Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction, written because the author has an abiding love for the works of Joanne K. Rowling. Any characters, settings, objects or creatures from the Harry Potter books and movies used in this work are the property of Joanne K. Rowling, and Warner Brothers. Original characters belong to the author of the said work. The author will not receive any money or other remuneration for presenting the work on this archive site. The work is the intellectual property of the author, is available on this website solely for the private enjoyment of readers, and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author.
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“…Freshly Mown Grass and New Parchment and—”
Hermione stared at the expensive ingredients precisely arrayed on the table in front of her, unwilling to begin.
Amortentia. The most powerful love potion in the world, which could create unbreakable infatuation and everlasting obsession if overdosed.
She’d sworn never to brew it again, vowed never to touch one of its ingredients again. She had promised herself that she would never have to smell it again.
How she hated that scent.
Freshly mown grass and new parchment and—
—the scent of skin.
The scent of a boy’s skin after a shower after a Quidditch match.
The scent of the man who had not loved her. The skin of the man who had killed himself because he was obsessed with her, because he was infatuated with her, because he was consumed by his need for her.
…although he did not love her.
The scent of a man she had not loved. A man who would still be alive if she had loved him.
So much for the idea that love conquers all.
Slowly she reached for the first ingredient.
Amortentia was—after Felix Felicis and before Polyjuice—the most expensive potion on the market. Knowledge that made her wince in retrospect, both at Slughorn’s selection criteria for the potions he’d shown them in sixth year and at her wastefulness in second year.
Hermione needed that kind of money. The circumstances of Ron’s death had made her an outcast in the wizarding world. Only the seediest elements of Knockturn Alley, or slimy Slytherins the likes of Malfoy (senior or junior, take your pick) still gave her custom. Your usual Knockturn Alley customer was cheap; your potion did not have to be good and well-made, it didn’t even necessarily have to work for the advertised purpose, as long as it was cheap. The other customers might pay a lot of money, but she would have no opportunity to spend it in Azkaban. Her revenue barely covered rent and kneazle-food.
Hermione sighed. She’d just have to remember to decant her tears for Widow’s Joy. Another potion she loathed, but at least she could provide a vital ingredient herself, for free, and in plenty.
She did not allow herself another sigh. Instead she cut, sliced, chopped, ground, mashed, stirred, poured, sprinkled, strained, stirred again …
… until a potion with a perfect mother-of-pearl sheen was simmering in her cauldron, sending characteristic spirals to the smoke-blackened ceiling of Hermione’s lab.
Done.
And three vials brimming with her tears sat in a neat row on her shelf. The rent for next week. Kneazle-food for three. Possibly a new book for herself. And if a Sickle was left after that, something healthy to eat.
Carefully she decanted the potion into beautiful hand-blown bottle. Only the best for the best. The client—who had Owl-ordered the potion—should be here any minute now. She wondered who it was. Malfoy? But he truly loved Narcissa. Just as she loved Lucius. That much, at least, the final battle at Hogwarts had revealed about that bloody bastard and his bitch. Maybe it was meant for one of his enemies. Slughorn had been right about that: Amortentia was deadlier than badly brewed Draught of the Living Death.
Though if it was Malfoy wouldn’t he have ordered it in person then? He loved to gloat. He enjoyed nothing more than having her, a Mudblood and a war-hero, at his beck and call. Though he always, always and very properly called her “Mrs Weasley”—and never ordered an illegal potion. Which in turn made her wonder what the people at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were smoking, keeping Amortentia on the list of legal potions.
A knock on the door. Her client. She only hoped he’d pay at once, and in honest galleons, without trying to cheat her with pounds, dollars or Euros. Or worse, trying to make advances. She shuddered. The feelings of need and revulsion that each of Ron’s touches had elicited had made her withdraw. She couldn’t bear to be touched anymore, by anyone. By now she couldn’t remember the last time she had allowed anyone to touch her.
When she opened the door, she froze with shock.
When a soft voice ordered her to go get the potion, she complied automatically, an obedient child again in an instant.
It had been years since she read about him in the papers. After recuperating in St Mungo’s and accepting an Order of Merlin, First Class, and the war hero’s stipend to go with it Severus Snape had withdrawn to live the quiet life of an aging, decorated hero in the country, far away from everything that reminded him of the past.
(Hermione’s Order of Merlin, Second Class, hadn’t come with any money. She’d finally pawned it off for firewood last winter.)
He followed her inside, a swift dark shadow. His robes were still black, voluminous folds of heavy, expensive fabric. His hair had changed. Very fine, like sorcerer’s silk, it fell in soft waves to is shoulders. Just a slight sheen of almost blue highlights hinted that it was slightly greasy. He was still pale, but not as painfully thin and worn out. Yet harsh lines still carved a grimace of bitterness into his face.
Black eyes bored into her. “You look absolutely awful, Mrs Weasley,” he said with a silky hiss.
Some things never change.
She smiled wearily. “You look healthy.”
“A nice change,” she added politely. But still unhappy.
His nostrils flared. His throat moved convulsively. Was it the dim light or did the sight of her make him feel sick?
“I have ordered a potion, not chit-chat.” With a muffled clank, he dropped a hefty leather pouch on her workbench.
Hermione nodded. “I should have recognised the handwriting.”
She turned around and moved to her workbench. At least she didn’t have to worry about getting paid with him. But if her potion was not absolutely perfect… Her stomach cramped. Some of the ingredients she’d had to have put on the slate. If she wasn’t paid in full, she’d be in so much trouble.
Yet she didn’t move, but stood and stared at the potion, its beautiful mother-of-pearl sheen through the crystal of the bottle. So out of place in the dingy, dark interior of her squalid little lab. Yet strangely fitting.
Hermione took a deep breath and regretted it at once. The lingering scent made her gag—one of the side-effects of the overdose. She couldn’t stand smelling any of the elements that made up her personal perfume of Amortentia.
She was about to hand him the slender bottle, when she hesitated, caught in the throes of her insufferable Gryffindor conscience.
“Sir,” she started. Like an eleven year old, she flinched and stammered under the force of his glittering glare. She forced herself to continue, “Haven’t you suffered enough from its effects?”
She couldn’t look at him. She stared at the floor, her cheeks burning. What if she was wrong? What if he truly had loved Lily all this time? If the effects of an overdose that she had noticed about him in retrospect had not been there at all, but only in her imagination?
He said nothing, simply stood, stared, and waited until she met his gaze. “Have you?”
“Merlin,” Hermione choked, each syllable rasping along the inside of her throat like a saw, each word leaving drops of pain clinging to her tongue like blood, like acid. “Oh, Merlin, yes, I have. I have.”
He looked at her with pity warming his own bleak eyes. “So have I.”
He shrugged out of his robes, surprising her with black Muggle jeans and a black silk shirt. Without his robes, he looked younger than he was, younger even than she remembered him from before the war— just as she was well aware that she looked older now, so much older than her years.
Gracefully, he plucked two of her glass goblets from a shelf and set them down on her workbench. Considering her confusion with a smirk, he raised the bottle towards her.
“Therefore,” he said gently, “we shall share this.”
Panicked, Hermione shook her head. “No, no, no—please, no. Not again. I can’t. I can’t. Please, sir. I—”
She would like to say it wasn’t her fault. But it was her fault, wasn’t it? She hadn’t loved Ronald the way she ought to have loved him. The way he had deserved to be loved. And he hadn’t believed her when she told him that he didn’t love her like that either. That was, after all, the reason he had gone and drunk the potion. The reason why he had gone and drugged her with the potion. She still didn’t know if the overdose had been deliberate or just Ron bungling things as usual. In the end, it didn’t matter.
“Silly girl,” Snape sneered. “That’s not why I’m here. Drinking Amortentia a second time is the only known antidote to an overdose.” He sniffs condescendingly. “Although ‘known’ is probably saying a bit much; most people exposed to an overdose of this potion never live long enough to try it a second time.”
“An…antidote?” she whispered. “There is…an antidote?”
Her knees nearly gave out. She leant heavily on her workbench, or she would have fallen.
“All this time—” She choked.
Years. Years spent working with the healers at St Mungo’s in secret, years spent trying to strengthen the antidote against a normal dose or to develop a new, more powerful antidote. And the solution had been there, right in front of her.
I could have saved Ron.
“I didn’t know until it was too late,” Snape said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “Had I known, I swear I would have come sooner.”
Still protecting foolish Gryffindors, professor? she thought. But she couldn’t speak and only shook her head.
He poured the pearlescent liquid into both goblets—a solid overdose for each of them—and raised his cup towards her.
“Cheers,” he announced and knocked one of the most expensive potions in the world back like cheap fire-whisky. Then he stood still, eyes closed, and waited.
A few seconds later he shivered and Hermione watched, breathless, as the tension and bitterness of thirty years of unrequited love melted away.
With a deep sigh, he opened his eyes.
Hermione stared at another man. His features were still striking—black eyes, prominent nose, lank hair—but his face had softened so much he looked younger than she did.
…and at peace.
“Drink,” he urged her.
With trembling hands Hermione lifted the other goblet and drank. The first swallow nearly made her vomit. The second was not much better. But she forced herself to keep drinking. She was buried in freshly mown grass. She couldn’t breathe. But she kept drinking. She was drowning in a Quidditch shower. She would suffocate. Panic ripped through her, made her hands shake, made her almost drop her cup. But she kept drinking. New parchment gagged her, shoved into her throat. She heaved. But she kept drinking—
—until
—suddenly
—she tasted nothing.
Smelt nothing.
Nothing at all.
Never had any scent smelt so wonderful.
The empty goblet fell from her hands, rolled from her workbench and clanked to the floor.
She opened her eyes.
Professor Snape looked at her with an expression akin to a smile.
“A perfectly brewed potion,” he praised her—the first time ever. Then he snatched up his robes and left.
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FINITE INCANTATEM
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A/N: This was written for the LiveJournal community “hpcon_envy” for geminiscorp’s prompt “Severus smells wonderful. When, how and why does Hermione realise this?”
“…Freshly Mown Grass and New Parchment and—” is quoted from “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”.
Many thanks to Leany for beta-reading!