Chapter Four

Chapter Four

November happened to be unusually mild and, taking advantage of an espresso break between classes, Hermione suggested a different kind of field trip to Snape.

"I'd like to invite you on a picnic this Saturday, someplace out-of-the-way."

"Neither of us has a mode of transport, unless you intend for us to Apparate. I wouldn't advise it, as it may draw undue attention from the NYC Department of Magical Regulation." Out of the way? This city isn't unusual enough for her?

"We'll take the subway," she responded confidently.

"Oh, of course." He nodded sagely. The below-ground metal death-trap. Does she really think I enjoy spending time like a goblin, in enforced company with malodorous strangers?

They met that Saturday afternoon, outside the Cathedral Parkway station at the blue C line.

"Snape," she essayed tentatively.

"Granger," he responded in a neutral tone. He found he could call her this, as if she were a colleague or . . . a friend. She simply grinned up at him like the cat that had got the cream, happy that he accepted her sobriquet without demur.

Hermione had a MetroCard, and as she swiped Snape into the station, she wondered how he got around town. Does he walk everywhere? Take taxis? I can't see him on a bus. Snape sat bolt upright in his seat, his proper British trench-coat tucked around him like a shield. Hermione wore jeans and trainers, a jumper and a nondescript jacket.

They transferred to the A line. The train climbed out of the ground as they left the city and entered the outer boroughs. The gleaming office buildings gave way to small houses; a few showed personal effort expended in gardens or bright trim, but most looked rather dingy and weathered. As they got further out, he was astonished to see marsh grasses, sea birds and ramshackle fishing shacks.

The train reached the end of the line – Rockaway Park. As they exited the station, he saw the signs pointing towards the beach.

"New York City has many charming features. I was not aware that a beach was one of them . . . "

"Well, surprise!" Her enthusiastic tone masked her anxiety at springing an unwelcome shock to his system. She stole a quick glance at his face and found the familiar inscrutable mask to be firmly in place. Reassured that he wasn't about to hex her, at least not immediately, she continued. "Let's walk a bit, shall we?"

He sighed and they took off their respective shoes and socks and rolled up their pants. The sand was cool and soft underfoot, the sky a dark slate. The water was clear glass-green with minty foam crests. All they could hear was the drone of the waves and the occasional lonely gull.

Hermione felt keenly aware of the empty space around them, the silence, the absence of insulating strangers. She thought Snape would appreciate the direct approach, so she plunged right into the musings that few others could appreciate or understand. "After it was all over, was it enough for you? Receiving the award, the recognition?"

"I am satisfied that I finally had the opportunity to bring down the bastard that ruined my life, yes. I know that without my assistance in letting the Order know where to find him and removing the anti-Apparation wards, Potter never would have got close enough, cloak or no cloak. How on earth, though, did you think of using Imperio on a snake?" Stroke of genius, that. Just about the only creature that could have gotten close enough to the Dark Lord to do any damage . . .

"Well, after Harry's fiasco at the Ministry, we knew that he wasn't very good with the Unforgivables. Crucio was right out, and he doubted that he had it in him to be, you know, evil enough to cast the Killing curse. Oh, Severus, I am sorry, I didn't mean . . . I don't think you're evil. . . "

She called me 'Severus'. She thinks of me as 'Severus'. He didn't know what to make of this unconscious admission – but he felt like flinging some sand around with his wand. He didn't, of course, as that would be unseemly.

"Dumbledore said, 'Only you know what damage it will do to your soul to help an old man die a less painful death.' It did damage me to kill the man who had been as a father to me for most of my life, of course. How could it not? But it didn't rend my soul . . . Anyway, returning to Potter and his pure heart . . . "

"Yes, well, he didn't think he'd be able to kill anyone in cold blood, not even someone who really deserved it, like Voldemort. But I remembered that the Imperius curse could be cast on an animal from when Barty Crouch Jr. was posing as Moody – and with Harry being a Parselmouth, it made perfect sense."

"And the Horcruxes? How did you know that Voldemort wouldn't be able to return again? His body had been destroyed before, you know . . . "

"Yes, but this time we knew about the nasty things – three had already been destroyed: the diary, the ring and the locket. We knew that there were a couple more, but I figured that once Voldemort had been disposed of in such a gruesome manner, his followers wouldn't be that difficult for the Order and the Aurors to mop up."

Snape noted that when Hermione spoke of their plans in general, she said "we," but couldn't hide the fact that she was usually the one who did the thinking work. He suppressed a smile, allowing only a small glint of humour to reach his eyes, and brought his attention back to her rather wordy explanation.

"And as we knew that Voldemort had given Lucius Malfoy one of his Horcruxes in the past, it made sense that he would have distributed 'tokens of his esteem' to other highly placed Death Eaters, even if they didn't know the full significance of the gifts. It seemed likely that Veritaserum could get us the answers. That's how we found that the Lestranges had the Hufflepuff cup, and Dolohov the Ravenclaw diadem. We knew that a fang from the basilisk destroyed the diary, and we knew that the sword of Gryffindor was imbued with basilisk venom . . . I'm sure that's what Dumbledore meant by leaving the sword to Harry in his will."

"What of Nagini herself?"

"After the Animal Healers had ascertained that Voldemort had been sufficiently, um . . . digested, we used the sword to decapitate the animal, and it was then incinerated. There's a fragment of Voldemort remaining in Harry to this day, but without the animating essence of Voldemort himself, and the rest of the Horcruxes destroyed, the soul fragment isn't strong enough to possess him. Harry's innate ability to love and be loved prohibits its growth . . . Harry figures he'll have it in him until he dies, and then Voldemort will be truly destroyed."

This was a strangely pleasing thought to Snape – Potter and Voldemort both being dead – although he assumed it would happen after his own demise, being some twenty years older than the boy. Twenty years older than Hermione too, of course. The reminder made him pensive, and they walked along without speaking for some time.

"This looks like a decent spot. Let's stop here and eat our lunch." Hermione took a miniature basket out of her pocket and tapped it discreetly with her wand, enlarging the hamper. She removed a blanket and spread it on the ground. "Can you find some rocks to weigh down the corners?" Snape raised his eyebrows and, giving her an admonishing look, removed the several books he had stashed about his person and used those instead.

She placed a Thermos of hot tea and two mugs, some crisp ginger biscuits, and a paper sack with a couple of "everything" bagels with cream cheese and lox (because it was New York, after all) on the blanket. They sat in companionable quiet, munching and reading. Hermione belatedly remembered the beach chairs she had shrunk and stashed in her other pocket, so they sat in comfort. He feathered lazily through the latest issue of "The Practical Potioneer", while Hermione settled into a mystery she had checked out from the library.

"Real literature, that," he sneered as he snuck a peek at the title. "The Man in the Brown Suit"?

"Snape, did you know that during the First World War, Agatha Christie worked in a hospital dispensary compounding medicine, like you used to do for Hogwarts? Working with poisons too, of course." She smiled sweetly up at him, enjoying his discomfiture as he sought for something dismissive to say, but failed to do so within a reasonable amount of time.

Their camaraderie was part of an unspoken agreement to not discuss what it all meant. Neither of them belonged, and yet they felt comfortable with each other. There was so much that they didn't have to explain. He rarely laughed, and yet she understood when he was being sardonically humorous. They shared a view of circumstance that was often ironic, well aware of the frequent absurdities of life.

He watched her profile as she read – the breeze lifting her hair, patterning it like the sand sculpted by the waves, the clouds laid out like lazy beaches in the sky. He wished he could put walls around this moment and call it home.

On the way back they were squashed together on the subway, just other faces in the crowd of people heading into the city. He had caught the sun on his face, and her hair was windswept and bushy, but with tendrils of curls from the sweat on her neck. A year ago – a month ago, even – he would have been outraged at being in such proximity to other people, being pressed up against her in broad daylight. But now, they just smiled ruefully at each other and tried to pretend that it was just one of the exigencies of Muggle transport. He couldn't believe that all that separated them were a few layers of clothing and the eyes of the general public.

Author Note: thanks again to excellent beta work from queenofspades and servantofall36. I'll admit to being particularly pleased with my solution for what to do with Voldemort and the Horcruxes.