Post Facto

A.N.: This is the epilogue to this story; I hope it pleases. I want to thank all of you who made it this far, and a heartfelt thank you to my PI beta, Moonrevel, who stuck with me through the entire process and whose suggestions and insights were invaluable. :)

~*~

Hermione picked up the copy of the Daily Prophet that an owl had delivered earlier that morning. The front page headline read: FORMER MINISTER OF MAGIC, LUCIUS MALFOY, SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS IN AZKABAN PRISON. HIS SON ABSOLVED OF ALL CHARGES. Despite the uproar that the Wizengamot's decision was bound to provoke, Hermione suspected that Lucius would serve even less time for his crimes.

The newspapers had long since stopped publishing stories about the dozens of trials that had followed Voldemort's fall – the news of Bellatrix Lestrange's suicide after discovering that her own husband Rodolphus had led the insurrection against her beloved Dark Lord had been nothing more that a postscript. But unlike other Death Eaters who had met swift justice, either during the night of the battle or later in front of the Wizengamot, the Malfoys' trial had dragged on for six months and had been plagued with mysteriously disappearing documents and curiously forgetful witnesses.

With a resigned sigh, Hermione set down the newspaper and turned to the mirror. She gathered her hair back and secured it with a pin at the base of her neck. It had taken some convincing for the healers at St. Mungo's to allow her to go home with Harry and Ginny, but her work had proven more curative than any treatment she could have received.

As a founding member of the Hope Project, and with the full backing of the newly restructured Ministry of Magic, Hermione had reunited dozens of children with their hand-witch mothers and had placed many others in suitable, adoptive homes.

There was a soft knock at the door.

"Come in," she said.

"You wanted the owl?" Ginny asked, stepping into the room and motioning toward the Spotted Owl perched on her arm.

"Yes, thank you."

Hermione picked up the letter from her nightstand and secured it to the owl's claws. "Take this to Severus Snape," she said and watched the owl take flight out the window.

"I don't understand – you write to him everyday, but you won't speak to him. And he never writes back," Ginny observed, her hand absently massaging her own pregnant belly that barely showed beneath the robes, a contrast to Hermione's, which looked about to burst.

"He knows why I couldn't see him, and I asked him not to write to me," Hermione explained.

Hermione had lost seven years of her life – seven years with no magic, no freedom, no belief other than a frail and absurd hope that she now knew was the lingering awareness of a brief and temporarily Obliviated conversation.

It had been raining that day, and water had gathered in shallow puddles on the rickety platform of an unfamiliar train station. The oldest of the group, Hermione had gathered the frightened, younger children around her, trying to instill a sense of security in them that she didn't feel, the memory of Harry's and Ron's deaths still fresh in her mind.

"We are going to be alright, just be very quiet and pay attention to what's going on around you," she had been saying to a panicked girl who could have been no older than twelve, when she was brusquely yanked away from the group by one of the black-hooded guards.

Every instinct told her to resist, but the children were staring up at her with wide, frightened eyes, and she didn't want to scare them any further, so she went willingly with the Death Eater. Behind a large, wooden beam that concealed them from view of the others, the Death Eater pushed back his hood, and Hermione found herself staring into the face of her former Potions master.

"We only have a moment, Miss Granger, so listen carefully. I don't have time to explain to you now why I did what I did, but know that I'm not what you think. You won't remember any of this, but I couldn't let you go without the knowledge that there are others who survived, and that I will do what I can to keep you safe until you can be rescued. No matter where you are or how long it takes, I will find you, but you have to promise me that no matter what happens, you won't give up hope."

She was stunned. Unable to formulate a coherent thought, she merely nodded. Snape then shoved something into her pocket and replaced his hood; he gripped her chin tightly and stared into her eyes.

"You won't remember any of this," Snape said, "instead, you will remember receiving a note from the headmaster during the summer after your sixth year, and carrying that note with you at all times in the firm belief that one day it will lead to your rescue. Do you understand?"

Hermione nodded slowly, trying desperately to hold on to a memory that was already fading away.

"Get back there!" the Death Eater ordered in a strangely distorted voice, pushing her toward the platform no sooner had he pulled her away from it.

Hermione looked up at him in confusion.

"Any trouble?" another Death Eater called out to the one shoving her ahead of him.

The Death Eater who had pulled her away shook his head and walked away.

"What did he want?" the young girl asked her.

"Nothing. He was just trying to frighten me – some sick game."

Her heart still beating erratically, Hermione had reached into her pocket and touched the note from the headmaster she always carried with her for reassurance.

Ginny's voice brought Hermione's thoughts back to the present. "He's going to be there, you know."

"I hope so," Hermione muttered.

Hermione flashed her friend an enigmatic smile and threw a cloak over her shoulders.

"Let's go; we are running late, and I still have to drop Camilla off at my parents' on the way."

Hermione followed Ginny to the living room where Remus was kneeling on one knee, talking to Gavril.

"Why can't I come too?" Gavril whined in a voice that sounded much younger than his eleven years.

"It's not a very nice place where we're going. Besides, Hermione's parents need you to help them take care of Camilla."

Gavril twisted his face in disgust and glanced at the toddler that sat patiently on Molly's lap. "Alright," he conceded once he had made his displeasure known.

Hermione gathered the toddler in one arm and offered her other hand to Gavril.

Remus watched her through narrowed eyes. "Are you sure you don't need any help?"

"I'm sure. You go ahead; I'll meet you all there."

"May I?" Gavril asked excitedly.

Hermione nodded. "Go ahead,"

Gavril tossed a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace.

"Grangers' home," Hermione said as all three stepped into the green flames.

The visit to her parents' home was brief this time. Normally she would stay for hours, catching up on lost time with her parents and giving them the opportunity to get to know the granddaughter that until recently they didn't know they had, but today more pressing matters intruded into Hermione's thoughts, and her heart fluttered with excitement at the idea of seeing Snape again. After saying her goodbyes, she Dissaparated from her mother's kitchen.

She felt the bone-chilling cold and heard the strange howl of the wind before her eyes had a chance to adjust to the gloominess of her surroundings. She was high on a rocky cliff, and dozens of witches and wizards stood on every protruding rock and jagged peak around her, staring somberly at the valley below.

It had taken months of research and trials to find the counter-spell that would release the souls trapped in the Valley of Death, and it would take the combined effort of this much magic to see it through, but the truth was that even if they hadn't been needed, every one of those people would have wanted to be there for the singular pleasure of wiping out one of the last physical remnants of Voldemort's existence from the face of the earth.

"I see you didn't receive my message, or perhaps you did and simply chose to ignore it," Snape's voice said from behind her.

"And I see you received mine and chose to acknowledge it," Hermione responded without turning around.

She had suspected that Snape would write back asking that she abstain from attending the gathering at the valley; that's why she had waited until the last minute to send the note asking him to meet her at the same spot where they had stood when he had first shown her the valley.

She had fervently hoped that he would come, but too much had happened since the battle at the Ministry for her to harbor any certainty. Snape had spent two months at St. Mungo's recovering from his injuries, and another week in a cell awaiting a hearing in front of the Wizengamot in which Hermione had refused to testify. The trial had been a formality, seeing as how Kingsley Shacklebolt was the head of the Wizengamot, and most of the members had at one time lived in the town of New Hope and were already well versed on Snape's activities as a spy.

"You seem determined to place yourself and our child in the path of danger." Snape's eyes studied her carefully as he took his place next to her.

"The only way I would have missed this is if I were at the hospital giving birth."

Snape didn't argue; instead he said, "About that, Miss Granger..."

"Hermione," she interjected. "You make me feel like a foolish schoolgirl when you call me Miss Granger."

"You were never foolish, Hermione, not even as a schoolgirl."

Hermione wondered if the stirring of pride she felt was because the compliment came from one of her former professors, or from Snape.

"I assume the reason you wanted to speak to me is because of the impending birth of our child," Snape added.

Hermione nodded – that would be a start.

"I'm afraid I've already overstayed at Grimmauld place. Ginny is expecting, and Charlie is getting married in a few weeks – the house is getting a little crowded. I will be moving into my own place in a few days."

"Potter is putting you out on the streets?"

Hermione almost laughed at the undercurrents of suspicion and indignation in Snape's tone. Despite her numerous talks with Harry, and his fervent testimony at Snape's hearings, Hermione doubted the two wizards would ever come to an amicable understanding of each other – they were just too different.

"No. I just think it's time."

She would have said more, but at that moment Harry's voice rang across the valley, clear as if he had been standing next to her.

"Ready your wands," he ordered.

Hermione aimed her wand at the valley below, and Snape did likewise.

"On the count of three – one, two, THREE!"

Light flooded the valley and pooled at the bottom. The wind picked up for an instant, whipping the luminous pond into a violent whirl that suddenly gathered and shot up to the sky in a brilliant jet.

Together they watched the souls of their long-departed comrades soar in the light, free and triumphant at last. Hermione felt Snape's arm slide around her waist, and she smiled.

~*~

Twenty-five Years Later

Hermione stood to the side of the stage in her prim black robes, waiting for the last of the former hand-witches to finish addressing the crowd. The applause from those gathered was her cue to enter.

"Thank you, Roselyn," she said to the woman leaving the stage as she took her place behind the podium and looked out into the sea of solemn, young faces before her.

Since the publication of her two books: Despotic Principles of the Dark Reign: An Analysis of Documents and The Dark Reign as Seen through Diaries, both part of the standard curriculum for the Modern Magical History course she taught at Hogwarts, Hermione had conducted these lectures dozens of times – in schools and auditoriums, church-halls and Quidditch stadiums – and this was always the hardest part. There was always something more she wished she could say, something that would convey the true horror of the times, but she knew that no words could ever do justice to such suffering. So she settled for her usual closing words.

"During the first year after the end of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named's reign, the Hope Project rescued fifty-eight hand-witches from slavery and provided many more with medical care, counseling and shelter in the years that followed. But those women were only a fraction of the true measure of this atrocity committed against Muggleborn witches. Ministry records discovered after the war put the number of hand-witches at roughly three hundred and fifty; some estimate the actual figure to be as high as six-hundred. The identities and fates of many of these witches remains unknown to this day, so it's up to us who are here today to make certain that even though their names are lost to history, their sacrifice was not in vain. We should remember them, be ever vigilant of the warning signs, and ready to take action so that history does not repeat itself. I thank you all for coming. Good night."

The crowd broke into thunderous applause, and Hermione took a bow. She was leaving the stage when she noticed a young woman in the front row, her outstretched hand waving frantically in the air.

"Madam Snape, Madam Snape!" the girl called out.

"I see you have a question," Hermione said with an amused half-smile.

The girl nodded and jumped to her feet.

"Is it true, Madam Snape, that your husband was one of You-Know-Who's Faithful, and that you were his hand-witch?"

The crowd fell silent, and all faces turned expectantly toward her. Hermione tensed for a moment, but she continued to smile indulgently. Severus Snape's work as a spy for the Order of the Phoenix and his role in Voldemort's final downfall had been well publicized after the end of the Final War, but the tale of the hand-witch that married her captor was just too tantalizing for people to easily let it go.

"My husband was a spy for the Order of the Phoenix, posing as a Death Eater," Hermione explained.

"Were you a spy too; is that how you knew who he was?" the young woman's companion asked.

"No, I wasn't a spy – I was a hand-witch – and he didn't tell me he was one at the time either."

"And you still married him?"

Hermione looked to the back of the lecture hall, where Severus sat accompanied by their two grown children, Camilla and Tobias, their son-in-law Gavril, and their little granddaughter Hope, who was bouncing happily on his knee, before her eyes traveled back to meet the young woman's.

"Yes, I did. Because, you see, ours is a love story, and a very good friend once told me that it makes no difference how a love story begins – only how it ends."

The End