Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sometimes, looking back from the distance of five long years, Hermione couldn’t quite believe she had done such a thing. Of course, it wasn’t the only ethically dubious thing she’d done – far from it – and so, looking back, maybe in another way it had been inevitable. And really, each of her actions had been necessary. It wasn’t hard to justify them. Lying to Professor McGonagall about the troll, well, she couldn’t betray Harry and Ron, not after they’d saved her, could she? And setting Severus’ – Professor Snape’s – robes on fire was the only thing she’d been able to think of to protect Harry. Forcing clothes on the house-elves, well, she’d thought she was doing the right thing but she still cringed at that one.

Then there was theft (stealing from Snape’s stores to brew Polyjuice potion). Capturing Rita Skeeter and keeping her in a jar for weeks -- spin that how you would it was still kidnapping and imprisonment, and tricking Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest to be captured by the centaurs could have gotten the woman killed. It could have been murder. And horrible as she was, she wasn’t a Death Eater (at least at the time, though Hermione wasn’t so sure about later).

But none of those compared to the day she found herself standing in front of Severus Snape, pretending to be his wife. And none of them had left her in quite the awkward position she was now.

Hermione stared down at the unconscious man lying on the carpet in the living room of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Beside her, Harry looked uncertain and Ron looked slightly awed.

“But...where did you get him?” she said.

“How did you get him?” said Ron, clearly impressed with his friend’s accomplishment.

“Luck,” Harry said grimly. “Spotted him in London – saw him before he saw me. I didn’t even think, just Stunned him and brought him here.”

Snape lay sprawled where Harry’s Levicorpus had dropped him. He was wearing Muggle clothing – black jeans, black boots, and a white shirt open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows – but his pose reminded Hermione of Dumbledore’s body as she had last seen it, lying at the foot of the Astronomy Tower a few short weeks ago. Killed by this man. The thought roused afresh the deep sense of fury and betrayal she had felt that night, and her voice shook as she said, “God, I can hardly stand to look at him.”

Harry shifted uncertainly. “We don’t have long before he wakes up,” he said. “What do we do with him?”

Ron nudged Snape’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. “No offense, mate, but don’t you think you should have thought of that before you Stunned him?”

“I didn’t plan it, Ron!” Harry retorted. “I just sort of…seized the moment.”

“Well, we’ve got him. We’ve got to take advantage of this somehow.” Hermione forced herself to look at Snape, forced herself to remember all the times she’d insisted Dumbledore was right to trust him. She’d been so stupid...

“We’ll make him talk, of course,” Harry said. “Tell us what Voldemort’s plans are. I mean, we know generally: he wants to kill us all. But a few specifics might be helpful.”

“Brilliant!” Ron said eagerly. “But how?”

“Good question.” Hermione narrowed her eyes, turning over various possibilities in her mind. How did one get a man like Snape – a man used to double-dealing and lies, a skilled Legilimens and Occlumens – to tell the truth?

“Veritaserum?” offered Ron.

Snape stirred groggily at their feet and without a second’s hesitation Hermione whipped out her wand and Stunned him again, feeling a stab of satisfaction as he collapsed into unconsciousness again. “Don’t you remember? Occlumency can be used to resist Veritaserum, and the minute he guessed what we were doing, he’d lock his mind down.”

“Cruciatus,” Harry said grimly, fingering his wand in a way that made Hermione a little uneasy. “I think I hate him enough now to do it.”

“It’s an Unforgivable,” she reminded him, then shook her head. “Besides, he’s a Death Eater. I don’t think that’d be enough to get him to tell us anything.”

Ron frowned. “What about Polyjuice, like we did with Crabbe and Goyle to get Malfoy to tell us about the Heir of Slytherin? Make him think he’s talking to someone he trusts. Like Dolohov, or Yaxley.”

“And if we gave him Veritaserum in combination with that, he wouldn’t resist because he wouldn’t be on guard,” Harry chimed in.

Hermione gave a short laugh. “I don’t think any of the Death Eaters trust each other. And I doubt Snape trusts anyone.” Still, there was something in the suggestion. If they could somehow set it up so it made sense for him to tell the truth...or so that he wanted to...

“There’s got to be someone he feels safe talking to,” Ron argued.

“Too bad he hasn’t got a wife,” Harry said. “Not that anybody’d marry him, of course...”

“I doubt he’ll feel safe until the war’s over, no matter who he’s talking to,” Hermione said absently, her mind absorbed with the problem. There was a solution there, she could feel it. Safety. Trust. The pieces began to click into place. Someone he loves. Could it be done? “What if we made him believe the war was over?” she said slowly, thinking it out as she spoke. “Long over. Then he’d feel safe talking to his wife…”

“But he hasn’t got a wife,” Ron said. “And if he did, he’d hardly be likely to even speak to her, let alone tell her anything important.” He gave a bark of laughter. “Can you imagine? Snape in love?”

Hermione gazed at the man on the floor for a long moment, hating herself for all the times that she’d striven for his approval in class. All the times she’d insisted that they trust him. All the times she’d listened to her instincts instead of the facts. All the times she’d admired his skill at Potions. All the times you dreamed about him, a small voice whispered. His eyes, his voice, his touch… She shook herself mentally. “I can make him believe he has,” she said. “And I can make him think he loves her.” And if it ends up hurting him, so much the better.

Harry and Ron looked questioningly at each other, then at her. “Erm, Hermione, we know you’re brilliant…” Ron began.

“...but what in Merlin’s name are you talking about?” Harry finished.

“I’m talking about…well, a con job, I guess. A big one.” The more she thought about it, the more viable it sounded. “A powerful False Memory Charm, to make him think the war’s long over, so it’s safe. Veritaserum, to make him tell the truth. And Amortentia, to make sure he loves her.”

“Loves who?”

“His wife. Me.”

After the (rather predictable) shouting had died down, she repeated her arguments one last time. “We don’t have time to go find someone else. I’m good with Memory Charms, even Lockhart said so. And if I have to manufacture a false memory of a wife, it’s a lot easier to do it with myself in the leading role – it’ll feel more real, be more convincing.”

“How long do you think we have?” Harry asked doubtfully. “Voldemort’s going to notice if he goes missing for long.”

Hermione chewed her lip. “A day is probably all we can manage. And I don’t think I could keep up the pretense much longer than that.”

“I still don’t like it,” Ron said mutinously. “How far will you have to go to convince him you’re really married? I mean, you’re not going to actually...you know. Are you?”

“Oh for Circe’s sake, Ron!” she shouted, finally out of patience. “What do you suggest? We just turn him loose? Throw away the biggest potential source of intelligence we’ve had in weeks?” She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. “If anyone else has a better idea, I’m open to it, but I really think that at short notice this is the best we’re going to get.”

Harry dragged hand through his already-disheveled hair, then looked at her uncertainly. “You really think you can do this?”

Feigning a certainty she didn’t quite feel, Hermione nodded. “Yes. You two find the Amortentia and the Veritaserum. Start with Slug and Jiggers; if that doesn’t work—”

“We’ll think of something,” Ron said reassuringly and with a pop he was gone.

Harry, about to Disapparate also, paused and gave her a worried look. “Hermione, how long will it take you to create ten years of memories?”

“I don’t need ten years,” she said. “Just three things: it’s ten years later, he’s safe, and I’m his wife.”

Harry frowned. “But what about—”

Hermione waved a hand at him. “I’ve got it sorted. Just go.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he nodded. “All right. As you say, I guess it’s the best we can do on short notice.” He glanced at the unconscious figure of Snape. “Just...watch him while we’re gone, all right?”

***

Hermione hadn’t expected that creating a false memory would be so draining – she’d read about it and practiced parts of the process, but the reality was incredibly demanding in concentration and focus. No wonder there had been visible evidence of alteration in Slughorn’s edited memories of Tom Riddle and their conversation about the Horcrux. She could only hope that since hers were entirely artificial, they wouldn’t show evidence of tampering. Luckily, since they were setting the scene in the future, there were no actual memories to overlay so no danger of them bleeding through. The final step, transferring the memories into Snape’s mind using a False Memory Charm, was very tricky indeed.

By the time she finished, she ached from exhaustion, and Ron gave an exclamation of concern upon seeing her when he returned with the vial of Amortentia, as did Harry a few minutes later.

“You look like a bloody Inferi,” Harry said, handing her the flask of Veritaserum.

“Don’t worry about me.” She glanced at Snape, who had not stirred since she’d Stunned him a third time while the other two were gone. She hoped he was still alive, and that the false memory had implanted properly. “He’ll have a hell of a headache when he wakes up, though. And now we need a place,” she added through an enormous yawn as she sank into a chair. “A house, a flat, something. We can’t do it here. He knows this place and it wouldn’t make any sense for us to be here if we were married."

“What kind of place?” Harry asked.

Good question. What kind of place would be believable for the two of them as Mr and Mrs Snape? “Someplace small. Cozy. And isolated. We don’t want anyone dropping by.”

Ron blew out an annoyed breath, puffing his bangs briefly into the air. He was clearly still not happy about the whole plan. “Shell Cottage,” he said reluctantly.

“What’s Shell Cottage?”

“My aunt’s place, on the coast of Cornwall. Bill and Fleur are going to stay there after the wedding but there’s no one there now. It’s perfect...”

***

Hermione’s heart was pounding and she felt sick. Gods, this was going to be so hard. To pretend to love this man – him of all people! The man who had killed their strongest ally, their most powerful protector. The man who had forced her to become for all intents and purposes an orphan. The man who had betrayed them in every way possible. A Death Eater.

And yet...if she were to be utterly honest with herself, she still wanted to believe in him. Dumbledore had been so sure, so confident, and he was not a man easily fooled. More than that, both her heart and her mind told her she was missing something. Some piece of the puzzle that would complete the picture and make it all comprehensible. Although how there could be a satisfactory explanation for murder, she could not imagine.

Well, the only way out of this was forward. She pulled back the drapes of the small bedroom at Shell Cottage, letting the afternoon sunlight flood the room. Curtain time, she thought with a bitter humour.

The man on the bed groaned as the light struck his face and turned his head away. She laid a gentle hand on his forehead. “Are you all right, love?”

Severus opened his eyes a crack and tried to focus on her. “Hermione?” he croaked.

“Here, drink this.” She put a glass to his lips, careful not to spill any. She didn’t want to risk too low a dosage of either potion.

He struggled to raise himself enough to drink. “Wha’ is it?” he mumbled through dry, cracked lips. “Smells like your hair...”

“Just a restorative potion. Drink up.” They hadn’t had much time to research whether Veritaserum and Amortentia had any interactive effects on one another; she hoped not.

He drank greedily, as though he hadn’t had a drop in weeks, then lay back and closed his eyes again. “Gods. I feel like I’ve been trampled by a herd of centaurs.”

She set the glass on the table by the bed, watching him carefully. “You’ve been ill, Pr—Severus,” she said, tasting the strangeness of calling him by his first name. “The healers said you may have lost your memory.”

He put up a hand to rub his forehead, clearly in some pain. “I...have I?” He opened puzzled eyes to look vaguely around the room. “Where is this, Hermione?”

“Home,” she said. “Our home.” She hesitated, then took the plunge. “Do you know who I am?” If the False Memory Charm hadn’t taken, she was going to have to do some fast thinking. Still, he’d called her “Hermione” and not “Miss Granger,” so that was a good sign.

“My wife,” he murmured. He turned his head to smile at her, dark eyes wide open and trusting, and she realized she’d never seen him smile before – sneer, yes, but never smile, a real smile as if he were truly happy. She stifled the small twinge of guilt that threatened to rear its head. “The best thing in my life. I remember that. But...” A faint frown creased his brow and she saw uneasiness creep over his face. “I don’t remember anything else. Not even our wedding. It’s just...blank. Gone. Hermione, what—”

“Shhh,” she said soothingly, leaning over to stroke his hair. “Don’t worry. The healers think the memory loss might be a lingering after-effect of something that happened to you during the war. I know it’s been a long time...” She trailed off, hoping his next words would show her whether the last pieces of the false memory were in place.

“Ten years,” he said, and she felt a rush of relief mixed with pride in her own abilities. Then he frowned again, this time more sharply. “But…why can’t I remember...” His lips moved silently for a moment, then he took a sharp breath and his eyes sought hers, anxious, intent. “Harry,” he said urgently. “Is Harry…?”

“He’s fine,” she said, puzzled. “Harry’s fine.”

He let out a long breath and she could see the tension drain out of him. “Then Dumbledore was right after all. I was afraid...didn’t believe him. Thank the gods we won. I don’t know what I would have done if we’d lost.”

We? The false memory she’d implanted had clearly showed Voldemort being defeated. Was Severus putting himself on her side? On Harry’s side? And what did he mean about Dumbledore being right? Wasn’t Dumbledore always right?

“So strange having no memories of so many years,” he murmured, oblivious to the inner turmoil his words had caused. “The Healers could be right, though. Merlin knows we were exposed to every toxic hex and curse you could imagine, immersed in Dark Magic.” A spasm of remembered pain crossed his face. “Not to mention regular doses of Crucio and other delights.”

Hermione drew in a quick breath, and spoke before she thought. “He used Crucio on you? On his own supporters?”

“Oh, yes. One might say it was his hobby,” Severus said with a grimace. “I never told you?” He reached for her hand and, still stunned by what he had told her, she let him take it. His hand was warm, the fingers long and strong; his thumb moved slowly back and forth, setting off disconcerting sensations.

Distracted by his touch, it took a moment for his words to register, and for her to realize he’d given her the opening she needed. “No,” she said. “You never told me anything. And I never asked. But I think it’s time you did.”

His fingers tightened on hers. “If I never told you, I had good reason. Hermione, some of the things I did during the war...I don’t know if you could ever forgive me.”

“Severus, the Healers think your memory loss may be linked to a specific event or action in your past. If we can pinpoint the last thing you remember, the trigger might lie there. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

He rubbed his temples. “I was in London for...something. I don’t remember what. Voldemort had sent me. It was summer...” He was clearly struggling, and Hermione hoped her false memories hadn’t overwritten any of the ones they so desperately needed. “I was to become headmaster at Hogwarts in a few weeks—”

“Headmaster!” Hermione choked back the furious words that sprang to her lips, then stood up abruptly and went to the window, her back to the man on the bed. Headmaster, in place of Dumbledore? The man he killed? Impossible!

“I see,” Severus said finally, his voice low. “I never told you that, either.” It was a statement, not a question. “Hermione, my love, I am so sorry. I would never want to hurt you after all this time.”

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. They were planning to make Severus Snape headmaster of Hogwarts! Even though she knew it was now doubly important that she find out more, she couldn’t face him. Not yet. The fresh sea air coming through the open window was cool on her hot cheeks and she took several long, slow breaths, willing herself to calmness.

She heard movement as he stood up, footsteps coming towards her, felt him standing just behind her. His arms went around her and she stiffened, and he immediately released her.

“I’ve always been afraid this would happen,” he said quietly after a long moment of silence. “I have loved you for so many years, long before I could speak of it. And from the moment that I recognised what it was I felt, I feared that if you knew everything I had done, I would lose you.” He sighed. “But you say the Healers think that somewhere in my past is the clue to give me back my memory, and Hermione, I would do anything to regain my memory of our years together.”

Hermione took a deep breath and turned to face him. Thank Circe for the Amortentia. It wasn’t going at all the way she had thought, but it didn’t matter: all that mattered was that she find out what he knew. What Voldemort planned. “All right, then. Tell me. Everything.”

Desperation was plain on his face, and Hermione felt a spiteful sense of satisfaction at the thought of how hurt he would be when his hopes were dashed. Nothing he could possibly say would change her mind.

“I only ask one thing, before we begin,” he said. “For each thing that I tell you, will you tell me something of ours? Of our life together? In exchange for something you did not know, will you tell me something I no longer know?”

What might he ask? Would she be able to make up convincing answers? “Why should I make such a bargain with you?” she demanded, playing for time. “You’re the one with the shameful secrets.”

He flushed at her jab, but answered her calmly. “Because, Miss Granger,” he said in an echo of his didactic Potion Master’s voice, “you believe in justice. If the healers cannot restore my mind, and if you leave me, you will have learned everything while I...I will have nothing. Not even my memories.” His voice broke on the last words, and it was that which tipped the balance.

***

They sat across from each other at the table in the tidy kitchen of Shell Cottage, mugs of tea at their elbows. Hermione felt that all her senses were tuned to the highest pitch; it was like improvisational theatre, never knowing where the other person was going to go. But if she could steer it in the right direction, the Veritaserum should give them what they needed.

“Where shall I begin, love?” Severus asked simply. He had his hands cupped around the mug as if savoring the heat, but his eyes never left her face. Even though she knew the potion that lay behind it, his affectionate words and utter trust roused a response in her that she found it difficult to suppress.

Where, indeed? She needed to get him talking about what Voldemort had in mind for the future, not what he’d already done. Then again, to Severus, it was all in the past so, anything was fair game. “Dumbledore’s death,” she said finally. Only a few weeks ago. Recent enough that it wouldn’t take them long to move on to the next steps in Voldemort’s plan. And...it was a question that would eat her until she knew the answer.

Severus ran a hand through his hair. “Are you sure you don’t want to start with something less painful? Why I took the Dark Mark? Why I was so cruel to Harry all those years, yet saved his life at least twice?” He paused, then his lips quirked in a half-smile. “The first day I knew I loved you?”

Hermione managed a small smile in return – a wife would would be curious about that, after all – but shook her head. She could feel time ticking away. Amortentia would last several days if not counteracted, but Veritaserum had a much shorter effective span. “Why did you...” She swallowed, unable to utter the words. “Why did you do what you did?”

“He asked me to.”

Stunned, she stared at him. Impossible. Of all the answers she had considered and rejected, not one of them had been this. “I don’t believe you.”

He looked down at his mug and swirled it gently. “That is, of course, the short answer. For the full answer, which may make it somewhat more credible, I must take you back a little further, to the previous summer.”

Numbly, she nodded. She didn’t need to know about the past, she needed to know what was coming up. And yet, if what he said was true... “Go on.”

“Narcissa came to me near the end of summer with a request. Voldemort had given Draco a task – a task for which the penalty for failure was death.”

Hermione swallowed in a dry throat. “But he’s—” She caught herself. “He was just a child.”

“No younger than you were,” Severus reminded her. “And his place as Lucius’ son meant that he received more than the usual share of the Dark Lord’s attention.” He gave the last word a peculiar emphasis, and Hermione shuddered, imagining what form that attention might have taken. “I believe that the Dark Lord fully expected Draco to fail. Killing him would serve as Lucius’ punishment for having failed to retrieve the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries.”

Punishing a father by killing his child. Hermione could hardly imagine the mind that could conceive a plot of such gleeful malice. “What was the task?” she whispered.

“To kill Albus Dumbledore,” Severus said. “But surely you guessed that?”

The events of the past few months replayed themselves in Hermione’s mind. The cursed opal necklace. The poisoned mead. Draco’s words to Dumbledore at the top of the Astronomy Tower, overheard by Harry: I don't want your help! Don't you see?! I have to do this! I have to kill you... or he's gonna kill me! All of that had been overshadowed by the sheer horror of Dumbledore’s death, but looking back, she realised that it made sense.

“Narcissa asked me to swear an Unbreakable Vow to protect her son: to help him, and to carry out his task if he could not, in hopes that the Dark Lord would be...lenient,” Severus went on. “I would have sworn the Oath regardless so that I could persuade Draco to abandon the task to me, but Albus had no intention of allowing Draco to murder him. He was concerned for the boy’s soul.” Severus’ voice grew bitter. “Mine, apparently, was of no matter. And so he chose me for his executioner.”

Watching the pain in Severus’ face, Hermione suddenly saw Dumbledore in a new light. Had he really been so callous? Willing to use people, wield them as tools, so coldly? “Severus…” She reached out and put a hand on his arm.

He gave her a brief smile and put his hand over hers. “In the end, it didn’t matter,” he went on. “Albus was dying anyway.”

Startled, she blurted out the first thought that came to mind. “What do you mean, he was dying anyway? What of?”

“Arrogance.” Severus’ mouth twisted in a grimace. “He tried to put on Marvolo Gaunt’s ring, thinking he could master it. Use it.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”

“Harry told us,” Hermione said, remembering. The ring, Harry. Marvolo's ring. And a terrible curse there was upon it too. Had it not been — forgive me the lack of seemly modesty — for my own prodigious skill, and for Professor Snape's timely action when I returned to Hogwarts, desperately injured, I might not have lived to tell the tale… “But I thought you saved him.”

“No.” Severus waved his wand to warm his tea. He took a deep breath. “I was able to slow the progress of the curse, but not halt it. He knew he was dying, and old fox that he was, he scripted his death as a means to save Draco, avoid a lingering and painful demise, and cement my position at the Dark Lord’s right hand. And I...complied.”

Hermione’s mind filled with the vision of Severus, wand outstretched towards Dumbledore, both of them bathed in evil green light. Now, hearing something broken in his voice, she turned her gaze back to the man across from her. His eyes were bleak, has face drawn with lines of pain and fatigue. “’Severus, please,’” she murmured, and he looked up at her, startled. “Dumbledore’s last words to you. He wasn’t pleading for his life, was he?”

Severus shook his head with a weariness that went to her heart. “No. He was asking me to carry out my promise.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “And do you know why I hesitated?”

“Why?” she whispered, wanting and yet not wanting to hear the answer.

“Because of you.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, then turned her palm upward and pressed his lips there, and she drew in a sharp breath at the sensation that tingled down her spine. “You trusted me, Hermione, through it all. Harry’s persistent doubts were obvious – understandable, I suppose, given our personal history – but Albus told me that you never wavered. Your faith in me might have been built on your faith in him, but still, I clung to it like a lifeline.” He folded his hands around hers and bowed his head over them. “When he told me that I must be the one to kill him, the hardest thing was imagining the disgust and contempt in your eyes when you looked at me. Knowing that you would hate me. And that I might never have a chance to explain.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, Hermione turning over in her mind everything he had said. It made a sick sort of sense, she thought. They’d always known that Dumbledore had plans within plans within plans; he had doled out information according to some internal scheme of his own. They had trusted that he had their best interests at heart, but what if they were wrong?

She gazed wordlessly at the dark head bent over their clasped hands. His grip was so tight she could feel his pulse beating in her fingers. “I never told you any of this?” he asked, and she shook her head. “I wish I could remember why.” He loosened his grip and began massaging her fingers gently. “Do you forgive me?” The words were calmly spoken, but she could hear the pleading beneath the neutral tone.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes.” But if Dumbledore had been willing to use Severus so, what did that say about his plans for Harry? Would he consider any means justified, if the ends were worthwhile? “But I think...there’s more, isn’t there?”

He looked up to meet her eyes. “Ah, but it’s my turn now,” he said with a soft laugh, and she saw that some of the despair had lifted from his face. “I want to know something.”

“What?”

“Tell me...” He paused, thinking. “Our first date. Where did we go? What did we do?”

She stared at him, her mind a complete blank. What in Merlin’s name was she supposed to say? He was watching her expectantly, and she blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Madam Puddifoot’s.”

Severus’ eyebrows nearly shot off the top of his head. “You’re joking. But no, if you were, you would invent something plausible.” He shook his head. “Why in Merlin’s name would we go there?”

She opened her mouth, waiting desperately for inspiration to strike. “No one would expect to see us there?” she hazarded.

“Well, I certainly can’t argue that point. Did I invite you, or did you invite me?”

“Oh, you asked me. I was far too shy to ask a former professor,” she teased, beginning to enjoy the game. “You were quite insistent. Your note said, ‘This owl will not bring your reply, unless you say yes.’”

“Hm. That does sound rather like my arrogance, doesn’t it? I imagine I was simply terrified that if you said no, I would never recover.” The warmth in his gaze reminded her that he was still holding her hands, and she laughed a little nervously. “What was I wearing?”

Well, that was an easy one. “Your teaching robes,” she said promptly, unable to keep a smile from playing around her lips.

“Not dress robes?”

“Oh, no. The regular ones.” Hadn’t she thought more than once of how undoing all those buttons would be like opening a gift? Although…her gaze dropped to the white shirt he wore, undone at the neck. He did look rather nice in Muggle clothing...

“The one with all the buttons,” he said slowly, and she flushed. The siky, seductive tone of his voice suggested that he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I see.”

Flustered, she began to babble, embroidering on the story. “You were sitting at that table in the back corner, under the stuffed parrot, and you had flowers. A bouquet of sunflowers. I said, ‘I expected hellebore or belladonna,’ and you said…” She paused. “You said, ‘I think we’ve had enough deadly shadows in our lives, don’t you?’”

He snorted. “I disappoint myself. I would have expected better food. And somewhere we could get wine. Well, we must make allowances for youth and inexperience, I suppose. My father was not what one might call a role model in the treatment of women.”

Something in his voice, an old pain, caught her attention. She’d always wondered about his childhood, wondered what had made him so bitter. “I never met your father.”

“I wish my mother never had,” he said with surprising vehemence. “He was...not a kind man. Unhappy, perhaps, but that does not excuse beating a woman. Or a child,” he added under his breath.

Hermione had a sudden image of Severus as a child, hiding behind a door, trying to block out the sound of blows that he could not prevent, and her heart ached for him.

But there was still something she needed to know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to, but she needed to. “My turn,” she said.

“Very well,” he agreed. “You have kept the bargain so far.”

She pondered for a moment how to frame the question. “What was Voldemort planning next? And what was to be your part in it?”

“Does it matter, love? It’s over. We’re safe. Can’t we let it go?”

“You promised to tell me,” she reminded him gently.

“So I did.” Severus nodded, once. “Voldemort’s plan, of course, was to kill Harry Potter. ‘Neither can live while the other survives.’ My part, according to his view, was to bring the boy to him. I, of course, believed that my part was to protect Harry. And to give Albus intelligence about Voldemort and the Death Eaters.” He got up from the table and went to stand by the window, looking out, and she sensed that he did not want to watch what his next words would do to her. “When Albus told me that I’d been helping him raise Potter like a pig for slaughter, and that my part was to see that Voldemort achieved his goal, I nearly killed him then and there.”

It was as if his words had petrified her. She could not speak. He stood there gazing out the window at the clear, sunny beach, the wheeling seabirds. She could hear their faint cries coming from what seemd like miles away. Finally he turned and, seeing the look on her face, knelt in front of her and took both her hands in his. “Hermione, I don’t understand,” he said, his voice full of helpless concern. “Why do you look like that? I don’t remember what happened, but you said Harry is fine. Whatever Albus had in mind, it must have worked.”

His words barely penetrated her mind. “A pig for slaughter.” She had sudden vision of Harry’s body, drenched in blood. What was he talking about? What could Dumbledore have meant? He wouldn’t sacrifice Harry...would he? She shook her head in mute denial. “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t, either. But I agreed to do as he asked.” His eyes were fixed on hers, dark, intense, uncertain. “Albus was a schemer and a manipulator, but I never doubted his ultimate goal. Or his skill and ability. He told me that when the time was right, and only then, I would give Harry the information he needed to defeat Voldemort.”

She fought back tears. “And you think it will…” She caught herself. “You thought that it would all work out. Somehow.”

He nodded, not noticing her slip. “Yes. I had no choice. You see, I knew the price if we lost.”

She remembered what she had heard of the First Wizarding War, the wholesale murder and torture. Harry’s mother. Molly Weasley’s brothers. Neville’s parents, driven mad. “What was it you were to tell Harry?” she whispered finally, searching Severus’ face for some clue as to what to do. Whom to trust. What to believe. Hoping that whatever it was, she could tell Harry herself and together they could find some other solution to this terrible problem.

He put a hand to her cheek. “Everything,” he said simply. “At the right time. So that he could do what he needed to do.”

And with that, she understood that there was nothing she could do. ‘Neither can live while the other survives.’ Because once Harry learned that his life was the price for Voldemort’s defeat, he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d pay it, she knew. No doubt Dumbledore had known it too. She didn’t have the knowledge she needed to change it, to fix it. Anything she did might make it worse. And she too knew the price of failure.

She remembered what she herself had seen of the Death Eaters. Their cruelty. The pleasure they took in pain and torment and death. She pictured Muggle slave camps, silver Death Eater masks hiding their owners’ glee as a Muggle child shrieked in the agony of Crucio. Was any sacrifice too great to prevent such atrocities?

“My love, please...” Severus arms went around her and she felt his lips on her hair, holding her tightly as she wept, asking no questions, simply offering himself as comfort, and even though she knew it was a lie, for a little while she let herself take solace in his loving embrace.

***

Later, curled in the armchair in the bedroom waiting for him to fall asleep, she glanced up to see that he was lying on his side watching her. His eyes were very dark in the dim light, and his face looked...peaceful. She had never seen it like that, relaxed, without its mask of permanent watchful anger and bitterness. She understood a little better now the terrible pressure he had lived under for so long, and wondered for the first time if he would survive the war.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “There were so many times I wanted to tell you and could not.”

She flushed and looked down. “Go to sleep, Severus.”

“Will you lie with me until I do?” The desire in his voice was evident. “In case I never regain the memories of all the love we shared in the past, I would like to have the memory of at least one night with you beside me.”

Her throat was thick and tight with unshed tears. For a moment she nearly agreed – why not have one night at his side? And if it had been real, she might have given in. But she wanted more than a simulacrum of love from him. “I—no, it’s better that I don’t. You’ll rest better without me tossing and turning.” She gave him a smile. “Go to sleep. I’ll still be here when you wake.” The lie came easily to her, because she knew it would soothe him.

“I love you,” he murmured, then closed his eyes. When his breathing was slow and even, and she was sure he was asleep, she Stunned him and knelt beside the bed to Apparate his unconscious body back to Grimmauld Place.

She didn’t know there were tears on her cheeks until Harry asked her why she was crying.

***

“Did it work?” Both Harry and Ron looked enormously relieved that she was back and anxious for information. Fiercely she suppressed all thought of what lay ahead for all of them, and focused on the task at hand.

“Not now. We have to hurry.” Hastily she performed a quick Obliviate to remove all memory of Shell Cottage and what had taken place that day, then began the complicated process of undoing the first False Memory Charm and spinning another, of a day in London.

“Hermione—”

“Not now, Ron.” She was exhausted mentally and physically and had no time to be creative, so she invented lunch at a pub and then an afternoon in a second-hand bookstore, thinking that at least she could give Severus one pleasant day out of the hundreds of miserable ones he had chosen to shoulder.

She turned to Harry, wiping her forehead. “Take him back where you found him. Try to prop him up on a chair, if you can, so when you Enervate him he won’t wonder why he was lying on the pavement.”

Harry knelt and, with some effort, gathered Severus’ limp body into his arms. He glanced at Ron. “But Hermione—”

“Just go!” she said, but just before they Disapparated, she brushed Severus’ cheek with her hand. Be well, she thought. Be well, and be safe.

Once they were gone, she sagged into a chair. “Ron, would you get me a cup of tea?” she said weakly. “I really could use some.”

He patted her shoulder. “Sure, you sit. I’ll get the tea. Only…it did work?”

She nodded tiredly, then leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Yes, for what it’s worth. But I wasn’t able to learn much.” Only that he’s as trapped as we are. As Harry is. As I am.

Ron blew out a relieved breath. “So it didn’t matter then that the Amortentia was fake?”

Hermione went utterly still. “Fake?” she said at last.

Ron nodded, his ears turning pink. “I got it from Fred and George,” he said. “Thought it’d be quicker. But while you were gone I went back to get more, just in case, and I read the label on the box. It does the smell thing, you know, where you smell something about the person you love, but otherwise it’s nothing but a Dreamless Sleep potion tinted pink.”

“And the Veritaserum?” she asked faintly.

“Oh, that was top-notch. Slug & Jiggers’ best.”

I have loved you for so many years, long before I could speak of it...

She put her face in her hands and sat like that for a long time, until Ron put a cup of tea in her hands and she had to go on. That was all any of them could do, after all: go on.

Severus had survived, of course, but she had not spoken to him in the five years since except once, in passing, at a Ministry function. How could she? What could she say? As more of the story had come out in the years after the war, the picture she had only glimpsed during that chaotic afternoon at Shell Cottage took on texture and color: the risks he had taken, the iron self-control he had had to preserve, the physical and mental anguish he had endured. The more she learned of his character, the more ashamed she was of what she had done. She had tricked him into exposing the secrets of his heart. He would never forgive that. Whatever he had felt for her would not survive knowing how she had used him. He had been used by so many people; for her to have done it was unforgivable. And if he did not remember it, she was not going to remind him.

Being alone wasn’t so bad, really. She had her library, and on days like today when the mid-afternoon sun shone on her little garden, she was content enough, if occasionally she thought wistfully of what might have been.

The clock had just chimed half three when a flutter of wings caught her eye, and she looked up to see an unfamiliar owl land gracefully on the wrought iron table beside her. It extended its leg politely and she gently untied the scrap of paper, wondering who it was from.

Her heart stuttered for a moment when she saw the handwriting, the spiky scrawl immediately recognizable from innumerable scathing comments on her Potions homework, and it nearly stopped entirely when she unrolled the parchment and began to read.

My dear Miss Granger –

It may have escaped your attention, or perhaps the estimable Professor Lockhart somehow failed to mention it in his lectures on memory-related magic, but False Memory Charms, as well as Obliviate, are less effective on those who are adept in Occlumency and Legilimency. The skills necessary for protecting one’s mind serve as a kind of prophylactic barrier, preventing such things from taking permanent hold.

I am, as you may recall, quite skilled in both.

Oh, Circe...

This is not to say that such charms are entirely ineffective, of course. False memories and obliviations performed by an extremely talented witch or wizard can last, perhaps, five years. At most.

If you are willing, I would enjoy the opportunity to discuss this with you at more length. At Madam Puddifoot’s, say? This afternoon at four o’clock?

Oh, Circe and Hecate. And then her eyes dropped to the signature.

Severus Snape
P.S. This owl will not bring your reply, unless you say yes.

Oh, Circe and Hecate and all the Furies...

***

Twenty minutes later, Hermione entered the tiny, chintz-stuffed cafe in Hogsmeade and glanced around. Severus rose from his seat at the table in the back, underneath the stuffed parrot, and met her eyes across the room. Her heart was beating so hard she thought he surely must be able to hear it. She had no idea what she would say, but she took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and went towards him. His eyes never left hers, their dark gaze giving away nothing, and her stomach fluttered in an agony of uncertainty as she saw that he was wearing his regular teaching robes, but his hands were empty.

She stopped in front of him. “Severus—”

He bent down and with a graceful motion pulled from beneath his chair a bunch of sunflowers, tied with a green ribbon. He said nothing, simply held them out to her, and in his eyes she read forgiveness and something else. With a shock, she realised that he was as nervous as she was.

She cleared her throat. “I expected hellebore or belladonna,” she said, her throat tight with sudden emotion.

He smiled, and his eyes were the open, loving ones she remembered. “I think we’ve had enough deadly shadows in our lives, don’t you?”

And he kissed her.