𝙻𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 II SS/HG ✔️

Healing

They went to Fred's funeral the following week.

Severus thought Hermione's spine would snap due to the number of hugs she received or doled out.

Severus could not offer any condolences. Nor could he prevent Molly from hugging him as well. It was a short hug, and careful of his injury. There wasn't any talking involved. A quick hug and she was off to comfort relatives.

When Hermione signed the annulment he would stop being assaulted in this manner, of that he was certain.

Severus did not attend the Lupins' funeral. His presence would be an affront to the man's memory.

He did watch Hermione brew the Wolfsbane Potion for Lavender Brown. Greyback had bitten her in the course of the "Final Battle" as it was being called in the Prophet. It had not been a full moon, but it had helped Bill through the first cycle.

"Thank goodness Miss Granger is here," Poppy had said, harried. Their stores had been drained—and St Mungo's was still overflowing with injuries—and Severus could not brew himself.

So that was their cover, for now. Supplemented by the fact that Hermione's parents were still secreted away somewhere in Australia. Which Rita Skeeter had made much of when she ferreted that information out of someone Severus had not yet determined.

Potter let her keep the Invisibility Cloak. Each night Hermione would go to her private room in the Head Student's quarters, don the Cloak, and walk all the way back to the headmaster's office. The school was too taxed to create anymore secret doorways.

.

Hermione insisted that she sleep nearly on top of him every night so he would heal.

"It's called cuddling and it's a normal thing to do," she said, very much being the know-it-all he had warned her about all those years ago.

She forced him to lie on her side of the bed and she took his side so she could put her head on his unbitten shoulder each night.

"I think you're only acting like you don't like it," she told him one night after she turned off the lights.

Her hair was everywhere at all times. In the night it would come alive and strangle him or tickle his nose or his neck. Sometimes she'd balk if he tried to move it out of the way—you'll ruin it, it looks good, leave it alone.

Other times, she'd whine midway through the night, her hair trapped underneath of him as she tried to roll away.

So this 'cuddling' was a more active verb than he had been led to believe.

Then Crookshanks would get involved—sometimes he slept above Hermione's pillow. Other times he crawled all over Severus's chest until he'd settle somewhere near his feet.

"Just suffer a little longer," she assured him. "You'll be better soon enough."

.

Madam Pomfrey told him his limit was ten words a day. That seemed like an arbitrary number to Severus. What if he kept silent on Tuesday, did that mean Wednesday he'd be allowed twenty words?

Hermione laughed at him. "Just take it easy."

He didn't use the ten words at all the first day. Or the second day. The third day, he asked Hermione why she had yet to sign the annulment.

"That's what you want to use your ten words on?" She dusted the armoire in Goldstein's abandoned room. "Because, Severus, if you date other women, I am liable to get very, very jealous."

She jabbed her wand at the white sheets piled on the bed. One floated up and over the armoire. "And I tend to get cranky when I'm jealous. Don't think I don't know what's in all that fan-mail you've been getting." She gave him a look that read Checkmate.

Severus was not as amused by the stack of letters as she was.

Potter had not shot off at the mouth, blabbering his secret affections for Lily to every welcoming ear. And his marriage to Hermione was still secret. He wanted to rub it in people's faces that he was in fact married and to a very attractive, witty witch. Or he wanted to set said witch loose on some of his 'admirers'—now that lambasting he would pay to see.

He made sure to burn any letters that may upset her. They'd lost enough wizards this spring.

Severus glared at her with a huff. Hopefully that didn't count as one of his words.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" she asked. "I like you."

"No, you don't."

"Oh, you took some Divination lessons when I wasn't looking, have you?" She let the sheet drop onto the floor to give him her full, fiery attention.

"You feel an obligation to care for me—"

"You're over ten words," she interrupted.

"—like you feel an obligation to care about any sorry creature you come across."

She threw up her hands to make him stop.

"I. Like. You. Did I jump up to marry you? No. Would we even be talking right now if we weren't married? Also no." One hand on her hip, she jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "If you said, hey, let's have sex on that bed right now, I'd say yes—if you were feeling better. I also would probably have put on cuter underthings. So I'll have to take a rain check. Also, it might be strange in here, so I'd probably suggest we at least make it over to my room first."

Severus knew she was prone to rambling but it was out of control now that he could not speak to stymie the flow.

She bit her bottom lip. "I'm going on and on again." She turned a bit red. She pulled back her shoulders to stand up straight. "Well, there it is. We don't have to stay married after you're better, but I'm going to keep coming to bother you anyway. Unless you don't want me to."

The last bit was not as confident as the first.

He opened his mouth and she held up a finger. "Hey—you are way over your word limit today."

He closed his mouth. Since the conversation was basically over, he left her to tidy up the rest of the area alone