The Princess and the Bloodstone

The End

Severus

A surge of divine adrenaline got them out of the forest. Severus lost control of the apparition at the end and sent them tumbling onto the weedy pavement in front of Spinner's End. Holly was ripped from his arms by the force of the magic and slung into the door. He stumbled towards her, scooping her up and dragging her into the dark house. He could tell she was hurt. But she was alive.

Alive. We're alive.

Was it real? He was too tired to care.

Severus laid her carefully onto the couch and mumbled a handful of healing charms before sliding onto the floor beside her. He fell into an exhausted sleep while leaning against the sofa, too tired to clean the dried blood and mud from either of them.

Holly

Holly woke up with a soft purple light of sunrise peeking through the blinds covering a grimy window. She was lying on her back on a sofa. Her glasses were badly cracked.

Where am I?

The room looked neglected with years of dust gathered on every book in the rows and rows of bookcases, window frames, and any other flat surface. There was paint flaking from the walls, a dusty chandelier and tiny singed holes in the ceiling, clearly made by stunning spells.

The image of a black-haired youth shooting flies from the ceiling while lounging on his back came to her.

Sev.

Holly turned to find him next to her, his head leaning against the sofa. His long black hair curtained his face and hid him from view. Holly ran a thumb over his head, twisting a lock of his hair around her finger. It had grown a lot over the last few months. It made him look wilder. Roguish.

He did go rogue, all right...

She was trying to remember how on earth they got here when Severus blew his hair out of his face with a puff of air. His face was stained with streaks of blood and grime.

'You're awake,' he said hoarsely, his lip curling.

Holly nodded and then slowly smiled back at him. She still couldn't say a word. A tear fell from the corner of her eye. He reached out to take the hand twisting into his hair and pulled her palm to his lips, pressing gentle kisses into the skin there.

'We were dead,' Severus struggled for a moment, 'and you saved us.'

With no other way to express herself, she slung her arms around him and he pulled her from the sofa to cradle her against him. She buried her head against his chest and let the tears flow freely.

Holly rushed to change out of her Quidditch gear, the familiar scent of leather, sweat and broom wax clinging to her skin. After slipping into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, she exchanged quick goodbyes with the other members of the Holy Head Harpies, who had become almost like family over the past few months of intense training. The camaraderie was undeniable, and she cherished every moment with them, but it was Friday – and that meant a weekend with Severus.

The crisp autumn air greeted her as she ducked out of the training centre, the evening sky already starting to darken. She glanced at her watch, her heart racing with excitement. The bus to Cokeworth would be leaving soon, and she couldn't miss it. Holly quickened her pace, her footsteps echoing on the pavement as she made her way to the stop, her thoughts already drifting to Severus again.

Just a few months ago, he commandeered her to seek healers when he had done all he could for the recovery of her speech. He sent her to St. Mungos with a detailed diagnosis put together after weeks of him fiddling around in her brain to see what exactly was amiss. It took a team of four Medi-witches and two Curse Breakers eight weeks to recover Holly's memories enough for her to speak again.

During the weeks they spent secluded together in Cokeworth, she wrote notes to him as a way of communicating. Luckily there was Legilimency to express what she couldn't put into ink. And for the most part mute and deaf was a good combination - as Severus would often speak in reply to her notes. Other times he would write back in those cramped, small letters she'd gotten so good at deciphering.

Severus seemed to have had success with sound magnifying charms and insisted that decreased hearing was something he could live with. But she often found him touching his ears or turning his head as he listened for something, sometimes testing his hearing by tapping on objects or snapping his fingers when he thought he was alone.

It was either that his hearing was getting better, or that he preferred the idea of being dead to the world with a reputation shrouded in mystery. To Severus, the hearing loss he had sustained was a small price to pay for the freedom he now enjoyed. No longer confined to teaching Potions, a subject he was excellent at but never truly loved, he found deep satisfaction in his new work. Now, for days and nights at an end, he wrote N.E.W.T.-level textbooks for Defence Against the Dark Arts under a nom de plume. Holly swore if they didn't share a dinner table and bed, he would forget to eat and sleep altogether. The writing allowed him to immerse himself in his true passion, a calling that had been stifled for too many years of war and work.

In the end, it seemed that Dumbledore couldn't stop him from teaching DADA after all.

So after a few weeks of insisting that she had to find real healers, Holly reluctantly left him behind for St. Mungo's – and to face the world again. This time she came back to the wizarding world as the one who defeated the Dark Lord for good.

Before she could even fully speak again, she was methodically visited by everyone she knew and drilled with all manner of questions: why she left Hogwarts, how she found the Dark Lord, how she thought to Obliviate Voldemort, what happened to Severus Snape (who was reported to have been at the Malfoy Manor by captured Death Eaters and Snatchers alike), was she dating anyone, and did she think the Holy Head Harpies would win the World Cup this year? Severus's letter to the healers made it easier to keep to the script and avoid talking herself into a corner; she had to leave Hogwarts to find and stop Voldemort. She got the idea from Lockhart. She hadn't the slightest idea what had happened to Severus Snape. Was he dead? Was he at Malfoy Manor? How would she know? She was grey-sexual and wasn't looking to date anyone at all (a statement that halved the heaps of fan mail Severus so despised). Yes, put your bets in because the Harpies are going to win, they've recently found an amazing player for the Seeker vacancy.

Most importantly, Holly told no one about the Horcruxes. It was better that such magic not become popular knowledge. And they didn't matter anyway, now that Voldemort was a harmless soul locked up in Azkaban for good measure. What would it matter if he was imprisoned for eternity? He was as harmless as a thestral.

Her phone buzzed and she pulled it from her jeans. It was a message from Severus.

Pasta?

And a chocolate frog, she typed back, smiling at the screen.

Fine. No undergarments, he replied.