Chapter 8

She looks awfully flustered, he thinks, for having got a name wrong.

"Don't worry about it, Hermione," he says. "I can't believe I would have expected you to remember the name of a childhood playmate."

His words don't have the desired effect; she's gone white.

"Sit." He guides her by the elbow to a cinderblock at the edge of the playground. "What did I say that's got you spooked?" He's not sure he wants to know, if he's honest, but he can't stand seeing her so shaken.

She looks hesitant. "The answer requires me telling you something about you... from before," she says. "Do you want to know?"

From the look on her face, he's increasingly sure he'd be better off staying ignorant. He nods anyway.

She looks uneasy and won't meet his eye.

"What? What is it?"

"I don't think I should be the one to tell you," she says at last.

"Who, then?" He is exasperated and anxiety buzzes beneath his skin.

She doesn't answer, just glances around at the empty playground, then pulls her wand from her sleeve. With a flick, white mist shoots from it and rushes off.

"What was that?"

"Sending a message," she says.

"Don't you lot use telephones?" They can disappear on command, but don't have a more efficient way to communicate?

She laughs weakly. "You would think, right?" She sighs. "Magic interferes with electronics. But even if it that weren't the case, wizards are very slow to change their ways. I used to fight it, but now..." She opens her hands in surrender.

This seems to make her deeply sad, and he has the urge to march in to whoever is responsible for the wizarding recalcitrance that has led this passionate woman to abandon the fight for what she believes and tell them a thing or two.

But he's distracted because without warning she's jumped to her feet. A man with a messy shock of black hair has appeared from out of nowhere at the other side of the yard. He's wearing dark glasses against the afternoon sun, but Severus has the impression that he's the sort of man who would wear them even if it were overcast.

Severus huffs.

It shouldn't matter that Hermione is hurtling across the barren space towards the stranger, but it does. He shouldn't mind that they're leaning in towards one another, heads together, whispering something he can't hear at this distance, but he can't stand it...can't stand being on the outside.

The black-haired man nods, and now he's got his hands on Hermione's shoulders.

Severus bristles.

Before he can take more than a step or two, they turn towards him. Hermione's arms are folded across her body, and she looks miserable. The man says something Severus can't make out even though they're closer now. Must have been 'stay back' or some such, because Hermione isn't moving, and the man is approaching him.

"Hello, Severus," he says.

He's wondering if he'll ever get used to random strangers knowing his name...acting as if they know him...when the man turns his head just as he takes off his sunglasses.

The man's eyes meet his, and Severus can't breathe.

Those eyes, those...

Brilliant green eyes that cut him until he bleeds...

...and remembers.

Which, he realises right before he blacks out, may as well, in his case, be one and the same.

**

It's dark again when he opens his eyes, and he's sprawled across the lumpy sofa in the front room. His head is pounding, and even the hushed conversation beside him hammers into his skull.

"Most celebrated Auror in a century couldn't manage to side-along Apparate me into an actual bed?" he grumbles, eyes squeezed shut to block out even the tepid light.

"You're awake," Hermione murmurs, at his side before he can open his eyes.

"Obviously."

"And apparently himself again," says Potter, the touch of amusement in his tone as irritating as those damned sunglasses.

"For whatever that's worth," he mutters and throws an arm over his eyes.

"What do you mean, 'for whatever that's worth'?" Hermione's voice has gone shrill and he wishes she'd go back to whispering.

But he doesn't answer, just shakes his head...which he's sure is about to explode. Old memory and new...implanted, and newly formed over the last six months...collide, leaving him with vertigo and a blistering migraine.

Even his teeth hurt.

A waft of icy air envelops him, and the pain eases.

"Thank you," he murmurs. He takes a breath, long and deep.

"Would you like tea? Or maybe something cold to drink?"

She sounds nervous, and his shoulders tense in a spasm of pain. He doesn't want to hurt her; he's never wanted to hurt her.

"Water, please." He moves his arm and opens his eyes just a bit. "With ice. Thank you, Hermione."

She nods and goes to the kitchen, leaving him alone with Potter.

"She thought seeing me might be the memory trigger," he says without preamble. "It's why she was so nervous."

"Hermione has always been one to make intuitive leaps," Severus observes, levering himself upright. "She just doesn't always anticipate the consequences."

Potter nods and frowns, eyeing him closely. He looks for a moment as if he might speak, but instead sits back in his chair looking thoughtful. Severus is impressed despite himself. He'd never have expected the boy to keep his council.

He looks again at the man who so resembles his father, but for his mother's eyes. Eyes, and, he has learned over the years, spirit. It doesn't make him any more likeable; in fact, it makes it far more difficult to be around him than when he'd believed him selfish, stubborn, and arrogant.

But no, that had never been Potter...not Harry, at least. It had been him all along.

Severus Snape. Myopic in the extreme. Selfish and arrogant enough to have thrown away what he loved most for the illusion of position and power.

But Hermione is back now, and he doesn't say any of this. Just takes the glass of cold water from her hand and makes a show of drinking. He isn't thirsty, despite being parched. His stomach is churning too much, and a familiar weight sits squarely on his chest.

"Severus," she asks, her voice steadier than before, "what do you remember?"

And it's the simplicity of the question above all that cuts through the fog.

"Everything," he says, looking her in the eye for the first time since waking. "I remember everything."

"Everything?" she asks. "Even..." Her voice catches and she doesn't complete the thought.

He shakes his head as if she had. "It's the same as before, I think."

She looks crestfallen, but her disappointment wars with her obvious relief.

"Well, you've at least regained what you lost. That's better, isn't it?"

She looks brittle, he thinks, and he wonders absently if she has the capacity to withstand the storm.

"Not better. Clearer." Like the sky before a tornado. Black, with a corona of light making the edges sharp.

She shivers.

"Hermione," he says, "this...regaining my memory...it doesn't change anything."

He's still confused, she thinks. Otherwise he'd never say something so ridiculous.

"Of course it does, Severus. It changes everything. Let's go home, and we'll talk about it..." Her words come out in a rush, but he cuts her off.

"No, Hermione. This is my..." He swallows, refusing to meet her eyes. "This is my home now."

She's speechless, though only for a moment.

"Severus, we need to get you to a Healer. Who knows what they did to you apart from alter your memory?"

But he's shaking his head, his eyes closed, and a chill creeps through her.

"I know what they did," he says. "I told them to do it." And in a whisper, "I begged them to."

Light explodes behind her eyes and she struggles to catch her breath. He's suffering the after effects of the attack and the sudden recovery of his memory. It's not possible that he told them... that he begged...

"No, Severus. Stop it. Please." She might be yelling, but it's hard to tell because she can't hear anything over the whooshing in her ears.

"I won't. Not this time, Hermione."

She collapses onto the chair alongside the couch and tries to regain her breath and her balance...though she fears both may be irretrievably lost.

"So tell me, then. What did you tell them to do?" Whatever it is, they'll get through it as long as they have each other. She won't lose him again, not ever.

"They were outside the lab that night. Waiting there like they knew our routines. They said they'd been watching for you, but I would do just as well. Better, actually." His voice wavers and he takes a breath. "I couldn't believe what was happening. Right there in front of the hospital. I kept thinking somebody would come out, and they'd run. I just hoped it wouldn't be you." He swallows thickly. "I was so grateful it wasn't you."

Hermione nods and clutches his hand. The streets had been desolate when she'd finally cleared up and left the lab...as if all the other living creatures had known to make themselves scarce under the Harvest moon.

"What did they want?" she asks. As if such beasts had anything so mundane as wants.

He shakes his head, but still won't meet her gaze. "They gave me a choice. To wait for you to come out, or to go with them."

"Wait for me to come out? Why?" They'd been after Severus. What would they want with her?

Finally, he looks up. He looks haggard, the lines of his face as deeply etched as if he'd just emerged from a nightmare.

"They were planning to kill you."

Harry and Severus both lunge to grab her before she lurches forward and hits the floor.

"Kill her? Merlin, Snape! Why did they want to kill her?"

"How like an Auror to expect rationality from madmen," he mutters. "Get your tenses straight, Potter," he continues. "They still want to kill her. They apparently aren't any more fond of Muggle born witches who rise above their station than they are of Death Eaters who turn against the Dark Lord. They forgot to fill me in on their deeper motivations whilst we sipped our tea."

He's breathing hard. "They will kill her if I come back."

He looks at Hermione.

"I had to go with them." His eyes plead with her. "If I hadn't, I would have spent the rest of my life with the knowledge I'd been responsible for the death of the woman I love." Again. He didn't say it aloud, but he didn't need to.

"I told them to take me, but only if they left you alone. I don't know why they agreed. Maybe they thought it would be more painful for both of us. They even made wand oaths. Honour amongst Death Eaters." His laugh is a sharp bark. Mocking, and Hermione wants to shake him.

"But why? Severus, why not fight them? Why not tell me so we could go to the Aurors for help?"

He snorts and she wonders if he'll say something disparaging about Aurors, but he just furrows his brow, looking almost embarrassed.

"They got the drop on me. I'd already been immobilised. And then..." He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head.

"Then, what?" What had they done to him?

His nostrils flare. "They reminded me that I am a liability, Hermione, that's what. Never fully out from under the black cloud. Told me that so long as I stayed, so long as I tried to make a go of a normal life, they would make it their business to make sure you would never be safe. It's because of me. It always is." He looks mutinous, daring her to argue.

"We've had this discussion, Severus." Countless times, she thinks. Early in his recovery, and for a long time after. When he had still been prone to slipping into dark moods, silent and despairing.

But that period had passed long ago. He had, she'd thought, moved beyond seemingly bottomless guilt and fear to embrace a life together. She doesn't understand what is pushing him to despair again, especially now when he's regained his memory, and she's found him.

"Everything I touch, I destroy, Hermione. It's a talent; I don't even have to work at it, you see." He's shouting, and she has a flash of how out of control he'd been the night she and Harry rescued Sirius. Crazed. Betrayed. "I don't have much," he hisses, "but at least let me have a scrap of honour."

She's about to protest. About to tell him all the reasons he's already honourable, how she needs him and can't bear it...when Harry interrupts.

"Do what he says, Hermione." Harry's voice is sharp, and Hermione winces.

"Do what? Leave?" Surely she misunderstands him. She's not leaving her husband after spending six months searching for him.

"For now. You know where to find him. I'll stay here for a bit. I have something to discuss with Severus."

"You... what?" Just this morning her world had been heading back to normal at last, and now it was as upside down as ever. Harry would stay with Severus while she left? What is he thinking? She's not leaving him here to go back...to what? To her empty house and empty life?

"I don't want..."

"Don't argue."

Even Severus raises his eyebrows.

"I will until you tell me what is going on," she shouts.

"I need you to trust me, Hermione."

Trust him. Trust Harry. Harry who is sending her away when she's certain the only place she should be is right here. She's tired of having her instincts overridden, and furious at being expected...again...to close her mouth and comply.

"I don't understand."

"I know."

She stands there, two of the men she holds closest to her heart standing side by side.

Not exactly the way she'd envisioned them finding accord with one another.

Fine, then.

"I'll go," she says, and she's sure her heart is breaking. "But I'm coming back." She doesn't know whether to look at Severus or Harry.

"I'll send a Patronus," Harry says.

She notes he's careful not to tell her what the Patronus might instruct. Well, too bad. She doesn't need to wait for his permission.

"Go, Hermione."

She nods. But before she steps into the ether, before she returns alone to her empty house, she reaches into her bag and pulls out something long and narrow. She holds it out to Severus.

His wand. The conduit for his magic, and the only object Hermione has kept close to her continually for the last six months. He looks at it only briefly before closing his eyes and shaking his head.

She stands for a moment, her hand held out to him, hoping he might relent.

But he only folds his arms, shoulders slumped, and turns away.

~~**~~