Chapter Forty-One

A/N: Sorry for the delay on this one, dear readers. I was at Portus, living and breathing fandom--an incredible experience, but one which put me behind. I hope to stay on track for the rest of the summer. As usual, everything belongs to JKR, and I make no money. And my thanks go to OpalJade, RedOrchid and Shellsnapeluver. You ladies are the absolute best.

The thing that struck him most as he stood alone in the dark was sameness. The utter sameness of Spinner's End. The world outside had vomited up its own insides; it was as foreign as a glamour; but here, the same dust motes swirled as if in a vacuum. Here, there was no need to light his wand, as he could navigate these rooms blinded, sleeping, drunk... dead. This place was like a curse that would not lift, like his own skin. It was home. He had come home at last.

Three steps to the couch, and he heard the creaking of ancient springs as he sank into the musty cushions. What on earth was he doing here, in this house he had never wished to return to? His mind answered quickly, angrily. Because there was no where else to go. The war was over; Potter had survived, and both his masters were dead, and yet instead of having limitless options, he found he had none.

Limitless options. Snape snorted slightly in the darkness. What would limitless options even mean? Had he been returned to the boy he had been at eighteen, before the night that had knelt before the Dark Lord in Malfoy Manor? Was he now poised once more upon the cold stone floor, his robes in a fragrant pool of silk around him, his left arm lifted like a gift? Had he been given the chance to snatch it back and run?

Snape laid his wand in his lap and folded back his left sleeve, allowing himself to touch skin that had been forbidden to him for twenty years, skin that was his own again. The brush of his fingers against his own flesh was as intimate, as electric, as masturbation. He closed his eyes and savored the tickle of his fingertips against sparse, short hairs. His own again.

And then, not his own at all. Snape dropped his hand and raised his wand once more, silently summoning his mother's pressed glass decanter, heavy and cheap in his hands. The options before him were much the same as they had been at eighteen: to be drunk or not to be drunk. He twitched his fingers, and a dusty glass flew across the room to smack into his palm. He poured generously and did not bother to sip politely at the amber liquid in his glass, nor to wipe his chin when he had finished swallowing it down in heavy, burning gulps. The war was over. He was alive. He poured again.

He rose and crossed the room to the front window, his steps sure, even in the dark, easily avoiding the hulking monstrosity of his father's leather recliner. He drew back the drapes. The street was nearly opaque with darkness; a few distant lights shimmered off shallow pools of water on the pavement, reflecting back more black and starless sky. He scanned for moment, found no one, and raised his glass once more. Hiding. He was hiding.

Snape's neck began to feel tight and heavy; there was pressure behind his eyes which he associated with the onset of inebriation. He had been a man for whom it was far more dangerous to drink in company than it was to drink in private, and he had had so few moments of true privacy in the last twenty years as to have nearly forgotten the feeling. Aloneness, yes. He had often been alone, in fact, more often than not. But privacy... to know that no one would call for him suddenly in the night, that he would pass as many hours here as he chose, uninterrupted... that no one would delve into his mind to seek those things which might have been loosened by drink... He was nearly as horrified by the idea as he was relieved.

He did not want to be in hiding. He had been a spy--had been, his mind protested, had been? --but almost always he had worked under scrutiny. He had never hidden from his duty, never hidden from the Dark Lord. It felt wrong to be tucked into this dingy house, so safe, so impotent, so nothing. He had the urge to run into the street, to Apparate into the middle of Diagon Alley. I am still here, he thought nonsensically.

Which he could do; he could. Let them take him. What difference did it make? Had he stayed in the clearing, he would have been rounded up with the rest of the Death Eaters and shipped off to Azkaban. And yet, the punishment he'd wanted could not be delivered by a bunch of deluded Aurors or even the Dementors. What he had wanted had been justice, rightness, a sense that he had evened the scales of the world somehow, something he doubted very much that he would find before the Wizengamot. Hermione's voice echoed from some distant place in his mind. Sir, I want the records for your trial. His trial. They would parade him before a courtroom and force him to tell all his secrets. Everything he would have given his life to protect would be displayed before their eager eyes. Severus Snape, the Death Eater, right where they wanted him at last. The thought made him physically ill. And yet the alternative was to lurk here as if he were guilty, as if he hadn't risked all he had to bring down the Dark Lord. What would become of him? Would he live here in silence the rest of his days? His eyes drifted to the street once more, and he took a long pull of the firewhisky, swirling the sharp and spicy liquid around in his mouth, feeling it burn and numb his tongue.

When would he admit what he was looking for? There was only one person in the world tonight who could appear in the middle of that soot blackened street, only one person in the world who would know where to look and could find this house if she did. And every flash of light looked like her wand to him, and every leaf that twitched on every tree was a lock of her hair. He gulped again. Fucking hope. Fucking senseless fucking hope, burning like some idiotic bluebell flame inside of him.

"For what?" he said aloud, almost frightened by the sound of his own voice, so harsh in the stillness. Hope that she might come here, that she might agree to stay with him? And then what? Would he keep her and starve her of light and company until she was withered and small and manageable? Until she hated him, and he her? Until he died? Or he could force her through the horror of a full trial before the Wizengamot. He could watch as they took her down with him, tainted her with the stain of his past, humiliated her. Don't come here, Hermione, he thought, and right on the heels of it, Please come. I don't want to do this alone.

Fury flooded his already overextended nerves. This was Albus's doing, what he would surely call his gift to Snape if he stood here now. He had never needed, never wanted, any partner. He had always been perfectly capable of working alone and now... now there was an emptiness inside him that had no right to be there. He'd been hobbled as completely as if he'd been cut off at the knees, and this was all Albus's fucking fault. Why should he stand here at this window and hope for senseless things?

The glass was warm in his hand now, and it felt smooth and familiar against his palm. He raised it to his lips and then suddenly flung it across the room, listening to its wet crash as it shattered against the bookcase. That was good. That was satisfying. He raised his wand and slashed wildly at the far wall, not caring what he hit, simply wanting to destroy. These walls, the fucking horrible walls with their stained and peeling paper, the cabbage roses his mother had chosen in some twisted, misguided attempt at homemaking--these walls were closing in on him again, and he was trapped here, hiding here, just like a child, like a fucking helpless child again. He had duped the Dark Lord and lived to tell the tale, but he was twelve years old again, hiding from the boys in the street who would find him and hurt him and beat him and throw him in Azkaban and say that what he had done was nothing, nothing.

His scream of rage began in the word fuck and trailed into a senseless, rasping sound of defeat, punctuated by the thump and crash of books flying off shelves, wood splintering, the tinkle of glass breaking and plaster crumbling.

She could not leave him here, he thought, as if he had not been the one to leave her in the Shack. She could not leave him here to rot, like some rubbish no longer needed. She could not have brought him back for this. He lifted his wand once more and drew it along his forearm where the Mark had been, needing to feel the familiar pain there, needing to feel something that meant something, not just the drunken anguish of a man who had lived past his own usefulness. His blood beaded along the seam he had drawn, but the pain did not calm him; it was not the pain he sought, and he sank onto the couch again and drew his nails along his neck where Nagini's fangs had torn it. Too smooth, too whole, too perfect--and he felt his pulse beating raggedly beneath his fingertips, his blood rushing on and on and on like time, like endless time.

He picked up the decanter and drank from it, his teeth clicking against the heavy lip.

"Come for me, Hermione," he whispered, just before the alcohol accomplished what shock and exhaustion could not do alone; and sinking into a pool of his own blood-stiffened and sweat-stinking robes, he gave in to sleep.

***

Hermione sat at the long, rough-hewn table in the Weasleys' kitchen, a short glass of firewhisky untouched before her. She had barely spoken since the clearing. Harry and Ron had led her back to the castle and up to the Headmaster's office in silence, and her hands had gripped their robes until her knuckles had gone white and her fingernails had dug neat half moons into her palms through the fabric. She opened one fist and stared blankly into it. They were there still.

Her memories of the castle started and ended abruptly, with large bits missing, as if they had been cut away. There were times, she knew, when she had closed her eyes and let the boys lead her, but there were times when, try as she might, she simply could not remember, as if her brain had rebelled against the images that assaulted it and refused to register. Her impressions of their trek through the ruined castle came only in flashes--the utter destruction of the Charms corridor, the body of a sixth year Ravenclaw outside the girls' bathroom on the third floor, several dead house-elves outside the wall leading to the Headmaster's tower, their bodies pressed up against the stone as if they had tried to prevent the Death Eaters from entering what had once been Dumbledore's domain.

Harry had bent when they'd reached the elves, and seemingly unable to bring himself to touch them, he had levitated them gently to the side where they could be watched over by the injured gargoyle.

He had opened his mouth, and she had known that he was about to ask for her help, and so she reached out and placed her palm gently over the gargoyle's cracked stone skull. The wall behind it melted away, revealing the twisting staircase that lead to the Headmaster's office.

"How did you do that?" She heard Ron behind her. "We've never been able to--"

She did not answer, but stepped gingerly over the rubble and into the stairwell.

"This was Professor Snape's office," Harry had whispered from behind her, and she had not turned to see the look on Ronald's face as Harry went on, "His wards recognize her. It was part of their vows."

So he knew, she had thought. Snape had told him.

"Their what?" Ron said, not bothering to whisper.

Hermione had said nothing, forcing Harry to explain. "Their wedding vows. Dumbledore married them at the beginning of our sixth year. For me. So Professor Snape would have a way to help me. So someone would know that Snape wasn't a traitor."

"Dumbledore..." Ron had sputtered. "He... You were married to Snape?"

"I am married to Snape," she hissed. Here her memory threatened to blacken, but she held on fiercely with her mind, trying to keep the edges sharp and focused.

Harry had stopped on the stairs and turned to her with a look she had never before seen, a look so full of pain and pity that it took her a few moments to realize that it was meant for her. "Dumbledore told me once that the dead we love... they never truly leave us, Hermione."

"That's very kind of you, Harry," she'd said, fighting down the strange and unreasonable urge to strike him. If he truly thought her husband was dead, then why didn't he leave her alone? Why would he drag her up here to look at his things, to stand in his office? "But Severus is alive. If he weren't, I wouldn't be able to do this."

Fear had left her nearly stricken as she reached for the doorknob, suddenly certain that it would not turn at all, that somehow Snape had died as she had ascended the stairs, and this would be how she found out. But the metal warmed in her palm and gave in easily to her touch. The ownership of the office had not passed on. She'd paused in the doorway, letting Harry and Ron enter first and then stepped in and looked silently around her. She had never seen this office after Dumbledore had died, never known it as her husband's. There was nothing in it that she recognized as Snape's. The couch, the rug, the straight-backed chair that had stood by his fireplace--none of those things were in the strange, circular room. The walls were bare but for the Headmasters' gallery, and the desk stood clean of everything but the heavy stone Pensieve and a single roll of parchment. It was the office of no one, of a man who had erased himself.

Hermione shifted in her seat in the Weasleys' kitchen and fingered her glass. She did not want to remember what it had been like to look into the Pensieve. She had not wanted to do it; she had all but refused to do it, but Harry had insisted, still thinking, perhaps, that she had deluded herself that Snape lived, insisting she see his final goodbye to her. For that was what it had been. He had passed his message to Harry, passed the knowledge of what must be done and the proof of his innocence that Harry could not help but believe, coming as it had, from Dumbledore's own mouth, but the end of Snape's memories had unmistakably been for her. And as she had watched, she began to confirm something that she had known in her heart, something that she had never wanted to hear, and yet it seemed as clear there in retrospect as if he were whispering it in her ear. I am so tired, Hermione. I just want this to be over. And then had come their wedding, his colossal risk in hiding her parents, the accident the night they had moved Harry... it had been like watching the year rewound and played again too quickly for her to keep up, and she was assaulted with fear all over again, even though she knew the ending, awestruck by the incredible strain they had lived under. And at last there came the night he had brought them the sword. As she'd stood again in the filthy tent and watched him kiss her, she had known for certain, and it was for her then as if he had stood in the room with her, she could see his lovely, worn face that clearly. He had tried to tell her. He had meant to die.

She could not remember how she had ended up in the Burrow, or how long they might have sat in the Headmaster's office, waiting, presumably, for Dumbledore, who never came. But she remembered noise, voices, the passing of so many faces that seemed only vaguely familiar. She remembered Mrs Weasley's tearful admonishments that she had to eat, she had to eat, and perhaps she had, though all she tasted in her mouth were her own bitter tears. She remembered Harry, who had sat here silently beside her for a time, though he was gone now, to bed, she supposed, or Merlin alone knew where. His mourning was private now, as hers was, and she glanced up at the Weasleys' clock on which all the hands but Fred's rested on home, as they had not for two long years.

What had she done? Dear God, what had she done?

"Hermione."

She shot back from the table, nearly upending her chair and glass. Her eyes searched the room frantically until they landed on Mr Weasley, who leaned brokenly against the doorframe. In his hand, he held a roll of parchment, and his eyes were sharp and bright with sorrow.

"I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's all right. I'm sorry, Mr Weasley. I'll go if you want to be--"

"No, stay. Sit. You don't seem very interested in that drink. Would you like some tea?"

"I'm fine, really. I was just thinking. I... I'm tired, but I can't--"

"Neither can I. Why don't we just stay here and keep each other company for a bit," he said, setting a kettle on the stove and lighting it with his wand. He laid the parchment on the counter.

"Are you sure you don't want to be alone?" she asked.

Mr Weasley chuckled, but it was a sad sound, empty of mirth. "I haven't been alone in twenty eight years, Hermione. I wouldn't know what to do if I were."

She forced herself to smile at him. Her cheeks were stiff with dried tears. He was a good man, Mr Weasley. A kind man and a brave one. But she had no idea how to sit here with him at his kitchen table with that clock looking down on them, reminding them both of the man she had not saved and the man she had.

"Hermione, Harry told us what... what had been asked of you."

Her head snapped up, and she looked into his eyes warily.

"From what he said... it was--no don't look at me like that. I'm trying to understand--Harry said that the two of you... that you had come to an understanding."

She nodded slightly, but said nothing.

"I haven't come to pry about your relationship with Severus. Tonight is not the night, and I have been married long enough to know that the workings of a marriage are not always explicable from the outside. If you found strength in what you had to do, Hermione, then we should all be grateful for that. If you both found strength in it."

Her lips began to tremble, and she pressed them together. She had not thought it was possible to cry any more tears tonight; she had thought that she had been purged of every ounce of moisture inside of her.

"Mr Weasley, I'm--"

"Shhh. Shhh." He came over and stood beside her, took her hands into his own and pulled her to her feet. "Shhh, Hermione, our brave girl. It's all right." He folded her into his arms and rocked her back and forth gently.

"I'm sorry, Mr Weasley. I'm so sorry. I did the wrong thing. I did the wrong thing, and I'm so sorry."

Mr Weasley stepped back and looked very seriously into her face. "Do you think I would have done better, that any of us would have? The burden of that potion was too much for any person, Hermione. We are not gods, far from it, and not a single person would have made a decision that was different from yours. If I had had it," his voice broke slightly, "Fred would be alive. And if Andromeda had had it, Tonks. And if Tonks, Remus. No one could have done differently than you did, and if they tell you they would have, they are lying. We save what we love, Hermione. We can't help ourselves. That's why that potion is so difficult to brew, why Dumbledore should have never asked poor Severus to make it in the first place. The responsibility is far too great. Look at me."

She tried; she tried to look at him, but his tear-stained face stung her already writhing heart, and she feared she might vomit.

"Hermione, if Severus had had the potion and had been faced with your choice, he would have saved you instead of Harry."

She shook her head violently. "He wouldn't. You don't know him. He would never have been so--"

"So what? So human? Harry told me he came after you at Godric's Hollow, at Malfoy Manor. He came after you. You know full well what would have happened if he'd been discovered. He'd have been killed. Tortured and killed, most likely, and Dumbledore's plans would have been ruined."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut.

"Have you seen his will?"

They flew back open. "His will?"

"Harry said he thought you weren't listening when he told you. He left a will, Hermione, in the Headmaster's office. I went back for it as soon as Harry told me that you... that Severus is alive. I was afraid that it might be used to track him."

"Track him?"

"Sit. Please."

Mr Weasley guided her back into her chair and returned to the stove. He poured them each a cup of tea and levitated hers to the table. Then, he picked up the parchment and sat down across from her. She looked at him questioningly. It seemed by the air of solemnity around him that he was coming to the point of whatever it was he had come here to tell her, and her heart beat erratically in her chest.

"People are not," he paused, stopped and looked as if he were trying to collect himself. "People are in pain," he said heavily. "The cost of the war has been... very great."

Hermione swept a tear from the end of her nose.

"I am afraid that Severus is, that he will be--I don't know how to say this. I am afraid that people will not see what he did, Hermione, that they will not see his sacrifice and his loyalty, but the fact that he married a very young girl, a student of his."

She opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off.

"Willing or not. I'm afraid that Dumbledore's death was so sudden, so demoralizing to the wizarding community, that people will see only that Severus killed Dumbledore, not the reasons there may have been--that there were--behind it. They will see him as a Death Eater, a tame one, one they can catch and put in Azkaban and feel safer at night for it."

"But he--Mr Weasley--"

"I know. I know that. But you knew that this would come. From what Harry said, Dumbledore told you at the outset that he expected there to be a trial. I just want you to be prepared for what may be said, for the possible outcome--"

She nodded mutely. Mr Weasley slid the parchment across the table to her, and she began to unroll it.

I, Severus Snape, of Spinner's End, Manchester, hereby make, publish and declare this to be my last will and testament...

"Am I right in thinking that Spinner's End is under the Fidelius Charm?"

Spinner's End. He was in Spinner's End. Why hadn't she realized it before? She nearly darted to her feet. But before she could, a second thought trickled through her like lead. Mr Weasley had said the words--he knew--

"It is... or it was. How--"

I do give and bequeath to my spouse, Hermione Jean Granger Snape, all my personal effects and all my personal property...

"Because of his will. He's written it on parchment, Hermione, and left it where it could be found. I don't know how many people have seen it already, but I took it to make sure there won't be any more."

"Harry knows."

"Yes, Harry knows, and I suspect that Ron does as well. Aside from you and me, I do not have knowledge of any others, but there could be..."

...including my home, bank account, and all the rest of the property which I may own at the time of my death, real or personal, tangible and intangible, of whatsoever nature and where ever situated...

Hermione threw the parchment aside. "But only I should have been able to get into the Headmaster's office if he lives! How did you get in there?" Her voice was grating, hysterical.

Mr Weasley's brow furrowed. "I don't know. The wall to the stairwell was open when I got there. Perhaps the gargoyle died. Or was killed."

"But the door to the office--Mr Weasley, forgive me, but I have to go. I have to go right now."

Hermione leaped from her seat, and Mr Weasley rose as well.

"No--I have to go alone. He won't--"

"I understand. I just want to tell you to be careful. If you find him... tell him to stay at Spinner's End as long as the Fidelius Charm holds. Get in touch with Kingsley Shacklebolt as quickly as you can, Hermione. Tomorrow morning, if possible. Try to secure him some kind of amnesty. Take Harry with you."

"I will. Thank you."

He nodded. "One last thing, before you go."

She paused in mid-turn.

"There will always be room for you here, Hermione. Always. But if you can, I would stay with him. If a court is to find him innocent, I think it will be very important that your faith in him seem very strong. That your marriage seem--"

"I understand."

"Go, then. And check in with us as soon as you can. Keep me informed."

***

It had begun to rain outside, and Hermione's robes became heavy with water as she trudged down the darkened street, her wand held aloft. The last house, she thought. The last house on Spinner's End. There were no lights to guide her way, and she peered at the houses she passed, rows of shabby brick buildings attached end to end, each more dilapidated than the last. Many of the windows she passed were boarded, and yet she felt quite exposed, very much watched, as she walked along the cobblestone road, as if the windows were hooded eyes that kept her surreptitiously in view. When she reached the final house, she knew that she had found him, for her skin nearly sparked and glowed with magic, with his presence.

She rapped twice upon the door but received no answer, and she hesitated as she reached for the doorknob. There was no lock that could keep her out if she chose to enter here, but she was afraid of what she might find inside, though she would not give name to the possibilities. The knob turned in her hand, and she stepped into the darkness.

"Severus," she whispered. "Severus?"

There was nothing. She lit her wand, shocked and immediately alarmed by what she could see of the sitting room in the feeble glow. The walls were decimated; books were scattered over the floor and a chair lay overturned beside the small fireplace. Had someone preceded her here?

"Severus!"

She strode past the sofa into the room where she spun around, taking in the shattered mirror, the bookcase hanging crookedly from the door, the sharp scent of alcohol in the air. Her wand light fell upon the ground, and she was horrified to see blood smeared upon the boards. Blood and whisky and....

There. There upon the couch, he lay, one arm thrown over his face and the other hanging over the side. In a moment, she was on her knees in the muck, taking the dangling arm in her hands, tracing his wound with her fingertips. Shallow, superficial. Thank God. Perhaps he had cut himself with the glass, she told herself, though she could tell by the feel of it that it had come from a wand. She used her own to seal it, despite the fact that it was little more than a scratch. She felt as if someone had hollowed out her stomach with a large flat blade.

"Severus."

He twitched in his sleep, and she smoothed his matted hair away from his face. She sat gingerly beside him on the sofa in the small space left where his knees had drawn up. With her wand, she mended what she could of the sitting room, erasing the evidence of whatever battle he had fought there.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

She thought of Mr Weasley's words. They will see him as a Death Eater, a tame one, one they can catch and put in Azkaban and feel safer at night for it. Anger flared in her. The man before her was many things, but he was never tame. How odd that that should be the part that enraged her most, the idea that her husband was something that could be caged. And yet, what had she asked of him except to live in this box of a house, to be paraded before a court and prodded at like an animal? She stared into his sleeping face, so tight and drawn still, making it seem clear that he had fought sleep even as he had succumbed.

"Severus," she said quietly, and part of her felt relieved when he did not stir. "Whatever is coming, I will not leave you. Whatever they say, whatever they try to do to you, I won't allow it. I swear to you."

She wormed her way onto the sofa beside him. Never opening his eyes, Snape shifted to accommodate her. The fit would have been impossible for two people less exhausted than they were. One of Hermione's legs hung off the side, and the other was pinned between his knees. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her robes tight across her stomach, and her face was crushed into his neck, where every breath brought the smell of the battle, but she did not shift or try to move him. Tonight, she would take what comfort she could, whether it was willingly given or not.