enchantement - SOULBOUND I̲̅ || SS/HG ✔️

37. Misery

Leaving Severus alone in his chambers while she regained her tower to get ready for the evening got Hermione's heart in a twist. Not wanting to worry him, she preferred keeping to herself the yearning and troubled feelings she felt towards him since he had invaded her memories. They had been excruciatingly painful, and vivid, and although she pretended she was alright with everything and preferred talking about the subject later, in reality, she was frightened. Her biggest fear had been of losing her husband, yet the unexpected words from Severus once he was out of her mind panicked her.

A few days before the war sprang, Hermione had felt the dire need to talk to her husband. Blaming it on her strong feminine flair, she had used the chosen one's invisibility cloak to get to him. Having detected her presence through her lavender smell and the inexplicable bond that had formed between their two souls following the Anima Victum vow, Severus had expelled the remaining death eaters from his chambers - knowing his wife wouldn't have risked exposure unless she wasn't worried about something.

As she reached the Great Hall and passed by some of her Gryffindor friends – lost in her thoughts – not acknowledging them, Hermione remembered the nervous way he used to scratch his left arm. She wondered if it was due to the death eater mark, yet the more she thought about it, the more it stroke her how badly he tried to hide it from her prying eyes. He used to shrug her away, stating he was ashamed of the choices his younger-self has taken. She had been all the more astounded when, whenever they were to get intimate, he would dim the lights enough to make his mark fade into the obscurity.

"For the love of Merlin Severus, I know how it looks like, I just want to see it up close, please" she remembered begging. Hermione had lost faith in his words, which always appeared to be composed and phrased in a way that he knew would comply her. "You're such a Slytherin!" Hermione often snapped, before leaving his room in a rage.

Every memory came back rushing to her, as if a dark veil had dropped itself around them, shielding her from her past. It baffled her, causing her whole body to tremble at the realization that her relationship with her husband had not been as beautiful and loving before the war as she had thought it had been.

Once inside her room, Hermione plopped on her bed, her lip quivering in a frantic and unnerving way. From the instant she opened her eyes in this dimension, her memories of her husband had either been altered or hidden.

Fisting her hands, her knuckles paling at the constriction of her fingers around her palms – her nails digging deep, blood trickling down to the bed sheets – Hermione cast a silencing charm on her room and screamed. Her throat tightened while her strident cry absorbed the warm atmosphere of the Gryffindor's tower. It was nothing like she had ever felt before.

Rolling over in pain, the ache in her heart now moving towards her head - throbbing endlessly - Hermione fell over and hurt herself on the wooden ground. She wanted to yell for help, the agony now unbearable. Her soul was now shattering into million pieces while the back veil lifted itself, unveiling her the reality she long left behind. The memories came racing back to her, trashing her body from left to right, as if someone was punching her face unceremoniously. She pleaded for it to stop, the brutality pound behind her sorrowful eyes growing, yet it didn't. She blinked the tears away, fighting back the only memory her soul knew she didn't want her to remember.

Severus's invasion of her mind opened up the door to her past, allowing it to come back to her like a gust of air. She wondered while her memories defiled in front of her orbs if she had spelt her own blindness, yet the more her past unravelled to her, the less persuaded she was.

When she thought it was all finally going to stop, a flash, as blazing as a sunray reverberating through a mirror, petrified her. She could feel her heart tense in her chest while her whole body shook in response. The voices were muffled, inaudible even, but her body remembered every emotion, touch, her soul could recall the pain, yet for some reason, something was blocking her from its truth.

"I'm sorry, but I need to find a way to protect you." Was all she heard from Severus' baritone voice before a green smoke evaporated the scene away, leaving Hermione alone, with the memory of the misery she endured and questions she felt unable to answer to.

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