A/N: So here's the end of Part I, there'll be more to come soon, he still has some things to get rid of and take part in. So no fear loyal readers, it'll all be resolved. I plan to start another fic, some plotbunny that won't leave me be, and now my schedule seems to be cleared up for some time. The poem at the end is one that I just liked and made me think of Sev and 'Mione, it's by Roy Croft. In any case, thanks for all the great reviews, and continue to do so. Thanks for staying with me!

Disclaimer: No money, no foul, they ain't mine.

***

"I knew it, I knew it! No one believed me that somehow Potter had managed to get him out, but I could see that little twinkle in Albus' eyes that just infuriated me even more."

Hermione grinned wickedly and turned Severus' face toward hers. "You can't still think that it would have been better if Sirius had been given the Dementor's Kiss, can you?"

Severus averted his eyes and sighed. "I suppose not, but," he added wishing she wouldn't smile like that when he was trying to make a point, "you still broke the rules, and I looked like a fool."

Hermione rolled over on top of him and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Did you ever really care what Fudge thought? All the people that mattered knew you were right," he rolled his eyes and she leaned down to whisper in his ear, "I rather enjoyed your tirade now that I think about it. How could I have been so blind to a man so obviously full of passion?"

She let his lips brush against his skin and then moved to sit up, straddling him, when he let out a small moan. "Now it's your turn, what's the real story with you and Lupin?"

He sighed and gave her a withering glare. "Must you proceed in this line of questioning? It's not even interesting."

His hands began to move up her thighs but she pushed them down. "Tsk, tsk, Professor Snape, no prize until I hear a straight answer."

"What is it, precisely, that you wish to know?" he asked, annoyance and frustration creeping into his voice, more evident than he intended.

Hermione tapped her finger against her chin in mock-contemplation. "Why don't you start from the beginning." He raised an eyebrow, complete with an accompanying sigh. "Okay, fine, what do I want to hear? Well, for starters, he's one of the few people who didn't shy away or vehemently dislike you, save Dumbledore, when I was in school, you spent more hours concocting wolfsbane, and finally the lycanthropy antidote, than anyone else ever did, and I have a really hard time believing that you hated him, or pretended to, because of the shrieking shack incident alone, you're too rational to hate him so much for something he quite obviously wasn't in on."

Silence for a moment until: "I didn't ever hate him," he said quietly in a tone that made Hermione stop and look back down at him. "I was concerned for the safety of the students, both because he was a werewolf and because of Black. My inappropriate behavior concerning his resignation was spurred on mostly by his connection with Black, his transformation, and I knew he knew about whatever had happened that night. I went-"

"What was the other reason?"

"Pardon?"

"Don't play dumb with me, you said mostly by his connection with Black, etc., what else was it?"

He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his tangled mess of hair. Hermione smiled, she knew he hated to have his hair in such a disarray, but she hoped to make it even more so by that morning. "We went to school together, as you know, and he was the only student who ever showed any compassion for me."

"What about other Slytherins?"

"Those were alliances, we looked out for one another because we hated everyone else and it benefited us to do so. There was more violence, still is, within the house than we ever committed outside the common room."

Now he had her full attention, she had never thought Slytherin students were any different when it came to how they related to their own house than any of the others. "I suppose having a Gryffindor who showed any compassion toward you was not wise."

He shook his head. "No, I never fully appreciated it until I had to make the choice whether or not to become a Death Eater, my own house had ostracized me. Remus kept the Marauders from provoking me at that time, I wouldn't have put it past me to have killed one of them, the mindset I was in. Somehow he knew what was going on, he tried to tell me to keep up what I was doing, eventually I'd be out of school and the Death Eaters couldn't touch me."

He stopped and turned his head away, his eyes were focused on some point she couldn't see. Hermione settled herself next to him, her head on his chest. She reached up and squeezed his hand, urging him to continue. "I'm not going to blame Sirius for what I did, but I can say that I felt more betrayed by Remus than anyone, and it wasn't until that point that I seriously contemplated either suicide or Voldemort. Both I suppose, were forms of death."

Hermione kept hold of his hand, she could feel his grip on her tighten. "What was it then? I mean, if it wasn't the Shrieking Shack, what made you chose them?"

He was silent for a moment, not because he was hesitant to say but more due to the fact he hadn't revisited this time since Hermione's third year, when Remus had forced him to rethink things. "Lucius was the only person left who had even come close to understanding me. He took care of me after I found the werewolf, he seemed to care about nothing more than my well being. I felt that Lucius would never betray me, but he had done so the moment he suggested joining. I never saw it, I just went along with him because I loved him like a brother, and I thought he felt the same way."

Hermione pulled herself up on her elbow to look at him, she hadn't meant for the conversation to go in this direction, but a part of her was glad it had. They still had things to discuss concerning the Dark Mark and its effects, maybe this would shine some light on a way to remove it. Now, though, she had to find a way to keep him from retreating back into himself, to stop him from running away now that they had come so close to finally understanding one another.

"It should never have happened to you." She knew it was not at all what he wanted to hear, or needed for that matter, but she had to say it, had to reassure him as best she could.

"Why? Because I'm good, because I was a victim? I assure you, I'm certainly not the former, and as for the latter I victimized many more than made me victim."

"It may be easier for you to blame yourself and pretend like you have nothing good in you, but when you start to believe it, it insults me. I wouldn't give myself completely, my mind, body, soul, my trust, to a man who wasn't good, or who didn't deserve it."

The fire in her eyes made him smile slightly and he nodded. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't apologize, just believe in my judgment for once." She leaned down and kissed him softly. They sat for a minute in silence before she spoke again. "So, you hated Remus that whole time? Until Dumbledore had you working together on the lycanthropy potion?"

Severus shook his head and looked back at her. "No, I spoke with him during your third year, things were very much resolved then, until Black's return. I hurt Remus to hurt Black, because I knew that bastard was out there laughing at me, and the only Marauder left to take out my anger and frustration on was Remus. That summer, I apologized, I was still supplying him with wolfsbane, and Dumbledore wanted us to work on a cure, it would have been rather uncomfortable without a truce."

"So you two were friends, then?"

Something flashed in his eyes in the few seconds before he answered that Hermione was unsure she understood. "Well . . . yes."

She narrowed her eyes and forced him to look at her. "What were you just thinking?"

"What?"

"Didn't I warn you about trying to pull things?"

"I'm not trying to 'pull' anything."

"I'll get the veritaserum."

"Please don't threaten me, young lady, it doesn't suit you."

"Don't play with me professor, I have you in a precarious position," she whispered straddling him once more and holding his wrists.

"I think I rather enjoy it this way."

"Talk," she grinned wickedly then, "or you won't have it any way at all."

He sighed and glared at her in a way that would have made any first year run shrieking from the room. "We were . . ."

"Yes . . ."

"You know you don't have to enjoy this so much."

"Don't stall."

"We were a bit more than that. We were . . ." He muttered something that she couldn't quite make out.

"What was that Professor, I didn't know you had trouble with diction," she whispered, enjoying herself entirely too much.

"We were lovers, for a short time," he added quickly seeing the look of disbelief cross her face only to be quickly replaced with one of utter amusement that made him entirely too embarrassed to sustain it. "If you're quite finished now I think I'll go clean up."

"Oh no you don't," she said getting back her firm hold of his wrists. "I had no idea," she smiled again. "So professor, was all that time in the lab really necessary? I bet werewolves are quite the shag, and I was rather attracted to those amber eyes of his."

"I'd rather not hear about your werewolf fetish so let me go. I didn't tell you so that you could throw it in my face. Now would you kindly, get off!"

His apparent discomfort only spurred her further on. "Oh come on, Severus, don't tell me you wouldn't get some measure of delight after hearing about some fling of mine that I'd be embarrassed to mention."

"I never said I was embarrassed, just that I'd prefer not to dwell on it. As you know, Remus is involved, as, at least until I find I way to rid myself of you, am I."

Hermione leaned down and kissed him, pressing her body against his. "You don't really want to be rid of me that quickly, do you?" she asked with a playful glint in her eyes before moving her lips to his exposed collarbone.

No, he thought as his hands roamed up her sides, not quickly at all.

***

"When did you start this?" she asked quietly, her fingers brushing lightly against his bandages.

Severus furrowed his brow and was silent for a moment. "The beginning of my seventh year, after I had begun acting on Voldemort's orders."

She stroked his face lightly, her fingers running over his skin in a way that he had always loved. His eyes were closed and to her he looked like a sleeping child, vulnerable and bared completely to her. "Why?"

He opened his eyes slightly and regarded her sadly. "I had no other way of getting any sensation into me after I did things for him. It was a complete numbness that I decided I didn't like."

Tears threatened to fall but she held them back, he wouldn't understand why she was upset. When his emotions and thoughts were where they were now, he'd only expect pity or disdain, and she didn't want him to think she felt either of those.

"Lucius didn't understand, he wouldn't let me do it if he could stop me. I became fairly adept at hiding in places he didn't know about. There are places in the school that still reek of blood and tears to me."

Hermione kissed his cheeks and brushed his hair back. "I was afraid of what you would do if I left you, that night that you had first tried the new potion. I saw your arm and I didn't know what to do."

"You should never have seen any of this, I've forced too much unnecessary knowledge on you."

"I don't think I would categorize it as unnecessary, actually I'd say it's the opposite."

He took a deep breath and pulled her to him. "Not anymore it isn't. Voldemort is gone, and so are his followers. The world is a different place now."

They sat in silence, both trying to understand exactly what that meant for them.

"Severus?"

"Yes?"

"I think that it's probably best if we face it together."

"So do I, love."

***

End of Part I

Love

I love you,

Not for what you are,

But for what I am

When I am with you.

I love you,

Not only for what

You have made of yourself,

But for what

You are making of me.

I love you

For the part of me

That you bring out;

I love you

For putting your hand

Into my heaped-up heart

And passing over

All the foolish, weak things

That you can't help

Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out

Into the light

All the beautiful belongings

That no one else had looked

Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you

Are helping me to make

Of the lumber of my life

Not a tavern

But a temple;

Out of the works

Of my every day

Not a reproach

But a song.

I love you

Because you have done

More than any creed

Could have done

To make me good,

And more than any fate

Could have done

To make me happy.

You have done it

Without a touch,

Without a word,

Without a sign.

You have done it

By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,

After all.

-Roy Croft