"No!" Hermione screamed, but the word was barely louder than the slap of her palm on his cheek. "You bastard!"

Severus drew his dignity around him, like a cloak which covered his nightshirt. Her rejection was not exactly unexpected, but he still had his pride. "While I suspect I may have been conceived out of wedlock, I know the marriage took place before I was born."

"I would never have told you that I was in love with you, if I'd thought you'd be so manipulative."

"When did you ever tell me that? You told me you love gay-boy Potter!"

---

"H-Harry's not gay!" Hermione sputtered.

"Then who the hell...?" Severus's jaw dropped and he stared at Hermione in disbelief. "You thought I was gay!" His voice dropped suddenly in volume. "And, pray tell, how did you come to that amusing conclusion?"

"Well... You and Filch—"

"Filch! Argus?"

"Well, he was the one you went to when Fluffy bit you, and he'd put your books in storage, and when I found the Time-Turner, the only other gifts in that drawer were for him and your mother."

"McGonagall gave my books to my mother to catalogue and add to Hogwarts' library."

---

"Your mother?" Hermione asked in a hushed whisper. "She was the one impersonating you?"

"Of course. Don't tell me you were giving Argus credit for that, too?"

"Irma... Pince... Irma Pince." Hermione stared at Severus. "I'm a Prince. Why didn't I see that before?"

"I have no idea. I told mother it was a ridiculous pseudonym. Personally, I had imagined that was what you figured out the night I told you about the books. It turns out I gave you far too much credit."

"There's no reason to be so patronising, Severus. That veil! It was you at Dumbledore's funeral!"

---

"Can we get back to the germane point of this conversation?" Severus asked, stepping closer, with a slight swagger to his hips. "I believe you said you were in love with me."

"And I believe we were discussing you attending Dumbledore's funeral in a dress," Hermione replied.

"Don't push me, my dear," Severus purred.

"Or?" Hermione asked.

"Or..." Severus let his eyes settle on Hermione's face. He reached out and ran the ball of his thumb over her cheekbone. He leaned in and brushed his lips to hers, reining in his passion, allowing only tenderness. "I'll prove I'm not gay."

---

He didn't even touch her below the neck, but Hermione's whole body trembled. "Sev-er-us," she sighed.

"What, my love?" He asked, stooping to gently kiss the sensitive skin of her neck.

"Don't..."

"Don't what?" he whispered against her flesh.

"Don't call me that..."

"I've called you worse."

"Unless you mean it."

"I've never meant it more."

Hermione's body ached to close the inches between them. Instead, she pushed him away. "I can't."

Severus looked down at her.

"Why couldn't you tell me this before?" she asked.

"I tried..." Severus explained. "I asked you to consider whether there was anyone else..."

---

"Severus..." The tears that had gathered in her eyes aeons before finally spilled over. "I have to go."

"Hermione." Her name came out as a plea, the closest she imagined she would ever come to hearing Severus Snape beg for anything.

She took a step backward, not trusting her resolve if they touched again. "We can't do this, Severus." Brine trickled down her cheeks in silent streams. "I have to choose... and if I choose you, then I have to make things right with Viktor before we take things any further."

"If?"

"If." She turned and was gone... like magic.

---

"Her-mi-own-ee?" Viktor's instant look of concern only intensified Hermione's guilt, even though she knew, as yet, she'd done nothing to be ashamed of. "Vhat is wrong?"

"Everything... I have to..." She gave a hiccoughing sob, and in an instant Viktor's arms enfolded her, offering the comfort she would have immersed herself in under any other circumstance.

His arms felt like a prison cell. Nothing could ever be right until she made her choice, and nothing would be right when she did. How could she be happy with either man she loved when it meant breaking the heart of the other?

---

She pushed free from Viktor in a painful echo of her earlier interaction with Severus.

"I made a mistake, Viktor. I was wrong about him... You were right. He says he loves me."

"Off course he does." Viktor's scowl turned into a sneer. "So now you go to him?" Viktor reached out and fondled the large silver locket that Hermione wore.

"No," Hermione answered as calmly as she could. "Now... I have to—" She paused as Crookshanks smacked into her legs, and would have bent to pick the cat up, if Viktor hadn't maintained his grip on her locket.

---

"Viktor, let go."

Instead, Viktor ripped the necklace from her neck. "I think I at least deserf to know who he is." He flicked the locket open as its broken chain fell to the floor.

Hermione's hand rose to the back of her neck. "That hurt!"

"And do you think there's any part of liffing vith you that has not?" His gaze dropped to the necklace, finding not photographs, but the Time-Turner. "Haff you been using this to be vith us both?"

"Not the way you mean."

Viktor dropped the instrument to the floor and ground it under his boot.

---

"Viktor!"

"Vhat? As if anythink I do now matters!"

"Viktor, I didn't plan this, and neither did he. I meant what I said this morning. I love you. I love him. You can't know what I'm going to do, because other than getting away from both of you so that I can think about this properly, I don't know what I'm going to do."

She scooped up Crookshanks, and stumbled from the cottage and beyond the property's wards before she Apparated to the first place she could think of.

She Summoned a tent from her bag, and set it up.