enchantement - SOULBOUND I̲̅ || SS/HG ✔️

20. Lingering feelings

Severus didn't know if he should yell at the outraged witch standing in front of him or ignore her indecent comment. However, for some unknown reason, he couldn't.

"How dare you, Ms Granger!" He fumed, standing up, his chest only mere centimetres from her small body, "I might be your husband in your time, but in this once, I'm your professor, so such verbal misconduct will cause you a loss of 50 points to Gryffindor!"

Hermione scoffed, her eyes launching lethal daggers at the man standing dangerously close to her, "I should have known that my love wouldn't be enough for you. Is she that good that your heart doesn't acknowledge me?" Taking a small step towards him, the tip of their toes were now touching. "What am I talking about? It's your whole body that rejects me! I talked to you, shared my worries with a dunderhead I'm madly in love with. And you forget it all!"

Watching the Gryffindor raise her hands in the air in utter desperation, the wizard couldn't help but question her sincerity. If they did talk, how come did he forget?

"If you keep shrieking like a demented Banshee you will wake the whole castle and Voldemort along with it!" He frowned, "Ms Granger, as much as your memories of...us...are very touching, I'm telling you, I don't remember a thing!"

"Lies, lies and again-," she hit his chest, "- lies. Even in this timeline all you do is lie to me, don't you? You exposed yourself, like the liar that you are, the moment you asked me if I meant to say 'husband'. You're not a nincompoop, so stop looking at me like one! Were do you think that conversation happened? In what bloody context would I tell you the word 'husband'?"

It seemed like hours, but it only happened for a mere second. The Slytherin spy was considering every word she had spoken, replaying methodically everything she had told him since Dumbledore had left.

He tried to recall when he had heard her say 'husband', yet the more he set his mind to it, the greater the pain in his head built. Severus could see her, Hermione, her eyes boring all of the struggles on earth, yet she was mute, no word was coming out of her mouth. How couldn't he have noticed before? "Husband" he heard say, disrupting the silence he had been in.

"Miss Granger, please sit. Dumbledore is right and so are you, but I for some reason I'm involved in this situation. My brain didn't remember our supposed conversation because there were simply no words to remember." He explained smoothly, gently beckoning her to sit back down in her seat, yet she didn't move.

Rolling her eyes in annoyance, Hermione stepped on his foot and didn't move - a gesture she had developed with her husband when he would irritate her. This Severus, however, noticed her unusual action with an amused glare.

"Listen here, Mister, you don't get to play the victim and tell me that all you remember from our conversation is some trivial word like..."

"'Trivial'? Miss, although we have not been involved in a romantic relationship whatsoever, I'm not in control of what my mind decides to remember or not!"

That was straw that broke the camel's back. She was infuriated. During the time she spent with Severus - her husband -, the only real argument they had was in his chambers, a little bit before the war, hassling over his secret identity and the truth he had been trying so hard to conceal. She hated it, yelling at a man she loved, but she had no choice, he was after all -

"- Thick-headed! You are bloody thick-headed! Do you hear yourself, this doesn't make sense! Or maybe you're showing signs of muggle memory loss."

"Are you in my head Granger? Or even better, do you take healer's classes without any of us knowing? No! You know nothing Granger, so shut that filthy mouth of yours!"