five
Chapter 5 of 11
SomiglianaHermione has deviated from an obvious life. She has moved down a challenging and divergent, but ultimately lonely, path. She meets Severus Snape by chance one day, and she has some difficult choices to make.
Reviewed"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."
...Antoine de Saint-Exupery
5th August 2004
Hermione is 32
I am so weak.
After I attended Severus' trial in 1981, the dreams got stronger and more vivid. They shifted in nature, too. Where we used to sit and play chess or fill in the crossword or talk and talk for hours in the calm and restful dreams, suddenly I was panicked and desperate. I saved him from death each night, faced nightmare creatures and impossible circumstances so that he could be safe in my arms before I woke. And his gratitude in the dreams was overwhelming: he'd fill me and cover me so that sometimes I'd wake and run my hand down my arm, wondering if he was under my skin.
It got to the point where I couldn't bear not to go back with the express goal of watching him, until his face was more familiar than my own, until I lost my heart to Time again. And then when even that was not enough to fill the yawning hole in my soul that grew from my ever-growing longing, I did something even worse.
23rd March 1989
Hermione was 31
In all the time I'd spent watching Severus Snape behind a slew of glamours and Polyjuiced faces, I'd discovered he'd adopted an indulgence... perhaps something to drag him through the long years, the quiet and silent years, of indentured service under Dumbledore.
He didn't have classes on Thursday afternoons, and more often than not, he'd hole himself up at a corner table in the Hog's Head and slog his way through the daily crossword with the help of some tea or some (or more than some, occasionally) Firewhisky.
I ran through scenarios in my head the entire morning, like:
a: I sway my hips slightly as I walk across to the bar. I glance over my shoulder nonchalantly. He looks up from his crossword puzzle and gapes. I smile in a sultry fashion. He almost falls over his feet in his haste to buy me a drink.
b: I pointedly ignore him until I'm seated... in his line of vision, of course. He glances up and a spark of recognition gleams in his dark eyes. He stands up and walks over. "Hope," he says in that chocolate and chilli voice of his, "I've been hoping to run into you again."
What really happened didn't involve a sultry me or a pickup line from heaven.
I ordered a Butterbeer from Aberforth, pretending that I wasn't aware that this simple action might haunt me in my past and in my future. Severus didn't so much as flicker a glance in my direction. Trying not to walk with slumped shoulders under the weight of my disappointment, I sat at a halfway across the room from him. The Butterbeer was bitter on my tongue, as if the makers had forgotten to imbue it with warming magic. I sighed and opened the Daily Prophet, and then, in a silly notion, I began to fill out the crossword puzzle, as though our linked actions would bring me closer to Severus.
Perhaps, I told my sore, sore heart, it was better this way: if I did this for much longer I was going to lose my soul to time, as well.
The sun fell through the grimy windows in long, meagre slants, and my Butterbeer was almost a memory in its bottle when Severus grunted with disgust. "Five across?" he muttered, and for a moment I thought he was grumbling to himself, until he raised his raven-dark eyebrows at me when my gaze flickered up.
Hope, like my false name, glittered like Felix in my heart and suffused through my veins until it warmed my cheeks. "P-pardon?" I stammered.
"The answer to five across," he repeated slowly, and his lip began to curl into a sneer that told me I was perilously close to achieving dunderhead status.
"I'll trade you for three down," I said after a moment's hesitation.
His lips quirked and there was an amused glint in his eye. "Very well," he said smoothly. Well played, Slytherin, said his appraising expression.
I'm afraid that addiction is a slippery slope. From then on, I made deals with myself: I'll trade you five days of recording this or that dead-boring historic event for just three hours of another Thursday afternoon with him. I gave a weak pretence of arguing with myself about it, but I knew that I was just fooling myself.
I hid the stolen hours recorded by my Chrono within the other trips I made, adding an hour or so to each of my other Travels until my time was in perfect reconciliation.
My lies to Julia started to feel less heavy on my tongue, and somewhere along the line my guilt eased into a dull, background pulse. For a while I was worried that she'd figured it out; she certainly sensed that something was wrong.
4th June 2004
Hermione was 31
Julia closed my travel log and placed it on top of my latest notes. She beamed at me...a huge smile to match her sunflower-patterned robes. "Well, you have been diligent, my dear. Those centaurs can talk in endless circles, can't they? I must commend you for making sense of it all... I always thought it a great pity that the Ministry never gave them their due."
I nodded distractedly and gave her a weak smile. "They... had some good points, yes." I sat with my legs tucked up underneath me, a cooling cup of tea in hand. My mind had drifted, thinking of Severus, while she'd scrutinised my week's efforts, although I'd slanted a watchful eye as she'd glanced at my travel log. Week after week my stomach would curl itself into a tight ball and I'd just wait for her to spot some small inconsistency in my accounting.
She frowned and gave me a concerned look. "Are you... all right, Hermione?" she asked.
I tried to smile more genuinely, but my effort wasn't good enough because she shifted closer to me on the couch.
Perhaps the tenuous hold I kept on everything, like trying to keep a huge armful of wet laundry from dropping to the soil, was slipping. I didn't feel remorse for Travelling to see him (it was the only way I knew my heart could still beat), but I felt horrid for lying to Julia.
"Oh, Hermione," she said in a voice full of empathy. "I know how hard it can be sometimes... how lonely. You should have said something to me sooner." She smiled kindly at me.
To my absolute horror, tears began to well in my eyes. I swallowed hard and shook my head.
She rubbed my arm. "It will get better with time, I promise. It is always difficult to let go of friends from your life, friends who love you and will not let go easily." She sighed softly, like there was some secret pressing against her lungs.
And then my heart lurched so painfully I put my hand to my chest. I hadn't owled Harry or Ron in months and months of the present time, I realised. I'd just forgotten in all of the rush and excitement of having Severus. But what actually hurt more was that they hadn't owled me, either.
And... my problem wasn't who I was letting go...it was who I was holding on to.
He was my secret, and I think, I was his. I was a diversion outside of the life that leeched the vitality from him. I was easy. I didn't ask him for anything. I sat in my chair across the bar each week and waited for him to come to me, like a child baiting a timid dog.
I won't lie to myself and say that he fell desperately in love with me during that time; the promise that he'd made to Lily was like a dense shroud around his heart. He carried her with him in the shadows that haunted his eyes; the reticence of his infrequent conversation; in his absence from the Hog's Head for three whole weeks after Halloween.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I saw, mostly with my soul, who he could be to me, if only I weren't an intruder who was sneaking into his life when I shouldn't, stealing time where it wasn't meant to be stolen.
22nd February 1990
Hermione was 31
It was a Thursday afternoon, much like all the others I'd Travelled back to. Hogsmeade was still bitterly cold, and the wind clung onto winter with long and icy fingers. It was worse that I was coming from the lovely and warm summer of 2004, but I gritted my teeth as I ducked my head into my hood because nothing could warm me more than the first glimpse I'd get of him through the greasy front window of the Hog's Head.
I was getting better at lying to myself: I deserve a little break from the goblin treaties; it's just a little conversation; no harm can come from this; I just like doing the crossword with somebody intelligent.
My mind just wouldn't accept what my heart and soul already knew: I was in love with a man who was condemned by Time to die.
When I drew close to the Hog's Head, I didn't notice the difference at first because my head was dipped low and my hair whipped in the wind, tugging loose from its plait.
"Hope."
I squeaked with surprise and jerked my head up. He stood, leaning against the wall of the bar, waiting for me, apparently.
"Oh." I was gaping like an idiot. "Um... hello, Severus?" My greeting was more of a query about the change. It's odd how quickly I'd become accustomed to the quiet routine we'd built around these afternoons.
He stood up straight and gestured toward the dense woods that fringed and cradled the small wizarding village. "I have something to show you," he said, and he began walking in that direction without glancing over his shoulder to check if I would follow.
I would follow him, yes, wherever he wanted to go.
I finally caught up with him...he had long legs and an efficient and measured stride. "Um... w-where are we going?" I huffed. Sitting on my arse at so many historic events had made me a little unfit.
But he didn't answer or stop until we reached a clearing just a few minutes into the verdant forest. And there, at his feet, taking shelter in a stiff and shivering copse of grass were the prettiest white flowers I'd ever seen. "Oh, how lovely," I said, bending to brush a fingertip to their velvety petals. A soft and melodic tinkle wound its way around me like a lullaby. "Oh! They're Snowbells..."
"Yes," he said brusquely. "I came across them yesterday when I was harvesting knotgrass."
I squinted up at him from my kneeling position. His arms were crossed over his chest, like he was waiting impatiently for me to finish. Like I was being an imposition on his time.
And then I realised: I'd told him I was a Herbologist. He'd brought me here to see these very rare flowers. I glanced back at the Snowbells, and suddenly I couldn't breathe through the intensity of my emotion. I struggled through my awe for several long moments, steadying my emotional response.
And then I stood again and nodded, my smile carefully neutral. "Thank you."
And then we went back to the Hog's Head and resumed our usual routine like he hadn't shown me a glimpse of his heart through all of that hurt.
I have to remember that for me it has all come in a four month rush. It has escalated to the point where steal a piece of Thursday for my heart almost each and every day of the week, now.
In Severus' frame of reference, I have been around for almost two years. I'm not quite sure what I am to him. Perhaps a History of Magic reference; a friendly face once a week; a woman who (amazingly enough) does not push him for personal details about himself (I know them all already, anyway).
He's never made a pass at me...I don't think his broken heart has space for another epic and tragic love story...but I know that in his own way he's become fond of me. Our friendship, for that is what it has become, has shifted over time. Severus has never invited me up to the castle, nor to any other private space. But perhaps every second or third Thursday, he waits for me outside of the Hog's Head and we do things that oddly distant friends do. I pretend to bitch and moan when he drags me to a potions exhibition, and he pretends to get hay fever and sore feet at the botanical gardens. I yawn and roll my eyes at the art gallery, and he snores rudely at a matinee.
But I am ever aware that my stock of Thursdays is running out fast; they are rushing like a river towards the first of September, 1991. That was always a golden date for me: the day I first stepped into the magical world and grasped at my destiny with clutching and greedy hands.
I get a fist-sized knot of nerves in my stomach when I think about it. Will he see beyond the round and childish face of an eleven-year-old and recognise my eyes at once?
Or will I agonise and fret while my younger self matures and grows into her face?
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Latest 25 Reviews for The Traveller
117 Reviews | 6.06/10 Average
I love you.
Beautiful 😃
I honestly think this is my favorite fan fiction,,, it kept me guessing :)
*heavy sigh of relief* beautifully done! thanks so much
This is exquisite...please hurry with the next chapter (thank you for saving our Severus)
Normally when I start new stories, I wait until I'm caught up before I review. But I feel I need to comment here before I read the next chapter to see what happens.Whenever I read a time travel story, I always try very hard to interpret each writer's concept of time and meddling with the past. There are so many ways to meddle with it. Suppose someone traveled back in time and bumped into someone, who then dropped his briefcase, was late to a meeting...I've always enjoyed Anne McCaffrey's interpretation, and I have yet to see anyone else use it. I've been trying to figure out how to word it, but I can't. Nevertheless, it seems that you may be the first person to replicate Anne's model of time travel. The way I see it is that Severus's portrait has been that way because Hermione did go back and grab his body. There is no altering the future. When someone travels back in time, that's just the way it is. It's almost as though the decision has been made twice.I guess if you've read the books you'll understand. I just felt that I had to point this out. I'll continue to read and see what happens.PS. Good story
Response from Somigliana (Author of The Traveller)
You know, I've had McCaffrey on my "to-read" list forever, but I've never come around to picking up her books. Is that her Pern series, or another of them?There are a lot of ways to interpret time, yes, and I was very tempted to do a multiple universe and shifting future at one point but got hopelessly entangled in even thinking about it. The way I've gone about it here is that you cannot change the future, no, because everything has already taken place. Time is a continuous thing; things have already happened, even if people don't know why or what caused it, and you're right about his portrait, yes. Thanks so much for reading, and for your very thoughtful comment :)
Response from rachow (Reviewer)
Yes, it is the Pern series. The dragons can teleport through space, so it was theorized that they could also teleport through time, which proved true. The time travel was one of the more difficult concepts to grasp for me, but since you already understand it, you shouldn't have any problems.I've read all of the Pern books and the Crystal Singer books. I tried the Acorna series, but they didn't hold my interest through the third book. It was too hard-core science fiction for me. I might be able to try again, since I've been exposed to more science fiction since then. The pern books are only science fiction in the prologue. The premise is that humans colonized Pern about 2000 years before the first published story took place. They genetically altered an indigenous life form into dragons to protect them from Thread, a mindless organism that falls from the sky and devours organic material but can be killed by the fire-breathing dragons. During the battle to survive, their technology was lost, even down to not having plastic. So there isn't a whole lot of science involved in the reading. It gets more complicated during the books that take place right after landing and during the latest chronological books when they stumble upon their ancestor's artificial intelligence voice activated system and rediscover a lot of lost technology. I would recommend reading them in order of publishing in order to understand all of the concepts. I hope I haven't thrown too much information in here. But, if any other readers of the reviews are interested, I suppose now they have more information, or they can contribute more.
Response from Somigliana (Author of The Traveller)
That sounds absolutely fascinating. I have admittedly been drawn to more hard sci-fi lately, which is why I skipped McCaffrey in favour of Bujold and Orson Scott Card and Neal Stephenson for a while, but now I'm definitely going to have to pick up Pern :)
Exquisitly written. Gut wrenching and heart warming at the same time.
Response from Somigliana (Author of The Traveller)
Thank you so much :)
Oh, what a way to end a chapter! There is so many questions that need to be asked.
Response from Somigliana (Author of The Traveller)
Thank you so much--the answers are sure to be here soon :D
I'm so glad he's able to WANT things, finally.Thank you for writing such a beautiful resolution for Snape. It was such a shame he didn't get a decent closure in canon. I treasure the fics that: 1)give him a convincing new start, 2)convey what having the option of a fresh start would mean to the character.You managed to capture the essence of what I'm looking for in a Snape fic - in that single sentence at the end.BRAVO
Response from Somigliana (Author of The Traveller)
Oh, thank you so, so much for such a beautiful review. *holds it to my heart*You're the type of reader who every writer treasures, you know. Srsly.
I hope this isn't the end, though it is a nice ending. I just enjoy this version of Hermione and Severus. The world you've built them for this fic is one of a kind, and I am savoring it.
Response from Somigliana (Author of The Traveller)
Two more chapters to go, so not the end yet :)THanks for reading.
Hope, indeed! :)
Aww, Hope and Phoenix tears... lovely.
oh my. what a wonderful update. thanks so much
Excellent job! I like how you have managed to synchronize Hermione's age with Sev's. I am looking forward to his reaction and Hermione's expanation!
Oh, I love this story. I am looking forward to reading more. Great job.
Yes!Perfect!
Response from Anathema (Reviewer)
ADDENTUM: I did not have much to say, other than expressing my sheer glee. However, after reading other reviews, I have to agree with sentiments expressed.Ha! Eat that J.K.R!Down wit the tyranny of the Hallmark Epilogue from Hell!Long live Good Ol' Ship HMS Granger/Snape!Power to the people! More power to fic writers!Viva la Revolucion!etc!
More please, NOW!!!!!!! Love it, love it, love it!
What a fabulous chapter! The letter, the watching, the waiting, and finally the awakening--only to end it right there! Aggh! I can't stand it! I must know what's next!
I sincerely hope that Hermione won't get into trouble for doing this... although, knowing the twists of time and Travelling, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Julia knew all along that Hermione would do this from their very first (from Hermione's perspective, anyway) meeting. Can't wait to see what unfolds.
A chance for him to finally be free and happy, but I am wondering if she will have to keep him hidden or she might "have some 'splainin to do."
How did I ever miss this story? I just read thru all 8 chapters and am begging for more ... powerful stuff.
BTW, what a wonderfully sneaky way of saving Severus from the dreaded DH epilogue!
So nice to see another story where J.K.R. is thwarted. :)
I imagine Hermione will have some guilt issues to deal with, but in the long run I think she made the right choice.
This chapter made my heart ache.
Such a cliffy! Such UST. I can hardly wait for more.
This is an amazing story. Confusing at times, but very intriguing. I like the premise, the idea of "Travelling." Sounds like something only a really powerful witch or wizard would be able to do.
I must say that someone who travels back in time simply to observe is not the type of person Hermione would have chosen to be if she wanted to make a difference. But if she felt compelled by forces beyond her control to do this, perhaps the difference she will make is in the outcome of Severus's life. Now that would be worth all that she has endured, to bring Severus Snape back to life somehow.
I anxiously await your next chapter.
i just re-read the end of the chapter and oh I am so excited to see what comes next!