Remembrance

A/N: This world, these characters, the magic that they do--they all belong to the genius who created them, JK Rowling. I am simply playing with them for the fun of it.

Personally, I have to thank sshg316, my amazing beta, for her continued support, sharp eye, and spot-on comments. Thanks particularly for helping me be sure that a key point in this chapter actually made sense. You are a wonder, my dear, and your sense of humor is priceless!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Remembrance"

The cave was buried within the hard rock that made up the southeastern end of the island. It had been carved out by the retreating sea, and in storms sometimes the sandy floor could still grow damp with seawater trying to carry away the rest of the unyielding granite. Snape had discovered it shortly after his arrival. He had decided at once that it would make an effective retreat from the abandoned shepherd's cottage that had become his primary home.

He truly did think of it sometimes as his summer house. Its sheltering walls kept the interior cool. He could not quite see the shoreline from inside, but the steady ebb and flow of the waves signaled the close proximity of the beach. He had fashioned a tight-fitting door that kept out all but the worst of the weather, but he usually left it open whenever he was in residence.

Hermione surveyed the simple surroundings curiously. She had stepped inside briefly when he had been distracted with one of his chess games down at the dock, but she had not dared to take the time to examine it closely then.

Books and parchment scrolls were packed in plastic bins, protected against the damp but clearly visible. In one corner, nestled on a ledge, stood a camp cot, with a rough blanket folded neatly across it. The worktable that took up most of the interior held a few beakers, some tools, a small gas stove, and the mate to the coffee mug back at the cottage. In the center of the table stood a small crystal flask, its silvery blue contents swirling innocently.

The whole place had an uncluttered, snug feeling to it, but Hermione was again struck by its stark simplicity. Even with the plethora of books, it did not look like a place to stimulate thought or accomplishment.

Snape watched her.

He studied her face, so familiar and yet brand new now. She really had grown up. There was little left of the anxious schoolgirl, even the one of her final year. He supposed that she might not be considered a classic beauty, but he had never seen anything more astonishingly lovely in his life. She stood gazing around her and though she must certainly have been impatient for him to begin, her face was calm, serene even. Feeling his eyes on her, she turned and smiled at him, and his heart contracted in his chest.

That smile--that smile was just for him. He did not deserve such a luminous look, but by heaven he would take it, for as long as it was offered, but he realized all too well that could not be long at all. She could not stay here. That would be an incredible waste, a sacrifice he would not allow her to make.

Her face stilled. "Severus?" she asked, puzzled at the expression that had come over his sharp features.

He shook his head and spoke briskly. "We must do this now if we are to support your story. It will require me to use my wand. If I do this, there will be wandtrace activity well after the time at which I am supposed to have died."

"I will say I used your wand afterwards," she answered levelly.

He nodded. "I am confident now that you will have an explanation ready for whatever anomaly may arise. You will go back, and all will be as it must. The formidable Miss Granger can will the world to be as she sees it." His voice was coldly sarcastic.

She looked at him, uncertain. "Severus, I can't stay here forever."

"I know," he replied, his tone softening. "Though I did consider bribing the boat."

She was fairly sure he was joking. It was hard to tell in this light. She sighed. There was something more important to concentrate on first, before considering their future. Their future--was such a concept even possible? She shook her head briefly, focusing on the task at hand.

"Do you want me to do it? Use my wand instead?" she asked.

"Yes. But it doesn't work that way. I have to do it myself."

"I rather thought so." She frowned as the thought occurred to her, "Is it possible to put memories into someone else's head?"

"The Dark Lord did want me to try," he replied, "but I never found a way. Thank Merlin." He sighed and sat at the table.

Hermione sat opposite him, watching him carefully, allowing him to determine the pace of things.

He did not pick up the flask but merely continued to study it. At last, he spoke, "Hermione, I know you believe I surrendered something vital to... Mister Potter. But memories don't work that way. They are so rarely discrete entities. They leave echoes, especially when they are of important events."

He took a deep breath. "For instance, I must have given up the memory of going to Albus to beg him to save Lily. I recall being summoned before the Dark Lord and realizing what he believed the prophecy meant, but I do not recall my meeting with Dumbledore. Yet I know it took place. I know it because I thought about it again and again afterwards." He looked directly into her eyes, and his face grew cold and still. "I thought about it just after I killed the old man."

Hermione realized she was holding her breath. She reached across the table and stroked his hand reassuringly. "You did what was necessary," she murmured.

"Perhaps," Snape replied stiffly. "I certainly recall taking the Unbreakable Vow, and I know what the consequences would have been had I not honored it. Draco himself told me what he had been charged to accomplish. He actually thanked me for killing Albus for him." He looked sick and disgusted.

"The Vow?" Hermione asked.

"I promised his mother I would finish the job if he could not. I bound myself to him through that promise," Snape answered bleakly. "I would have died if Albus had not, and then Voldemort would have killed Draco. If I had not committed murder in his stead."

"But Dumbledore--" Hermione cried, and then she stopped. She gazed at Snape for a long moment. "Severus," she began at last, "take them back. Look at them all carefully. I believe there is something crucial in them that didn't leave... an echo, as you call it. I know you would rather walk away from it all," she continued in a rush as he turned his head from her. "But trust me. Please."

He turned back to her and took her hand in his. "Hermione," he said carefully, "that part of my life is over. I can never atone for what I did. Reliving it serves no purpose."

"Trust me," she repeated softly.

He let out a sigh and lowered his head. "You won't let things be, will you?"

She stroked his hand. "You truly have forgotten 'the force that is Hermione Granger,' haven't you?" she asked, smiling gently.

He raised his eyes to meet hers. "I doubt I shall ever be able to forget it again," he replied.

~~~~~~~~~~

She watched him closely as he returned each memory. She could scarcely believe that she had once thought this face to be ugly and cruel. Now, she saw the hooked nose as strong and aristocratic, the angle of the chin as fiercely independent, the creased brow as a sign of incredible intelligence and wit, the curtain of hair the defense for a surprisingly sensitive man against an unfair and unfeeling world.

And how could she ever have judged those eyes to be empty of all feeling, when they now revealed every vulnerability of the man behind them, this man who owned her heart and caressed her soul?

She watched him meet Lily again, become her friend, and lose her forever. She watched him throw himself on Dumbledore's mercy, his world shattered by his own foolhardy actions. She watched him meet Lily's son for the first time and struggle with his preconceptions about the boy he was charged to protect. She watched him deny his own unshakeable courage. She watched him save Dumbledore's life but recognize that it could be only for a time. She watched him receive Dumbledore's final orders, realizing that Harry would have to die, despite all his protections, and that Albus was demanding his own murder at Snape's hand to carry out the grand plan for the salvation of the Light.

As the final vision of the silver doe returned to his mind, Severus sat back in his chair with a great exhalation. "He ordered me to do it," he murmured wonderingly. "It was a mercy killing. It was what he wanted."

"I know," she replied. "That old bastard! How could he demand that of you?"

Severus met her eyes. "It was brilliant, actually. It secured my place with Voldemort, simply by taking advantage of the inevitable."

"The fact that he was willing to die for the cause didn't make it right for him to maneuver other people into sacrificing their own lives!" Hermione said indignantly. "He manipulated Harry! And he didn't give you a choice! How were you supposed to live with that!"

Snape stared solemnly at the empty crystal flask. "I wasn't supposed to," he said quietly. "I was supposed to be dead by the end of the battle."

"I saw the formula you created for the antivenin," Hermione said, her voice calmer. "I gathered you were ready for all possibilities."

Snape smiled grimly. "I was simply glad of the Dark Lord's penchant for theatrics. It gave me... options."

Hermione threw him a speculative look. "The only thing in all this that was a real surprise for you was finding out what Dumbledore had ordered you to do, that murdering him was his idea."

Snape nodded. "I must confess I had not guessed that. And there were indeed no echoes to suggest it." He leaned his head back and let out a breath. "It does explain a great many things."

"But does it make it easier to live with?" Hermione asked hesitantly.

He contemplated her question. Finally, he replied, "I do not know how easy it should be to live with." He looked across at her, suddenly realizing that she was not asking merely for his peace of mind. "Hermione, forgive me," he said. "I meant that death in any form shouldn't be taken lightly. But when there is good that comes from it..."

He continued to simply look at her. At last, he answered, "Yes. I believe it does help to know why I did that one particular thing. It was truly the memory I had lost completely."

"I'm glad," she said. She chewed her lip thoughtfully. "But I don't understand why you wouldn't have remembered that, why there weren't any traces of it anywhere else in your memories."

"Ah, but you see, I was a spy," he said placidly.

"Of course you were. What does that have to do with anything?" she asked impatiently.

"The Dark Lord had to believe my reasons as well as my actions," he explained. "He had to think that I had killed Albus to carry out my Vow and to support his cause. He could not know that it was part of Dumbledore's plan, or I would have been exposed, and the plan would have been ruined."

"Yes, I quite see that. But you are an expert Occlumens. You could have hidden that from him."

"I would not have liked to bet my life on my skill. Voldemort had his own strengths." Snape shivered. "Now I know that it was the first memory I removed, that night, just before I went to see the Dark Lord. I never put it back. I saved it to give to Potter, but I never put it back in my mind. It would have been too dangerous."

Hermione stared at him. "But... then you have spent almost five years thinking you were a murderer," she whispered.

Snape looked at her bleakly. "As I said, I was supposed to be dead myself. It should not have been an issue."

Hermione flew around the table and grasped his face with both hands. "Severus, the war is over. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am for that. You deserve to live, and I don't mean just survive. You can stay here, of course; I meant what I said, that you have earned the right to do whatever you wish. But I think you should come back. Come back with me."

She leaned in and kissed him gently. His arms went around her, one hand in her hair, and he deepened the kiss, drinking in the scent and the taste of her and shutting out the world.