had passed and many things had happened. "Are you?"

"Am I what?" He almost snarled it, and she drew back from him, not at all a stranger to his temper but affected by the strength of it nonetheless.

"A double agent." She stood straighter, out of his grasp now, though only a step away from him.

His shoulder sagged just a bit lower than normal. "I'm . . . I'm sorry." He sighed. "Yes. Though Voldemort believes my allegiance has never wavered."

Blunt as ever, she asked, "And? Has it?"

He stared at her, marveling at her stubborn ways. Insufferable . . . "Never." It was more a whisper than he'd intended, but he knew his eyes and expression conveyed more than just the word.

She shook her head. "But you did join him in the first place." Her tone wasn't biting, but the words stung him profoundly. "Why would you do something like that, Severus?"

He took her hand, the one with his mother's ring on it, and stared down at the stone in it as he spoke. "Why not? I felt I had never belonged anywhere else, with anyone else, and after–"

"What about me?" She was hurt. "I thought we belonged just fine."

He jerked his chin up to face her, still clinging to her hand. His trademark pauses between words was very present as he spoke. "You. Left."

She withdrew her hand and stepped away from him as if slapped. "I had no choice!"

He didn't backpedal, but still sought for peace. Or so it seemed to Hermione. Sometimes it was bloody difficult to know what went on in that man's head. "I know," he said quietly, holding her eyes with his. "I understand that now. But back then I did not. You can't expect me to have known . . . "

She closed the space between them and took his hand in both of her own again, voice apologetic. "You're right. I . . . I'm sorry." She sighed. "This is . . . Not as easy as I'd imagined."

He barked a soft laugh, but it was humorless. Then he smiled at her apologetically. "Were things between us ever that smooth?" The question was more a purr than the sharp gravel he'd spoken with earlier.

She brought his hand to her face and kissed his knuckles one at a time, then his palm. "Never."

Their smirks mirrored each other and they stood like that, her with her lips against his palm and him gently brushing her cheek with his thumb.

"But were they worth it?" she asked after some time, lowering his hand but still holding it.

He didn't break eye contact. "Always."

She hummed and gave his hand a squeeze before letting it go. He seemed to feel an acute loss of the physical contact so she scooped it back up immediately, suddenly mindful that he had perhaps been craving her touch for nearly as long as she'd been alive. "I have to go to Dumbledore," she confessed quietly. "He'll need to reset the timeturner. Maybe he'll have some ideas as far as how to sort out this mess as far as school and age." Her eyes lingered on him. "And . . . everything else. He knows exactly which day I left from. He sent me back to almost the exact time. He'll be expecting me."

Severus squeezed her fingers between his own, absently running a fingertip over the ring on her hand. "Going alone, or would you prefer company?"

She smiled at him and opened her mouth to speak, but just then the door rattled as someone knocked on it. She would very much like his company, though she knew that until this was all sorted, hand-holding between the two of them in any public fashion would be strictly unallowed. His face told her he knew more about the someone intruding on their moment than she. "Albus," he muttered, and she caught more malice and distaste in the single word than she'd ever noted before.

Muffled from behind the door but clear enough to understand came the headmaster's voice. "Severus, we've some things to discuss."

Hermione watched the wizard beside her curiously, unsure herself just how to respond to this sudden change in the moment. It was as if they had summoned Dumbledore simply by speaking of him.

Severus gave her a lingering look and released her hand, but did not step away from her. They were no longer touching but their shoulders nearly brushed, they were standing so close. He drew out his wand and waved it at the door, which unbolted itself cleanly. He placed his wand back in his robes and straightened as the headmaster walked in, clearly taking the unlocking of the door for the invitation in that it was.

He gazed up at them immediately, obviously knowing better than to expect that Severus had unlocked the door by hand. His bright eyes crinkled but his expression betrayed no surprise as he took them in, standing side by side. "Ah, Miss Granger. Good to have you back. I have been wondering for nearly twenty years now whether my adjustments to the timeturner were successful." He beamed up at them and Hermione was compelled to smile back, but a glance to her right showed a calculated, perhaps even spiteful expression directed the headmaster's way.

Dumbledore seemed unfazed by this. "Shall we go to my office?"