Part the Fourth

I must thank you all for your wonderful reviews and comments. They make me feel wonderful.

Special thanks to the most awesome beta in the universe, stgulik, for her flawless work, her suggestions, her encouragement and her delicious sense of humour.

While Hermione was off on her cryptic mission, Severus returned to the kitchen to do the washing up. Start as you mean to go on then, he told himself. If he was, indeed, planning on staying indefinitely as a guest of the Grangers, he could at least tidy up after himself. Rose eventually wandered in and began drying the dishes, citing that as 'her job.'

"Mum and I always work together," she said, working neatly and efficiently. "Mum always washes and I always dry. She says many hands make light work." Severus nodded, and gave her the last plate. He remembered helping his own mum in very much the same way when he was Rose's age.

Hermione had still not returned by the time they were done, so Rose returned to the telly while Severus distracted himself by perusing Hermione's small but impressive collection of books. As his eyes roamed over the various spines, he could not help but approve of her taste. It was, after all, startlingly similar to his. Having to sell the family home on Spinner's End had not been nearly as upsetting to Severus as having to part with his beloved books. He had spent almost twenty-five years amassing a personal library to rival most wizards, only to stand by and watch as all the volumes were shrunk down into boxes and carried off, never to be seen again.

He had a feeling he knew where Hermione had gone and why, and he felt his old prideful resentment wanting to rise. He shook his head. What was wrong with him that he railed against the fact that Hermione genuinely wanted to help him? Was Dumbledore's old broken record still scratching away, about how undeserving he was? Wasn't it time to learn a new tune?

Frustrated with his conflicting thoughts, his eyes fell across a well-worn first edition of Potion: The Physical Manifestation of the Magical Intent by J. Brabbington Forsmythe. It was an extremely rare book; he had known of only three still in existence. He had owned one of them. Easing it carefully from the shelf, his heart skipped a beat. As someone who cherished his books and was intimately familiar with their every physical attribute, Severus found the pattern of worn fibers on the cover disturbingly familiar. The customary ex libris wizarding stamp had been removed from the flyleaf. Flipping open the back cover, he noted with a jolt a tiny mark, the same mark he habitually placed on the back cover of every book he possessed. Although it looked like an innocuous little blot of ink, it was in reality another magical identification stamp, one that the seller had not detected.

Severus turned toward the fireplace just as the Floo activated, and Hermione came striding in, looking steely-eyed and ready to do battle. She relaxed when she spotted him. "Severus! Sorry about that - just a little business I needed to attend to. Have a seat and I'll make us a cup of tea." She indicated the book in his hands. "What did you find to read?"

"One of my own books," he said, then closed his eyes, wondering to which planet his manners had emigrated. He sounded as if he were accusing her of stealing.

With a puzzled expression, she said, "Your books?"

Haltingly, Severus told her how he'd been forced to sell his entire collection, and showed her the magical stamp the sellers had overlooked. Hermione's eyes grew wide. "Show me the stamp, Severus," she said, and he opened the book to the back cover. With a wave of her wand, a glyph rose from the small mark, revealing a complicated runic-like symbol. It wavered in the air, shimmering like air above a hot pavement, then snapped together to form the letters "STS" over the book.

Hermione looked at the letters, her face strained. "I checked this book for marks, and I remember seeing this glyph." She turned to him. "Why did it never occur to me that this was yours, Severus?" She looked genuinely upset, and he felt a pang of conscience.

"Why should it?" he asked diffidently, still holding the book.

She looked up at him with troubled eyes. "Because I knew your initials. I knew you collected books. I should have put two and two together." She looked away, and murmured as if to herself, "Why was it so easy to forget you?" In a small sad voice, she asked, "How could I forget Severus Snape?"

Severus took a deep breath. "Hermione, I think-"

Her eyes grew wide. "Hang on!" She interrupted, holding up a finger. She turned to Severus with dawning excitement. "I bought this book at a crate sale at Flourish and Blotts about two years ago. You know, they have these huge boxes of books-" she indicated with her hands, "- and you make an offer for the entire crate. Well, they had a massive overstock and anyone could see they were selling them for a song, and I-"

She stopped and grabbed his hand. "Come with me, Severus!" She all but dragged him up the stairs to a small attic room that she used for storage. "I pulled out a few of the rarer books and stored away the others until I could decide how to build my library. Ah, here they are!" She retrieved a small cigar-shaped box, and from it withdrew ten small crate-like boxes. "We'd better stand back," she said impishly, and enlarged the boxes until the two of them were surrounded by ten enormous wooden crates.

On impulse, Severus opened the one nearest to him and froze. He opened a second crate, and a third. By the fourth crate he was almost hyperventilating. Every book in the crates had once belonged to him. He turned to Hermione, trembling with excitement. "These are all-" He stopped and looked down into the crate. "These were all mine."

He looked back up at the young witch. She was beaming with delight. "Well, they're yours again!" she declared.

His excitement faded. He shook his head. "No. I sold them. You bought them fairly. They belong to you."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be daft, Severus! You sold them because you had to, and I bought them because I could." Her face was alight with joy. "Isn't serendipity wonderful?" She gave him a little hug and released him before he could react. "Happy Christmas!"

He looked from the lovely witch down to the old friends he'd thought lost to him forever, and tried to think of words adequate enough to tell Hermione how he felt, how jubilant and humbled he was. All he could do was smile. He couldn't help it. He felt elated. "Thank you, Hermione. You have no idea-" He touched her cheek. "Just, thank you."

Hermione patted his arm. "Now I've gotten my Christmas pressie. A smile from Severus Snape. Rarer than his books, but all the most precious for it."

Abashed, he looked down in confusion. His emotions were so hair-trigger, he wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. Instead of doing either, he reached into one of the crates and withdrew a worn, well-thumbed copy of the children's classic, My First Wand. In monetary terms it was too battered to have been worth anything. By rights, it should be in a rubbish bin somewhere, and yet it had somehow found its way back to him, through Hermione. He had shown her little more than scathing derision for most of her life – and she and her daughter had given him nothing but compassion and friendship since their reunion.

"This book belonged to my mother. She used to read it to me when I was a little younger than Rose." He pressed the book in Hermione's hands. "I didn't keep it so much to read, but because it reminded me of when she used to read it to me. I'd like to give it to Rose, if you think she'd like it."

Hermione's smile almost carved him up with tenderness. "Rose Granger, daughter of Hermione, not want a book? Have you met her?" Tilting her head, she added, "You know, I bet she would love for you to read it to her. You have such a lovely speaking voice. Would you do that?"

"I would." He looked at Hermione, who was still looking at the crates with a look of confused frustration on her pretty face. He knew what had placed the frown line between her soft brows. Severus made a decision.

"Hermione," he began, and took her hand. Her eyes grew wide, but allowed him to draw her closer. When she was almost touching him, he said, "You keep asking why you forgot about me, why you didn't go back to the Shrieking Shack." When she nodded, he bit his lower lip.

"I am the reason."

She looked into his face, as if trying to comprehend those four words. "What are you saying, Severus?"

He gripped her hand tightly. "I can show you why, but we need a Pensieve."

"Severus, my boy! I'm so glad to see you! And Hermione! You're looking lovelier than ever!" Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts, rose with difficulty from her chair and accepted Hermione's peck on the cheek. "I hoped I would see you sometime soon."

After Severus had made his cryptic request for the use of a Pensieve, Hermione had called on her former Head of House, now Headmistress, who agreed to let them come round the following day and use the large one that took pride of place in the Headmistress' study. Severus had both looked forward to and dreaded the meeting.

Minerva sat back down, gasping. "I'm afraid my breath is as short as my days now," she huffed, without an ounce of self-pity. She fixed Severus with a patented glare. "I'm sorry I haven't been by to see you, my dear boy. I tried to get messages to you, but my owls kept returning with my letters. Where have you been?"

Sitting across from the woman he had known practically his entire life, Severus realised with a shock that Minerva was dying. He shot a look to Hermione, who returned it gravely.

Minerva had been the only person who had called on him after he lost the house, but her visits had ceased abruptly six months before. Hermione had warned him that Minerva had fallen very ill, but Severus had not realised it was this serious. Since the war, the Daily Prophet had always been discouraged from printing personal news about the headmistress or the staff.

All this time, he had half-believed Minerva had stopped visiting him because he drove her away. Now, he realised the truth: she had stopped because she was no longer able to do so. In fact, she was barely strong enough to stand for longer than a few minutes at a time. It grieved Severus to see this mighty witch grown so frail and weak.

Her tone, though, was still brisk and no-nonsense, and the gimlet eye that locked on Severus was uncompromising. "Well, Severus? Are you going to tell me what happened? You're not so old that I can't winkle it out of you if so needed."

"Merlin forbid that anyone would think that, Minerva," Severus replied dryly. "Greenbrown threw me out," he replied, unable to look her in the eye. "I didn't have a stable address, until recently," he concluded, risking a glance at Hermione. And after what I show you today, Hermione, that could change, he thought.

Minerva shook her head. "Why didn't you contact me, boy?" She looked more disappointed than disapproving. "Why will you persist in believing that you're not worthy of the help of your friends?"

He opened his mouth to answer, and felt Hermione's hand gently alight on his arm. "I've asked the same thing, Minerva."

Avoiding both pairs of eyes, Severus murmured, "Because it's very easy to alienate your friends, and then get angry at them for allowing themselves to be alienated by you. That is, if you're stubborn, and you have money." He looked at Minerva and confessed, "After the money ran out, I realised I'd been swallowing my pride and licking my wounds for so long, I was at the point of starving to death." At Minerva's bemused look, he felt his face grow warm. "I've become a little fixated with food lately. I didn't have very much the month before Hermione and Rose found me."

Minerva nodded, having already heard about Severus' situation from Hermione. "All I can say is thank Merlin for Rose." She smiled. "Mimsey!"

A plump little house-elf instantly popped into the room, beaming a great smile. "Yes, Headmistress, ma'am?" she squeaked, obviously delighted to be of service.

Without breaking eye contact with Severus, the headmistress answered, "Mimsey, please bring some extra cakes for Mr. Snape. And some of that gingerbread he was so fond of."

The house-elf nodded enthusiastically, and disappeared instantly. It seemed like only a few seconds had passed before she reappeared with a tray groaning with gingerbread, petit fours, scones, fairy cakes and tea fittings. Severus' impressive nose quivered at the delicious assortment of goodies. He caught a look between the two women. It was fond, and it was indulgent, and he resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at them as he piled his plate with gingerbread, two scones and several petit fours – the pink ones, which he never allowed himself in the presence of others.

When they finished their repast, Minerva caught Severus' eye, and he nodded. He could not put this off any longer. Minerva began, "Now, what has brought you two here today to commandeer my Pensieve?"

Severus turned to Hermione. "There is a memory I have to share with you, but I will need your help in accessing it." He had never asked someone to extract his memories, and to be honest, wasn't sure it would work.

Hermione watched him carefully. "Yesterday you said that you were the reason I forgot about you." When he nodded, she added, "Will this memory show me why?"

"Yes," he said. Hermione lifted her wand to his temple. He concentrated hard as she pulled out a strand of memory as gently as a mother pulling her daughter's hair into a braid, and stirred the memory into the Pensieve.

Turning to Hermione, Severus said quietly, "We're going to be visiting a particularly pivotal moment in time, during the year you, Potter and Weasley were on the run, searching for Horcruxes." He swallowed. "Something significant happened on this night, but until now, you were unaware of it."

Glancing at Minerva apprehensively, Hermione took Severus' proffered hand, and together they lowered their faces into the swirling contents of the bowl.

The sight that met her eyes was so distinct she immediately knew where she was and on which day. It was the Forest of Dean on that bitterly cold Boxing Day, eleven years earlier. She could remember so vividly the dry, cold air that night. The stillness all around her as she left the two boys alone in the tent, her thoughts so jumbled and tinged with anger and fear she could barely think straight. Ron had just returned to them, and she was overcome by both the thrill of seeing him again and a burning fury that he'd behaved so selfishly in the first place. Their reunion could only be described as an awkward detente of sorts, and Ron had the good sense to heed Harry's suggestion to leave her alone.

Harry and Ron had been strangely reticent about what had actually happened when they destroyed the locket; neither seemed capable of looking her in the eye. Rather than confess her throat-constricting relief that the Horcrux was finally gone and Ron was back, she'd muttered something about 'checking the wards' and left the warmth of the tent to do battle with her thoughts.

As she had walked the invisible boundaries of her strongest, most impenetrable wards, it was preternaturally silent, except for the wind sloughing softly in the trees, and the flakes of snow that fell like whispers into the night. Amongst the tall trees, she had felt so lonesome she thought she might cry. The boys were oddly divorced from her, and while she knew it had something to do with the Horcrux, she had neither the resources nor the energy to speculate or discover why.

She had been cold, she had been tired, she had been hungry, and she had wanted to be somewhere warm, where no one had ever heard the name Lord Voldemort or Harry Potter – or Hermione Granger. She had wanted a hot bath and a soft bed. She had wanted her mum. She had wanted to go home.

In the Pensieve, Hermione observed her memory-self through someone else's eyes, as if someone were walking beside her. She looked at Severus in confusion. He merely gazed forward, watching her eighteen-year-old self trudging tiredly down the line of the wards.

As she watched. she suddenly recalled the feeling of powerful magic touching her wards that night. It had been strong, masculine magic, the kind that could break through her wards like a knife slicing through butter if it chose. It had felt like static in her head. It had rubbed up against her magic in the dry, cold, moisture-free air, crackling against her in a way that should have bothered her, but in reality felt – familiar. Almost comforting.

She had thought she was merely imagining it, like a person will imagine a scent they associate with a friend. She could clearly remember her confusion; later she would tell herself she had imagined it as a balm to the alienation of the boys, and her own loneliness.

In her memory, she had walked the perimeter and returned to the outside of the tent, where she'd sat guard for the rest of the night. But as her memory-self turned away from the tent instead, Hermione was filled with sudden, clear knowledge that this was the moment when reality and her recollection parted ways.

The perspective changed, and that's when she saw him at the edge of the clearing, just inside her innermost ward. Severus Snape, the despised Headmaster of Hogwarts, stood watching her. In the cold, hard light of the moon, immobile as the tall pines of the forest, he looked like a pagan statue left in the clearing by some ancient tribe. Surrounding him was an ethereal, almost mystical aura that gave him an aesthetic beauty that seemed reserved for Hermione alone. He was wearing his customary black, his pale face and hands making the snow grey by comparison. As Hermione watched, the moon shone bright and lustrous in his glistening, midnight-black hair. The wind suddenly picked it up and swirled it behind him.

He turned and looked at her memory-self, as if he'd been expecting her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be in the Forest of Dean in the middle of the night in the middle of the coldest winter she could ever remember. She realised that he had been the unseen person walking beside her, on the other side of her wards. He had been able to see her.

He watched her approach with the calm, passive indifference of a Buddha. Watching her memory-self approach this dark sorcerer, Hermione turned and looked at the actual Severus. "What is this? A dream?" Almost the moment the words left her mouth she cursed her stupidity. This was no dream. This was his apology. Instead of the night she remembered as passing with no incident save a long, lonely walk around strong wards, he was showing her the actual true events which had passed.