Chapter Text
May 2nd, 2000
She didn’t sleep at all. Her body ached in ways that she couldn’t even put a word to; her soul seemed weary. She’d dressed and showered, not wanting the front of The Prophet tomorrow to be all about how she looked like trash. Hermione was the first to arrive, even before the staff got there to set up the final touches.
Moving to his memorial, she ran her fingers over his name again, stifling back the tears that seemed rejuvenated with the scenery change. Hermione watched the sun rise over the white marble memorial, her eyes searching hopefully for the sign she prayed was coming. Before long, people started moving around her, the seats filling in as the early risers attended.
Each person who approached her was a disappointment wrapped in pleasantries and small talk that she had no patience for. Eventually Harry sat by her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. She buried her face into his shoulder, letting the tears sink into his dress robes.
It wasn’t long after he’d arrived that Ron had joined them, sitting on the other side of his sister and brother-in-law. She caught the look of pity he had on his face for her. Glancing away, she sat up and wiped her eyes, grateful for Harry’s silent acceptance of her emotions. Hermione craned her head around, looking for him, trying to see his face among the sea of strangers.
Her hands were trembling in her lap as the speeches began. Harry reached over, taking her hands in his own, wordlessly offering her strength when she seemed to be running in short supply. Briefly, Hermione wondered what he contemplated her breakdown was about, but it didn’t take her long to figure out. Harry and Ron had shared a glance, and it told her that they thought she was crying because she’d failed. Her lip trembled as she stared at the marble memorial again. If he didn’t show up, then who was she to say that she hadn’t failed.
The celebration and ceremony went on without her. She refused to give a speech or move from the spot where she had sat. Constantly checking the crowd, Hermione felt her hope diminish as the hours slid past. Even as the people started to leave, Hermione didn’t move. She said she’d wait all day, and until the sun was below the horizon, she was not going to leave for anything.
It was just the three of them now, everyone obviously sensing that this was not the year to approach the golden trio with the burden of their questions. Ron had shifted to her other side, not touching her, not saying a word, just sitting there.
“Come on Hermione, the sun is about to go down.” Harry sighed, his hand squeezing hers.
Her throat was too sore, but she spoke anyways, her voice cracking. “The day is not over.”
It was Ron who finally spoke, “Are you going to do this every year? It’s been two years. We’ve not found him; he’s gone.”
Hermione turned and glanced at him, knowing he was trying in his own way to help her. But he couldn’t help her, Ron didn’t know what she knew, Harry didn’t know what she knew. There was still light in the sky, and that light was the last thread of a promise that she’d hung so much on. “You don’t understand, I made him a promise, and I am going to be here all day.”
“You sure?” Ron asked as he took both of her hands in his, his eyes laden with worry.
Nodding as she squeezed his hands, Hermione forced her own doubts down and away. “Surer than I have been about anything.”
“Alright, we’ll be round your flat in the morning to check on you. Don’t sit out here all night and get sick, yea?” Harry spoke, standing and gesturing for Ron to follow him. Ron gazed at him and then back to her, his mouth moving like he wanted to say something.
She pleaded with him with her eyes to go, because maybe Severus was waiting for there to be no one else around. “I won’t stay out here all night.”
It seemed to convince Ron, and so he leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead. “I will see you in the morning.”
She stood with him, and Harry wrapped her into a tight embrace, before taking Ron’s arm and leading him away.
Left alone, her eyes focused on the memorial, her heart praying that he’d show up now. The sky turned orange and fiery red, the white marble displaying molten with the glare. Every degree closer to the horizon the sun got, the more her heart broke. When it slipped beneath the edge of the sky, she put her face in her hands, sobbing anew because she knew then the truth.
Severus was dead.
There was no other way around it.
Hermione managed to stumble to her feet, collapsing on her knees in front of his name sunk into the metal. She rested her head against the icy stone and cried her heart out.
She heard a noise like a pop just barely above the sound of her cries, and she lifted her head, looking around. Hermione saw no one, but she knew she’d heard something.
A shape at her feet caught her eyes. Reaching down, she picked up an impossibly delicate origami deer. It was a doe, it had no horns. She gasped, covering her mouth with a shaking hand.
It was a sign.
Her whole body quaked as she carefully unfolded the shape in her hands.
Another gasp mixed with a disbelieving chuckle erupted from her. It was in Severus’ handwriting, and it was still unfaded.
‘A=G, B=H, C=I...’ It continued through the alphabet, and then some numbers. She blinked, the stress and the strain of the day causing her mind to be foggy. The only word clear to her was ‘cipher.’
“Oh my god, he knows what the note means!” Hermione suddenly gasped out, reaching into her pocket and withdrawing the bloodstained note. Fishing around in her purse, she pulled an ink pen out and started translating what she’d been holding on to all this time.
‘M=S...
Myp=Sev...
Severussnape...
Severussnapeisrecoveringat12-b26lytteltonroadlondon...
Severus Snape is recovering at 12-b 26 Lyttelton Road, London.’
Hermione dropped everything in her hands as she read over the words again. The flat below her was 12-b 26 Lyttelton Road — the haunted flat with the friendly ghost.
Her heart raced as she jerked everything up and into her purse, racing for the apparition point. She couldn’t believe it, this had to be wrong, there was no way he was there under her the whole time.
She appeared the street away and ran the whole way to her building, like hell itself was chasing her. Stopping at the door, Hermione bent over, panting and wheezing as she struggled to catch her breath.
The door opened.
Hermione covered her mouth, a sob escaping her as she gazed into eyes so dark that the whole world could have fallen into them. Severus was standing there in a black jumper and trousers, his hand on a cane. It wasn’t a ghost, it had been him all along. Without words or thought, she crashed into him, wrapping her arms around him as she cried into his shoulder. His arm squeezed her tightly against him.
She found herself rasping against the knit of his jumper. “You’re alive. Thank Merlin, you are alive.”
“Come inside, Hermione, I started tea, and I know you have many questions,” he breathed out quietly, his hand releasing her as he backed into the house.
She couldn’t speak, she simply nodded, stepping into the flat behind him. The door shut behind her, and she found herself in a well-decorated flat. There was a record player by the sliding glass door playing piano softly, and a chair on the patio just under where hers was on the floor above.
She turned to him finally grasping her faculties enough to ask the question that now burned within her. “Why did you never tell me you were here?”
He poured her a cup of tea before he answered her, turning to fully face her. “You had to write to me in the journal. If I had made my presence known too soon, everything would have failed.”
It made too much sense, and she was reeling with even more questions. “How did you know — how did you get here?”
A smirk crept over his face as he walked with his cane to stand at her side. “When you divulged to me where you lived that April, I had an associate, someone unattached to the war, buy me this flat. I had to be near you, I had to be sure you were safe. It was the only thing that got me through these past two years. It has been an exhausting recovery from my injuries.”
She covered her eyes with her palm for a moment, “So all this time, you’ve been right under my nose.”
“Indeed.” His deep voice rolled over her. “I’ve been having coffee with you in the mornings on the balcony. I’ve been watching you take strolls when it’s not raining or snowing, and I’ve been waiting for this day when I could make myself known to you.”
Everything in her tingled, and her heart felt like it was lighter than air, as her mind finally accepted that after all this time, Severus was right here with her. It was his voice that solidified it for her. There was no one on the planet who had a voice like he did. She swallowed back and gazed up into his eyes, her shoulders rising as she took in a deep breath. “Severus, I—I meant every word of what I said.”
“I know, which is why it broke my heart to hear you scream all last night and not go to you and tell you that your suffering was not for nothing.” He moved to push her hair aside, his warm hand barely brushing her skin. It added to the affirmation that he was living breathing flesh, and not her imagination run off with her.
Hermione grabbed his hand in her own. “How did you figure out the cipher?”
A warm chuckle left his throat. “It is a children’s game. You pick a number and rotate the alphabet by that number. I chose seven for the years that you’d need to study at Hogwarts to graduate. I didn’t understand until I was here why I didn’t leave the cipher for you. If I had, you would have discovered me before it was time to.”
“But that is so simple.” She shook her head in disbelief.
He lifted his eyebrow at her, but there was a smile on his thin lips. “And you and I are prone to look for the most complicated answer to simple problems.”
Her fingers ran over his hand as she accepted his answer. It wasn’t something she would have thought to check, and therefore it seemed to serve its purpose. “Merlin, you have no idea how glad I am you are alive.”
“I can say with absolute certainty it is likely as happy as I am at this moment,” Severus answered, taking another step into her space.
Her mind was racing, and his proximity made her whole body flush and warm. She’d spent so long with what she imagined him to be, that now that he was before her, she didn’t know what to expect. She let his hand go, shaking the jitters away as she glanced up at him. “What now?”
“Now, I do something I have been waiting two years to do,” Severus answered her breathlessly.
Hermione had only a second to consider his words before his lips touched hers. She reacted by wrapping her arms around his waist, pulling him closer to her as she kissed him back. A sigh escaped him, and he slid his hand into her hair, cradling her to him.
They kissed like they were the answer to each other's prayers.
They weren’t wrong.
Upstairs in 12-C 26 Lyttelton Road, the black leather-bound journal shook, its pages going blank as it erased all their conversations. With loud pop, it disappeared from Hermione Granger’s flat in 2000 and landed smartly among a pile of books on Severus Snape’s desk in 1997. It had been given only one directive from its master before his death. It was to move between these two times in every alternate timeline, doing everything needed to ensure that the cycle continued and that Severus Snape and Hermione Granger finally got the ending they deserved. There between those leather covers, the fate of the wizarding world was anchored in ink.