Chapter 23

A/N: We are drawing nigh to the end, my very dear ones, and then our journey together will be complete. Three more chapters after this one will bring us to the end of summer (or winter if you're south of the equator!) and the end of my story. Group hug?

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Transcendent Quality of Remembrance

Chapter 23

Hold on to the past tense tonight

Don't say a word, I'm OK with the quiet.

The truth is gonna change everything.

Lie

10 July, 1998

Severus sat beneath what had become one of his favourite trees and relaxed, his duties of patrolling the perimeter of their Secret Kept hideout complete. It was amusing to consider his 'favourite' of anything, as he was not wont to think in such terms, but indeed, the world seemed a more benign place now, with the Dark Lord defeated and Hermione once again behaving as she'd done on their wedding weekend.

He tilted his face to the sky, the morning sun streaming through tree branches, his hopes rising mercurially, escaping his customary firm grasp on the grim reality that had been his for all his life. There was a giddiness in such freedom of thought, and unaccustomed though he was to such flights of fancy, he recognised them for what they were.

'She wants me.'

He said the words to the slivers of blue sky visible through the branches, to the gently wafting breeze, to himself, the unlikeliest auditor of all

What did people do at such times? They planned their futures together, obviously, but what sort of template did he have for such formulation? There were the dimly remembered notions of marriage he had gleaned in childhood as the prisoner of Tobias and Eileen Snape, but he had no desire to revisit those horrors on any part of this new life with Hermione. As an adult, he'd had little intimacy with other adults to observe their family lives. He knew with a certainty that he could take no pointers from the Malfoys and their icy approach to family life. And the Weasleys had always welcomed him just as if he were someone other than Severus Snape...as if they were unaware of the ostracism he deserved for the way he had lived his life...yet he could not imagine patterning his home life after the child-cluttered chaos favoured by Arthur and Molly.

Becoming aware of the trend of his thoughts, his lips twisted in sardonic self-mockery. Had he lost his entire mind through his obsession with an eighteen year old witch? Did he actually believe she would want to plan some sort of sickly happily-ever-after life with him?

And his soaring spirits took a nosedive; his face slowly lowered until he was staring not at the limitless sky, but at the dusty boots upon his feet.

'She doesn't know any better,' he muttered. 'She thinks she can free the house-elves and defy the Dark Lord and reason with me.'

And slowly, very slowly, his head fell against the trunk of the tree, a bark of laughter rolling up from his belly, dispelling the darkness in one sharp crack of sound.

'Two out of three's not bad, little tempest,' he said, feeling his irrepressible optimism slip its leash once again.

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Hermione began to dress haphazardly, her hands trembling so much it slowed her down. She remembered everything from her wedding night; how Severus had relaxed after she swallowed the Lethe Elixir, their first kiss, her shaken demand to know what had just happened.

'I believe it is called good chemistry.'

Good God! He'd been smooth, sexy, seductive, and she'd melted in his arms like candlewax, hot and malleable, quickly reduced to a pool of wanton heat by the touch of his lips and stroke of his clever, devastating tongue.

She sank to the floor, one sock on, the other hanging limply from her hand as she remembered. He'd known just what to do with her...how to touch, caress, inflame...and in mere minutes she was gasping in his arms, begging him to fuck her. Oh, not in those words...not just then...but she'd been so hot for him, the tops of her thighs had been dewed with the excess moisture of her quim.

Even that first time, when his possessive cupping of her sex had resulted in the vanishing of her wedding robes, her modesty had been instantly overborne by her need for him. He'd buried his face between her legs, using those ravishing lips to send her to orgasmic bliss, and she'd been wicked enough to suckle her essence from the length of his tongue.

When he plunged into her heat for the first time, it was as if accelerant had been added to an already raging firestorm. Her very blood was aflame with him, and as he moved in her, the fire consumed her...consumed them both...and they were refined and reforged by immersion in the conflagration of their passion.

She groaned aloud at the power and force of the memories, so many she could scarcely contain them all in her once well-ordered mind. Now she was overwhelmed with the sheer number of intimate, decadent acts they had performed together in the two short days of their wedding weekend.

She'd asked him to reverse the potion...of course she had! Her cheeks flamed, just remembering how fatuous and lovesick she'd sounded. But he hadn't minded...had told her with actions, if not with words, that he felt precisely as she did. He'd said there was no antidote...no reports of a reversal of the potion's effects over time...but he'd been wrong! She was living proof that the Lethe Elixir could be subverted, and she had to tell him, without delay

She ruthlessly pushed her bare foot into its sock. She couldn't wait to see his face when she told him how very much she loved him.

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She scrambled down the staircase in a frantic state, her eyes darting everywhere for Severus. He wasn't in the sitting room...no one was...so she burst into the kitchen.

'Good morning, Hermione,' Molly said brightly. 'Did you sleep well?'

Hermione took a quick inventory of the room's inhabitants. The table was crowded with breakfasters, but Severus was not amongst their number.

'Where's Severus?' she asked Molly, successfully keeping her desperation from her voice.

'He and Arthur were gone when we came down,' Molly informed her, popping sausages on a plate and handing them to her. 'I'm sure they'll be along soon enough. Now, sit down and eat while your food's warm.'

Hermione hesitated. If Severus was patrolling or discussing things with Arthur, he probably wouldn't welcome her intrusion...even for something as momentous as this. In fact, he would undoubtedly prefer to have their discussion in private. Besides, the food smelled delicious. She would sit with her friends and share a meal, and when Severus returned she could tell him what she remembered of their time together in unexpurgated, blushing detail...tell him everything.

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Arthur came through the trees with a large, bulging cloth sack hanging from each hand. Severus rose and went to him.

'What news?' he asked, taking one of the sacks from Arthur, noting the plethora of Daily Prophet copies within it.

Arthur frowned. 'I'll have to read through all the papers to be sure, but it looks as if there's some talk in the Wizengamot about investigation into paramilitary organisations.' He shook his head. 'It's a load of codswallop, but you know how the newspaper loves to make much out of little.'

From the sack he held, Arthur pulled out a stack of envelopes wrapped about by a copy of the Hogsmeade Weekly and a glossy apothecary catalogue. 'Here's your and Hermione's mail,' he said. 'I'll take the rest of this lot back to the house and start reading.'

Severus accepted the bundle, his eye caught by the loose page inserted in the folds of the Hogsmeade Weekly. It was the wizarding village's version of classified adverts, where one might find such things as a cottage to let...the perfect place for a newly married couple to begin their married lives ...

'Coming, Severus?' Arthur asked, taking the sack of newspapers into his empty hand again.

'Not just yet,' Severus replied distractedly. 'I believe I'll stay here for a while and look through the post.'

Arthur gave him a nod and set off through the trees for the house.

Severus quickly perused the small section of accommodations available in Hogsmeade. Perhaps Hermione would want a home of her own, away from the castle. Or perhaps they would leave Hogwarts altogether, strike out to begin their new lives somewhere completely different. Now he wished he had kept a copy of the Daily Prophet, because its adverts would show openings at the Ministry, as well as flats to let in London.

He smirked. Knowing Hermione, she would want to make her presence known in the seat of British wizarding government. If she didn't follow Potter off to Auror training, she would be campaigning to set up an office for House-Elf Relations in the Beast, Being, and Spirit division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

His lips still twisted in a smirk, he flipped through the envelopes in his hand: professional affiliates advertising their summer lecture series, employment reference requests for former students, invoices for potions ingredients that he would surrender to the school bookkeeper...the usual claptrap he received, nothing of interest.

And here were Hermione's letters: a handwritten missive from her mother, an advert from Flourish & Blotts (trust his wife to be on their individual mailing list) about new summer releases, her N.E.W.T. results (that should please her!), and a thick, creamy envelope addressed in flowing, ostentatious typeface from ...

He stared at the imprint in the upper left corner of the envelope, his mind frozen, as if in stasis, and with the tip of one long finger, he traced back and forth over the raised, engraved type, unable to process the words he read.

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After she ate her breakfast, Hermione declined the offer of a game of Quidditch...Harry was only being polite, because he knew very well she never climbed aboard a broomstick if she could help it!...and wandered upstairs to her room. She loved her friends...loved the entire world, actually...but she found that she wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

She tidied up the mess she had left behind, in her hurry to go downstairs, and straightened the bedclothes, lovingly pulling the counterpane over the pillow where his head had lain next to hers these last nights of rediscovery. Then she took up her book again, opening to the tear in the frontispiece and smiling fondly. As much as it pained her to see a book in disrepair, she was tempted to leave this one in its current state, so that she might always remember hiding...and finding...the key that unlocked the door to her memories.

She sat upon the edge of their bed with her book in her hands and allowed her thoughts to drift. How gallant he had been, and he'd allowed her to love him...he'd seemed to need it, to feed off it, to want it as much as she did. She had felt in those short hours that she had finally found the place she belonged, and it was all in him. She was ready to embrace life in all its glorious wonder...the life one could have when lived by the side of a partner one truly loved and admired.

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Arthur Weasley called out to Molly from the clearing, and all the household...save for Hermione...poured out into the warm day to claim their accumulated post. That was where Severus Snape found them when he came striding from the wood, and the expression on his face was such that every one of his former students fell back with lowered eyes to allow him passage, like flotsam in the wake of a roiling, mounting wave. Arthur and Molly Weasley exchanged worried glances, but when Molly would have called out to Severus, Arthur stayed her with a hand to her wrist.

Let the man alone, his eyes seemed to say.

And Snape entered the Secret Kept house without speaking a word to anyone; through the window, Arthur saw the Potions master take the staircase two steps at a time.

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Hermione startled guiltily when the door was thrust open; she dropped her book and jumped to her feet, but when she saw who it was, she started forward with arms outstretched.

'Severus!' she cried, rushing toward him. 'Severus, I ...'

But then she saw his face, and her words of greeting died upon her lips. His scowl pulled his coal black brows into a V of fury, his eyes glittered dangerously, his monstrous nostrils flared wide, and his lips peeled back from his unattractive teeth, showing how they ground against each other between his bunched jaws.

'What?' he demanded, his tone barely above a whisper, a silky, lethal purr. 'What were you going to say, Hermione?'

Something was wrong...very wrong. He didn't look right...he didn't seem right. In his angriest moments with her, all through their pre-nuptial negotiations and his occasional flares of annoyance after their marriage, he had never looked as unapproachable as he did now. But she had news...had something amazing to tell him...so she licked her suddenly dry lips and took another hesitant step towards her bristling husband.

'Something wonderful has happened,' she said, her voice sounding small and not at all happy to her ears.

If possible, his eyes narrowed even more. 'Pray tell,' he said.

She drew a deep breath, gathering her courage. She didn't know why he was angry, but regardless of the reason, it could not stand against the news she had to impart.

'Severus,' she said, looking up into his face, 'I remember...I remember everything!'

'You lie!' he spat, and advanced towards her with such purpose that Hermione scrambled backwards.

'I'm not lying!' she cried, coming to a stop when her back was to the far wall.

His voice was a roar...a tidal wave of sound and fury pouring forth upon her. 'The only way you could remember, wife, is if you were in love with me...and we both know that's impossible, don't we?'

He jerked his arm up, a violent flick of his wrist, and something flew into her face, smacking her forehead and then falling to the floor. She stared down at the missile, an envelope, bearing a familiar logo:

The Salem Witches' Institute, est. 1631

The Mnemosyne Project

Office of the Director

Salem, Massachusetts

U.S.A.

He spoke again, and it seemed as if the tsunami of fury were spent, for his voice was devoid of emotion...as if the words were being spoken by a dead person.

'If you were in love with me, you wouldn't be secretly planning to leave me.'

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A/N: I know I left it at a distressing place, and I apologize to you with all my heart. In recompense, I offer you this song, which made me ache for Severus every time I listened to it - and believe me, I listened to it often. I could see this as the way he would think about things with her, being so swept up in the renewal of their love affair, yet with that niggling doubt in his mind that something would go wrong. This is Lie, by David Cook. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLiMyt7ZlMY