Chapter Eleven: A Letter From the Grave

Chapter Eleven: A Letter from the Grave

Disclaimer: The characters and settings within belong to J.K.Rowling. I am just giving them a little outing.

"Did they really not know, Mother?"

"Oh, I think deep down they both knew but were afraid to admit it, even to themselves." She smiles as she looks out of the window to see her beloved husband walking up the garden path. The dark hair tied back in an elegant queue and the deep green, silk dress robes do not detract from the raw power her wizard always exudes, as if a wellspring of magic flows from his very core.

The Great Hall was somewhat quieter when Hermione returned. Those who had been seriously injured had been shipped off to St Mungo's when the Healers had finally arrived. Some were under Poppy Pomfrey's care in the hospital wing, and some had been sent home to recover with their loved ones. The bodies of the slain had been laid reverently on a platform created at the far end of the hall. Red-eyed and serious, the Weasleys were barely recognisable as the jolly family they had been, the loss of one of their number a cruel reminder of their collective mortality.

Harry remained curiously detached, his interactions with Ginny bringing the only semblance of humanity to his bearing. Hermione wondered whether her friend had lost more than the fragment of Tom Riddle's soul during his brief dalliance on the other side. Ron was barely communicating, a single word here and there the sum of his conversation.

After answering innumerable questions from Ministry officials regarding her participation in the Gringotts Incident, the final battle, and just where she had disappeared to that afternoon, she was finally left to her own devices. They had accepted her vague description of a family holiday home to which she had retreated to sleep in peace.

"Harry, what are you going to do about Professor Snape?" she asked when she finally had a chance to speak to him alone in a quiet corner of the Great Hall.

"What? What about Snape?" he asked, confusion creasing his newly smooth forehead.

"About clearing his name, Harry. You have to clear his name. It's all very well everyone here hearing what you said to Riddle, but you must make the Wizengamot see he was on our side," she insisted.

"What's the rush? He's dead. They can't even find his damned body, you know. The Aurors think the Death Eaters took it before the end." His bald statement cut her to the quick. She could not afford to reveal Severus had lived until his name was cleared, and Harry's cold assessment appalled her sense of justice.

"That's not the point, Harry. His memories proved he was working for the Order all along. He was doing it for the love of your mother, for Merlin's sake. Do you think she would have wanted him to have died branded as a traitor and a killer? Is that all his life was worth?"

Harry watched her passionate plea with a curious frown. "Why are you so concerned, Hermione? What was he to you, apart from a rotten teacher and a spy?"

"If you must know, he is, I mean was, a friend."

"A friend? Since when did Snape have friends? And just how long was this going on?" he spluttered.

"Since sixth year. I discovered something about him, which led me to believe he was more than he seemed, and gradually I managed to gain his trust. Do you realise how difficult that year was for him, knowing what he had been ordered to do? Knowing he could only avoid that task by dying, only to have Dumbledore die anyway from the curse? Has it occurred to you how lonely the man was, playing the role of the hated professor, the Death Eater spy, knowing no-one trusted or even liked him?" The ever-present tears were falling yet again, this time from frustration.

"Whoa, Hermione. You knew? And you never said anything? All that time in the blasted tent, and you never told us?"

"What, you would have calmly placed aside your intense desire for revenge and welcomed him with open arms? I don't think so, Harry. You were so blindsided by hatred, you would never have believed me. No-one would have believed me." She looked down, reluctant to meet his gaze.

Harry awkwardly placed a hand on his friend's arm. "How were you so sure? He could have been feeding you false information all along to get you to confide in him."

"You didn't see him, Harry. You didn't see him breaking down in front of you, crying out for help, sobbing as if his heart was breaking. He didn't know I was there at first, but I saw him. I spent the night sitting there on the floor, holding him like I would a child. I never knew what Dumbledore's orders had been, but I knew it was something he desperately did not want to do. Harry, if you had seen him that night, you would have known too. He was a man who had been pushed past breaking point, but he had to carry on as if nothing was changed.

"All I ever did was believe. I spent time with him after rounds, just talking. Oh, it didn't happen overnight, but eventually he allowed me to see the real Severus Snape. We would have tea and talk about all sorts of things, usually avoiding anything to do with the war. I knew he couldn't tell me his task, and likewise he knew there were things I couldn't tell him. I was aware he was hurting inside, and sometimes he could not hold it in. After you hexed Draco Malfoy he was particularly depressed, knowing he could have been dead as well..."

"If he hadn't arrived in time to save him," Harry completed. "Bloody hell, Hermione, I didn't realise. How could you have known all this and kept it quiet?" He suddenly frowned and asked, "You and Snape. You didn't...?"

"No! Nothing like that. We were friends. That's all. I did give him a neck and shoulder massage once or twice when he was very tense, but I was used to doing that for Dad, nothing more than that." Hermione suddenly blushed as she remembered she had spent the night in Severus's bed and had seen him naked only a few hours earlier.

"But?" Harry hadn't missed the blush.

"Nothing." Changing the subject, she continued, "Now you see why it is important to me his name is cleared. Please, can you speak to Kingsley? With yours and Dumbledore's portrait's statements on his behalf and his memories, surely he will be exonerated?"

Harry gave Hermione an unfamiliar, knowing look. "I'll do my best, 'Mione. And you were right – Mum would have wanted it that way too."

A tearful hug nearly swept him off his feet.

"Thank you, Harry. One day you'll realise how important this is," she said cryptically, then left him to his reflections on life, death, and faith.

***

Late the following afternoon, Hermione paced the small anteroom, trying to not think about what was going on within Kingsley Shacklebolt's office. Could Harry persuade him of Severus's innocence? Would he care, now they assumed the spy was dead? Or would it be politically expedient to sweep the matter under the carpet? She hadn't gone in with Harry for fear she would somehow give away the fact that the man in question was still alive.

Kicking the edges of a frayed spot on the dingy carpet, her mind circled and fruitlessly tried to avoid the obvious. Her feelings for Severus Snape. Waking beside him the previous evening had felt so right, as if they belonged together. Despite her flippant comments, seeing him naked had woken parts of her body that had previously ignored the call of her hormones and leaving him again that morning had been like leaving part of herself behind. There was no escaping it. She loved him. She was in love with him. And he saw her as a friend, a confidante, but still a girl half his age.

"One day, some lucky wizard is going to sweep you up and carry you off. I just hope you and I will remain friends."

"I don't want some other wizard, Severus. I want you," she whispered to herself, finally acknowledging it out loud as the weight of denial lifted from her shoulders.

Jolted from her ruminations by the sound of the door opening, Hermione looked up, hope soaring at the huge grin on her friend's face.

"You did it?"

"No. Dumbledore did."

"What? I don't understand."

"Kingsley had an emergency meeting with the Wizengamot last night. Dumbledore had personally handed him a time-spelled letter the night before he died, enchanted to reveal the contents only after Voldemort was defeated. He had tried all he knew after Dumbledore's death to break the charm, but it remained a mystery."

"What did it say?" Hermione asked, eager to hear the details.

"He basically took responsibility for all of Snape's actions, including his own death, by way of an Unbreakable Vow he had insisted Snape agree to when he first turned from Voldemort. He described how he was dying from the curse on the ring Horcrux and was planning to drink the poison protecting the locket. He knew he would not survive the night, and yet he made me promise to force him to drink it. If anything, I killed him, Hermione!" Harry's voice trembled with the memory as he paused to collect his thoughts. "He wrote of his hope that Snape would fulfil his Vow to Narcissa Malfoy and kill him before the likes of Greyback arrived on the scene and in the process avoid Draco Malfoy's soul being tainted. He had even planned on Snape gaining mastery of the Elder wand, just as Voldemort had suspected, but Malfoy disarming him ruined that."

"He thought of everything, except how it would affect Severus to kill his only protector," Hermione muttered, bitterness etching her words.

Harry continued. "Dumbledore also admitted he had not informed Snape about all of this. With the letter and Snape's own memories, the Wizengamot not only dropped all charges against Snape, but awarded him a posthumous Order of Merlin, First Class. He's officially a hero!"

Hermione sank back onto a chair. "Oh, Harry! That's wonderful. He will be so relieved..." Flushing, she looked up to find Harry's eyes narrowed as his mind processed what he had heard.

"He will be relieved, Hermione?"

She glanced around the room, wary of uninvited ears. "Not here, Harry!" she hissed.

"Grimmauld Place, then? No-one will be there."

***

"Now, you were saying?" Harry demanded as soon as they had dealt with the traps still lingering in the hall.

Hermione closed her eyes in relief at finally losing the burden of the secret she had been concealing over the last twenty-four hours. "You remember when I went back to the Shrieking Shack to find my purse?"

Harry nodded.

"I had to go back to say goodbye. I couldn't just leave him lying there alone. But when I got there, he was still alive. Barely. I used the dittany and Blood Replenisher from my bag to treat the wound and hoped he had been taking anti-venin. He stopped bleeding but was still unconscious, so I basically... well... er... nagged him back to life." She blushed.

"Nagged him back to life? Oh, never mind, I'm not sure I want to know. Then, where is he?"

"I took him to Dumbledore's cottage on the Isle of Skye. It's a Secret-Kept location."

"You had been there before." Harry's suspicions were confirmed when she gave a slight nod.

"He first told me the Secret after he had helped me modify my parents' memories and get them out of the house – before a squad of Death Eaters came to kill them," she admitted.

"Hermione! You were with him over last summer, weren't you?"

"Most of it. We spent weeks at the cottage, some of it while he was recovering from nearly being beaten to death, and worse, due to the failure of the raid on my parents' house."

"And worse?"

"He wouldn't talk about it, but I think he was sexually assaulted as well. Oh, Harry! It was awful. The dead look in his eyes, as if he had nothing left to live for. I think it nearly destroyed him. And it was all my fault. If I hadn't been his friend, he would have never..." She broke down as the horror of those few days returned.

"Shh. From what I have learned in the last day or so, he would have done something to save them anyway. Don't blame yourself; just be thankful you were there when he needed you. But how did you communicate all this time?"

Hermione went on to explain the chocolate wrapper and how she had obtained extra food from time to time without identifying the source. His shock at discovering Snape had actually been in the tent while he and Ron had been recovering the Sword of Gryffindor was almost comical.

"Wow, Hermione. You really know how to keep a secret." To his credit, Harry never once berated her for trusting Snape. He knew she had had good reasons, and the subsequent revelations had more than convinced him she was justified in her belief in the man.

"So, what exactly is your relationship with him?" Harry had to ask.

"Just friends. Very close friends. He still sees me as a schoolgirl, someone who listens and cares for him, but only as a friend," she replied, resignation clouding her features.

"But you want more?" For once, Harry was tuned in to his friend's emotional state.

"I love him, Harry. Really, really love him. He says he loves me, but it's not in the way I want."

"How do you know? Have you asked him? It sounds like he has shared more with you than he has with anyone else. Ever. Don't you think that means something?"

"Maybe." She pondered his words.

"Go. Go to him and talk. You need to go and see your parents anyway, and you will need his help to undo the memory modification. Use that as an opportunity to find out how he really feels. I'll tell the others you have gone to fetch your parents."

"Oh, Harry. What would I do without you? I love you."

"I love you too... as a friend, let's be quite clear about that," he joked.

"Prat!"

***

A/N: This story was written for the Hermione Big Bang on Live Journal to celebrate her thirtieth birthday. Many thanks to ladyinthecloak, my beta. Thanks also to quaffswinegaily, who gave this a preliminary reading, and Michelle, my cheerleader.