Memory’s Rapturous Pain

A/N: All hail the creator of the Potterverse, JK Rowling, who lets us come and play for fun and no profit. The poetry is by Emily Brontë.

My deepest, humblest thanks to my amazing beta, sshg316, who keeps me on track and makes this all so much better than she found it. Shug, I owe you so much!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Memory's Rapturous Pain"

"I will not be here when you return." They stood apart at the dock, watching for a sign of The Grace's approach.

"Return? What do you mean?" she asked.

"You will not be able to give it up, Miss Granger" he replied, matter-of-factly. "You will convince yourself once again that your project is not complete. You will come to believe that my desires are not important."

"Your desires?" she answered indignantly. "I assure you, Mister Snape, that your desires are uppermost in my mind. You want to be left in peace, and so you shall be."

"Or you will lie," he continued smoothly. "You will tell them you did not find me, and those who know you will not believe you would give up the search without a final answer. Potter will check my wandtrace one more time, and this time he will see that my wand has been used. Then he will come, or he will tell Shacklebolt, or the Death Eater sympathizer who so obviously still works at the Ministry will send someone else with a grudge to settle. At least give me the courtesy of a reasonable head start."

She glared at him. "I was planning to take a page from your book."

"My book?" he asked, frowning.

"Your little spy manual," she retorted. "I will tell them the truth. Just not all of it."

"Indeed?"

"I will tell them that I did in fact find you, but that Dolohov followed me. I will tell them that he killed Riley Macmillan." She gazed placidly at him.

"And?" he prompted impatiently.

"And I will let them draw their own conclusions. They don't know what name you have been using recently. And Riley had your chess set, after all." She smiled rather smugly before going on. "Harry told me that wandtrace is not especially precise. It will indicate approximately when and where a wand was used, but it cannot pinpoint exactly when or by whom or the spells it was used to cast, without the actual wand itself. Put it back up on the wall, and no one will ever be able to prove anything."

He stared at her in frank admiration. "But what of Dolohov?" he asked at last.

"I fought him," she replied defiantly. "And I killed him." She suddenly stopped and looked away, toward the tiny dot of the approaching delivery boat, as memories of the attack came flooding back into her mind again. She had murdered a man. She had thrust a knife into his chest, felt the resistance of tissue and bone, pressed it firmly in and forced out his life with her own hand. She was a killer. She shuddered. She did not deserve to be here. She did not deserve to be anywhere. She ought to have died herself.

Snape was still staring at her, and he saw that she was now shivering. He moved to her despite himself, hesitating as he reached her, mutely offering his cloak. She stared at his hands, almost as though she did not recognize the object he was holding, then shook her head.

"No. Thank you," she said softly. "I'm not cold. I'm just... I've never..." All at once, her legs refused to support her. She suddenly sat down on the dock. When she spoke again, her voice was a fierce whisper, "I keep stabbing him in my mind. I shouldn't--"

He knelt down in front of her, taking her hands tightly in his. "Stop it!" he ordered harshly. "He was trying to kill you!"

Her eyes found his, and they were swimming with tears. "There should have been some other way!" she said intensely. "I could have just wounded him! I could have Petrified him or tied him up or--"

He shook his head, insistent. "You did what was required of you. There is no point to this. Stop."

One tear escaped and rushed down her cheek. "I can't," she admitted.

"Yes," he replied. "You can."

She stared down at her hands clasped in his. "How?" she asked simply. "How do you stop seeing it all the time?"

"Seeing what?" he asked, frowning.

She breathed, "Dumbledore's face."

Snape froze. He looked down and, as if suddenly realizing he was holding her hands, released them and stood. His breath came out in a hiss.

Hermione scrambled up, grasping his arm. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she cried. "This is all my fault! I shouldn't have come here! You were safe, you didn't need to remember, you didn't need me!"

His face was contorted as he looked down at her. "Didn't need you?" he roared.

Her voice was coming out in ragged sobs now, but she didn't care. "I thought I could help, I was so stupid, I came here to find you, and all I could think was how incredible you are and how much I wanted to help you and then I saw how much more wonderful you really are and how much I love you now and I've mucked it all up and all you want is for me to go away and all I want is to give it all back to you--"

Suddenly she was in his arms as he clutched her almost desperately, saying, "Shh, shh, Hermione, be quiet, it's all right, dearest, it's all right, I don't want you to go away, I thought you wanted to leave--"

Their lips found each other and silenced speech, and their mouths joined, tongues intertwining, breath becoming one, fingers wrapped in hair, tears mingling, each grasping at the soul that gave completion and meaning and purpose.

~~~~~~~~~~

The crew of The Grace (both of them) had been plying these waves all their lives. They both remembered the first time the chess master had ridden in their boat. They had listened patiently to Riley's enthusiastic accounts of his chess games with the stranger, though they had understood little about the moves that so delighted their friend at the dock. They had seen the woman arrive and had their own somewhat lascivious discussions about why she was there. They had heard the official account of the recent murders, and they had shared their own doubts about how much of it was true.

As the boat chugged slowly up to the dock that morning, they watched the chess master and the woman who had arrived just recently as they embraced passionately on the dock. They stared in frank and hungry curiosity as the two kissed and caressed, locked in the ecstatic and oblivious exploration of one another.

Finally, Dakin turned to his companion. "I thought he told them she was his sister," he said. Declan simply shrugged and turned The Grace back out toward the open sea.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was quite awhile before either recovered the power of rational speech.

The cottage was filled with sunlight, warming the two figures sprawled across its floor and the trail of clothing strewn around them. Hermione's head was resting on Snape's bare chest, listening to his heart quiet under her ear.

"You missed the boat, you know," he murmured.

"Did I?"

"Umm-hmm."

"It'll be back Tuesday."

"Oh." He sat up suddenly. "Yes. It will be back Tuesday. Time enough."

She yawned. "And the Tuesday after that, and the Tuesday after that."

He stared out the window at the open sky. "And then one Tuesday--"

She put a finger on his lips. "Come back here." She wrapped her arms around his neck, nipping lightly at his ear. Enveloping his mouth with her own, she opened her lips and sucked gently on his tongue.

He decided to let Tuesday sort itself out later. He gave himself up to the woman now insistently working her way down his chest. She seemed in no hurry to run away, at least not yet, not now. He stopped thinking and surrendered himself to her touch.

~~~~~~~~~~

"I think I owe you a life debt."

"Do you."

"You saved my life."

"No," he corrected her seriously. "You saved your own life. I just put some pieces back together. In fact," and he cocked one eyebrow at her, "you may have saved my life. If you hadn't stopped Dolohov, I would have been next."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," she huffed. "You could have taken him." She smiled slyly. "I softened him up for you."

He looked indignant. "You did no such thing, young woman."

"Oh, so now I'm a young woman. Step up from a little girl, I suppose."

"Oh, I am very much afraid that I shall never be able to see you as a 'little girl' again."

"Good thing, too. What are you--Severus!" She squealed as he pressed his advantage.

"Life debt indeed...."

Distracted, she began to chew her lip, and he touched it gently with his thumb, stopping her.

She looked at him. "You don't have to," she whispered.

He froze. "I don't have to what?" His voice was careful.

"Do any of it," she replied. "You don't have to go back to using magic, or leave this place, or do anything. You can put your wand back up on that wall and throw your medal in the sea. You've earned the right to do whatever you want to, including nothing at all."

He stared down at her, his expression uncertain now. "Have I?"

"Yes," she answered, willing herself not to cry and thrusting out her chin. "But do it for the right reasons, Severus. Do it because you understand why you came here, why you stopped using magic entirely. Make it a conscious choice. Do it because you've chosen to do it."

He continued to gaze down at her, and she watched him turning her words over in his mind.

Finally she said, "You need to take back the memories. You don't have to keep them all. But you need to understand. Please, Severus. Look at them. Then you can fling them into the wind."

~~~~~~~~~~

"How much difference does it make?" Hermione asked one morning over breakfast.

"What do you mean?" Snape was standing in the doorway, frowning out at the sky, his back to her.

"Magic," she replied. "You told me when I arrived that this place had never known magic. And," she continued pointedly, "you weren't using your wand. How much difference does all this make?"

He sighed, and his shoulders sagged. At first, she thought he was not going to answer her, but finally he said, "It doesn't matter. It was only a question of time, I suppose. It doesn't matter." His voice was flat, defeated.

She rose and went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind in a tight embrace. "Severus," she admonished, "of course it matters. You had chosen to give up magic. My coming here changed that. I want to know what else I've changed."

He turned, taking her into his arms and brushing her hair from her face. "Everything," he answered simply. "You've changed everything." He tilted his head to look down at her, a faint smirk on his face now. "You have quite ruined me, in fact. Everything was perfect before you came. I should have simply stayed away from the cottage until you gave it up and went home."

She returned his gaze, unsmiling. "It wouldn't have worked. I'd have waited as long as it took. I knew you were here. I'd have waited you out."

He nodded, and the smile left his face. "I realized that as soon as I saw you. That might have been the first moment, you know."

Her forehead crinkled. "The first moment?"

"The first moment I started to love you," he replied.

She looked at him for a moment. "I've been falling in love with you for a very long time," she said at last. "But surely you hadn't even given me a second thought until I barged into your peaceful hiding place and arrogantly demanded that you take all those priceless gifts I'd lugged along with me. You can't have fallen in love with me that fast. Especially as I was such a proper little shit most of that time. Or unconscious."

Snape stroked her hair and answered dryly, "I'm a quick study."

Hermione smiled in spite of herself. "So I observe."

"With very strange tastes," he added.

"I noticed that, too," she replied. "To quote one of the greatest wizards of my time, 'Lucky me.'"

He pressed her against the door, pinning her arms above her lightly at both wrists. "I believe I said that with a great deal more spirit," he purred. He looked down into her glowing face, and his own expression suddenly turned solemn. "Lucky me," he whispered and bent his head to kiss her.