Ten

"It's human to have a secret,

But it's just as human to reveal it sooner or later."

...Philip Roth

15th October 2004

Hermione is 33

Yesterday's storm has passed, and the morning sunshine is warm and beautiful as it shines through the window and spills across my bed, gilding the bare skin of my back. I can feel the heat of his skin beneath my cheek, hear the steady beat of his heart so close to me, but I'm irrationally afraid to open my eyes. Maybe I'm dreaming and all of this will evaporate into the sun if I dare to look.

The deep rhythm of his breathing changes as he wakes, and his fingers shift against my spine, then start to trace soft circles through the sunlight on my back.

Dreams never feel as real as this. I can open my eyes, now.

Sunlight feathers through my eyelashes. I gaze at the sharp line of his jaw. He's real. His pulse throbs beneath the thin skin of his neck in time to the comforting thud of his heart. My gaze shifts from his neck. His chest is white and thin. The rippled corrugation of his ribs just beneath his skin as his chest rises and falls with each breath makes my heart ache for him. It's like stress and unhappiness has stripped every superfluous part of him away until just the core of him has remained. A dark line of hair trails from his navel across the convex stretch of his stomach, down to the line of pubic hair just visible above the edge of the sheet with the bulge of his morning erection evident beneath it. All my nerves tighten, and something warm and tight flips lazily in my belly.

"Good morning." His voice is low and husky and perhaps somewhat tentative. There's something breathless about waking up with a new lover...even with declarations of want or love shiny and bright in the air, there's that uncomfortable moment of uncertainty before you gaze into his eyes to see if he's actually sorry or embarrassed to be intertwined and naked with you.

I prop myself up on one elbow...my round, silver pendant slides to nestle between my breasts. His dark eyes follow its path for a moment before they lift to meet mine. His gaze is calm and clear and open... my heart begins to beat again; it feels like it had stopped for a moment, anticipating being shattered and torn. He moves his hand from where it covers mine on his chest and touches one, long finger to the traveller's saint. "Traveller," he murmurs. It sounds like acceptance rather than accusation.

"Yes," I agree with a slight smile. Slowly, I lean forward to brush my lips against his. He meets my lips halfway. Then I lean back and say, "I came across Time for you, Severus. I love you; I always have."

He quirks an eyebrow at me and his lips twitch, and suddenly, in one smooth movement, I'm trapped beneath him, and his cock is pressing hard against my thigh. His lips are hot at my ear. "You stole that line from Terminator," he growls, and I giggle, caught out.

"Doesn't mean it's not true," I return artlessly, squirming with delight as his lips trail past the shell of my ear and down my neck.

The chime of my doorbell freezes my joy. Realisation and fear lance through me like ice. It's Friday!

12th October 2002

Hermione was 26

I'd always loved Friday afternoons with Julia.

Travelling was exciting and exhilarating and fascinating, but sometimes the solitude became unbearable, like my thoughts became too loud for my mind to bear. Julia was more than my mentor; she understood my unusual life, my unconventional path. Tea and company... it was never truer than on Fridays, when my thoughts could spill over into the air and there was somebody to listen to my ramblings and my fears.

"Sometimes," I said, examining a wayward strand of hair for split ends so that I wouldn't have to look into her knowing, wise eyes, "I feel like I'm bursting with the... the enormity of it all. I wish I could..."

"Hermione," she cut in, setting her teacup down, "we have already spoken of this at length." Although her words were harsh, her tone was gentle. "You walk a very different and divergent path from your Harry and your Ron."

Sometimes the path felt too narrow and razor-sharp, with no room at all for love or companionship.

"I know," I said with a sigh. I left no footprints in the past...I Travelled the divergent and lonely path.

I glanced up at her, then, and I could have sworn I saw an echo of my pain, some flash understanding that went far beyond empathy.

15th October 2004

Hermione is 33

I close the bedroom door behind me as I rush into the living room, pulling my snarled hair into a tight ponytail. The doorbell chimes again. I glance at my desk: my travel log remains untouched; on top of it my Chrono glints in the beam of sunlight that slices across the room. She told me not to Travel for a few days; I'm not sure I'll get away with claiming a whole week! My heart is heavy with dread as I open the door; I afraid that I can't scrape a convincing smile together that will fool Julia.

Her cloud of perfume...it's spicy and strong and exotic...makes me feel dizzy when she gives me a hug. "Such a beautiful day!" she enthuses as she breezes past me. I close the door and then smooth my robes; I didn't have time to put on underwear under them... I feel exposed and vulnerable. I press my lips into a hard line for a moment and take a deep breath. When I turn around, tears are threatening already, swelling my chest with a hard and tight ache, but I tighten my resolve and prepare to lie again and again.

I can feel Severus' presence in the flat...can Julia sense him, too? Can she finally sense the deceit in me after all of this time?

"Tea?" I ask with as much normalcy as possible as I turn.

Julia is staring at me intently. "Do you remember," she says slowly, "when we spoke of how the path of the Traveller was different and divergent?"

I have to fight the urge to flee: She knows! "Ah... yes?" It feels like my feet are frozen to the floor. My fingertips twitch, and I fight the urge to clench my hands into fists. I have to make myself walk over to the couch. I sit stiffly across from Julia, waiting for the axe to fall.

Julia twirls a strand of beads around a gnarled finger. "Well... that much is true." She sighs. I don't understand where she is going with this. "Now I know we have spoken of the nature of Time and preserving the integrity of events..."

My head droops on my neck under the weight of my guilt. I cannot look at her.

"...but we have never talked about Fate before."

My clasped hands are blurred. My heart is sick, sick, sick with dull and blunt horror. How far would I go to protect what I have with Severus? I couldn't hurt Julia, could I? Could I bring myself to Obliviate her? Where is my wand? I'm sure I left it on the tea tray yesterday.

She chuckles and continues with her monologue. "Fate is a strange creature, Hermione... even stranger than Time herself. Sometimes Fate will be so strong she will spiral around Time, transcend it..."

"I... I don't... understand," I say eventually. The tear that streaks down my cheek is cool against my flushed skin.

She leans forward and touches my hand. "I know... I have always known."

"Ahhh." Surprise escapes my lips in a bubble. I glance up into her wise and wrinkled face, looking for answers there.

She sighs softly. "Yes." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry that I could not tell you or support you these last months, but my interference would have been unwise, I think; if you had known..." She shakes her head again.

"How... did you know?" I manage to whisper tightly. The dread has gone, and it is replaced by a strange, uncomfortable notion that I've been drawn along to this very moment in an inexorable tide of destiny.

She smiles, now. "Oh. Perhaps it was chance... perhaps not, after all." She shrugs and her scarlet-tipped fingers flutter. "When I Travelled to Sydney several years ago, I met a very interesting witch and a wizard there. I have returned to visit with them often; they are very dear friends of mine, now."

Tingles of foreshadowing tickle down my arm. I rub at them vigorously.

Julia smiles at me, her lips stretching wide. "And they told me their story, their fascinating, intricate love story. And it was tightly woven with my own story, in the end. You and Severus have a lovely home in 1955, my dear. I love visiting you!"

The world is hazy again. It feels like the world has turned itself inside out. I can't quite grasp this new reality, and I flounder to find appropriate words. "I... er..." I sigh loudly. "I thought it wasn't allowed," I blurt out, all my pent-up anxiety spilling out like a secret. "How..."

Julia rolls her eyes at me. "We have just discussed Fate, have we not? You'll have a lot of time to think about things in the sunshine Down Under, anyway. It'll give you something to do." She sighs, too, now. "The rules are an impossible ideal, and humans...with our hearts and souls interfering...well, we make mistakes. Time and Fate take advantage of that, perhaps. Who knows."

For a long moment I wonder if her story is larger than I'd ever imagined. Fifty years is a long time. Did she lose her heart to a man out of Time, too? Then, before I can ask her if I'm the only one, Severus steps into the living room looking bemused; he's obviously been eavesdropping, and he's as bewildered as I am.

"Severus!" Julia says, standing up in a flutter and whoosh of vermillion silk. "It's been a while." She beams at him.

He frowns and stares at her, and I can see the gears turning in his head, like he's taking the pieces of her and trying to place them into a hole that just won't fit. "Julia West... but I taught you."

Julia grins at him, her wrinkles creasing deeply into laugh-lines. "Of course you did, Professor Snape," she says with a loud laugh. "I didn't like Potions much, by the way."

Faced with the twists and ironies of time, Severus looks floored. I can imagine why: the woman standing next to him looks at least fifty years older, yet she was younger than him only a few years ago! I thought that my time with him as Hope had inured him to the obvious side-effect of Travelling, but it's staring him in the face, now, bold as brass.

Severus takes several moments to compose himself. It looks like he's Transfigured a set of black robes for himself with my wand; he looks pale but handsome. I'm floating in the knowledge that he and I will be together... in the past. It's so much more than I'd ever hoped for, so much different than I'd ever envisioned!

"You blew up seventeen cauldrons during your tenure in my classroom, Miss West," he informs her with a smirk.

Julia snorts and turns to me. "This one is a real keeper, Hermione," she says dryly. "Now, perhaps you'd like to pack and get organised to Travel for the last time?" She reaches into her robe pocket and pulls out a silver bracelet.

I gasp. She's holding my Chrono in the palm of her hand. It seems I'm going to give up my Travels.

I've found my place in Time. I've found my heart.