Chapter 24

Transcendent Quality of Remembrance

Chapter 24

I pretend that I'm alright that you're leaving me

Wherever you go, I will always long for you

Wherever you are, I wish I was there

If you're running away, do you want me to chase you?

Tried to move on but I couldn't erase you

Wherever You Go

10 July, 1998

Severus thrust open the door of his dungeon quarters and stalked into his sitting room, black eyes sweeping side to side and floor to ceiling, but he saw nothing to alarm him. He marched into his room and took up his wand, feeling the completion of his magic as he had ever done, simply by holding it. That, at least, soothed him in some measure. But he was not here to be soothed.

He dropped his travelling case upon his bed, forcing his mind away from its immediate connexion with the bed in the attic room where he had lain these last days with Hermione. He would not think about that now...not ever, if he could help it.

Thrusting his wand into its sheath, he strode through his rooms and into the corridor again. He had business here, and he would conduct it with no further delay.

He began the long climb from the dungeons to the upper reaches of the castle, but his grimmest determination could not prevent the day's events from playing out again in his mind.

He clenched his teeth and continued to climb.

---

He was gone, unmoved by her words...indeed, she wasn't sure he'd even heard her. He'd said he was going, and he'd gone. She sagged to the floor and picked up the letter from Salem...the letter that had betrayed her secret to him...and she was unsurprised to find it open. Of course he'd read her post. He had been enraged...she wasn't even sure she could blame him for it.

He'd also looked at her NEWT results. With nothing more than idle curiosity, she saw the straight line of her subjects marching down the page, Outstanding written next to each one. She had hoped for these results...would normally have been ecstatic to receive them...but the news left her unmoved

Next she pulled the neatly folded parchment from the Salem envelope, and she smoothed the pages open.

Salem Witches' Institute

The Mnemosyne Project

Office of the Committee on Admissions

July 2, 1998

Dear Miss Granger:

With sincere regret, I must report that the Committee on Admissions has completed its selection of the class entering in September 1998 and has not been able to offer you a place.

We were most grateful to have received application from so many students like you with excellent intellectual and personal qualities. Although you may be disappointed, my personal wish for you is that you find fulfilment studying at another fine wizarding university.

Sincerely,

Professor Moneta Muninn

Hermione stared at the words on the parchment, her eyes scanning the short communique over and again, as if another reading would render a different message. Then she closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall back against the wall. Severus didn't want her because she wanted to go to school in America to study the phenomenon of memory, and now the American school did not want her, either.

She closed her eyes, acknowledging the black irony of the situation.

A piece of the parchment seemed to fall from her hand, and she glanced down to see a smaller note that had been folded in with the larger rejection letter. Oddly enough, it appeared to have been written in the same hand.

Miss Granger,

I knew your year-end marks would not be available until July, and I could have approved your application if that were the only missing requirement, but it was not. You also failed to provide the requisite number of teacher recommendations. I am very sorry that you will not be joining us this autumn, but I sincerely hope you will apply again next year, for I would dearly love to work with you.

Best,

M. Muninn

Hermione felt a dull thud of frustration. Of course she had provided the teacher recommendations! She had chosen her three best subjects and provided the necessary forms to McGonagall, Flitwick, and Vector before Easter! They would have told her if there had been any problem.

She allowed the papers to flutter from her fingers. Oh, how could she worry about something as incidental as education when her marriage was crumbling beneath her?

What did it matter at all?

---

Dumbledore looked up when Severus walked into his office without knocking, and the old man had the temerity to smile at his Potions master, as if his appearance was not only welcome, but also expected. 'Hello, Severus! You're looking very well. How is Hermione?'

Severus ignored this inane babbling. He did not wish to think about Hermione, so he certainly would not chat with Dumbledore about her.

'What are you playing at, Headmaster?' he said instead, stopping in front of the desk and glaring down into the twinkling blue eyes.

'Playing?' Dumbledore repeated. 'Do you mean to say that you're not enjoying your stay at Forest Haven? It's very restful there, as I recall.'

Severus made no attempt to contain his snarl. 'Restful? I recommend that you spend a week cooped up in an enclosed space with the Weasleys and their assorted significant others before you say so.'

Dumbledore chuckled. 'But Hermione was there, wasn't she? Haven't you enjoyed a little second honeymoon with her?'

Severus slapped the palm of his hand down upon the desktop with enough force to wake the phoenix, and Fawkes trilled a low tone of greeting, sending a thread of unwanted serenity into Severus' mind. 'Don't talk to me about things that are none of your bloody business, old fool!' he shouted. 'Tell me why in blazes you sent us there in the first place!'

Seeing that the younger wizard was not to be distracted, Dumbledore sat back in his chair, his eyes growing sombre behind half-moon spectacles. 'You may as well sit, Severus,' he said quietly, and when Severus grudgingly flung himself into a chair, Dumbledore nodded his appreciation.

'You know that Madam Umbridge was ... unhappy with the outcome of her short stay here?' the headmaster inquired.

Severus replied with a snort.

Dumbledore's lip quivered, but he repressed it and continued. 'Precisely. I believe she is the one responsible for the Wizengamot's decision to investigate the paramilitary organisations operating at Hogwarts, including,' he picked up an official looking document from his desktop and read, '"the so-called Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix."'

Severus stared at him. 'You cannot be serious,' he said.

Dumbledore dropped the document as if it were a dirty rag. 'Oh, but I am, dear boy. More than a week ago, the Wizengamot issued an order for Magical Law Enforcement to take all members of the DA and the Order into "protective custody." So I bundled all of you off before they could execute the instructions.'

Protective custody! The Ministry had been on the cusp of imprisoning the very people who organised the battle to defeat the Dark Lord! Severus scowled out the window and pondered the problem. At length, he asked a question.

'How can they justify such action? What is their reasoning?'

Dumbledore smiled thinly. 'Although their reasoning, as you call it, has not been set down on parchment, I have had numerous discussions with persons of influence at the Ministry on this subject. They tell me that Tom Riddle's Death Eaters were a paramilitary organisation that he was able to use to attack the heart of wizarding Britain. Therefore, all paramilitary groups must be apprehended, disbanded, and re-educated, for the safety of the wizarding world at large.'

Severus felt the fury spiralling within him, and ruthlessly, he contained it, funnelling it, as he had always done, into planning with the headmaster. 'That's preposterous! The Order of the Phoenix was formed to fight the Dark Lord, then was inactive until the Dark Lord rose again. The Order was never a threat to the wizarding world in peacetime!'

Dumbledore nodded. 'Yes, I have expressed those points as well, but someone has an axe to grind with us and will not back down.

Severus paced to the window and stood staring out at the Forbidden Forest. 'Who, Headmaster? Please don't tell me that Dolores Umbridge has the standing in the Ministry to be able to marshal that sort of persistent asshatery.'

Dumbledore gave a dry chuckle. 'It's a good question. I've been working my way through the layers of adherents, searching for the source.' He rifled through his papers and said, 'Look at this.'

Dumbledore held up a scroll of parchment, and Severus turned from the window to take it from him. There were columns of names written in the headmaster's fine copperplate, and each of the names had a tick beside it. The names were grouped beneath members of the Wizengamot or heads of Ministry departments, and some names appeared more than once, if the person had connexions to more than one group. Severus did not know everyone listed, but he was surprised to see how many of the names were familiar to him. He ran his finger slowly down each column, allowing his mind to range free, making associations, and when he came to the bottom of the list, he met the headmaster's eyes.

'Where's Cornelius Fudge?' he asked.

Dumbledore cocked his head slightly to one side. 'You'll remember that Fudge was unseated within a week of the fall of Voldemort,' he said, clearly confused by the question. 'Our friend Kingsley was chosen as his replacement.'

Severus waved this away impatiently. 'I know all of that,' he snapped. 'But I do not see Fudge's name anywhere on this list.'

A frown appeared between the headmaster's brows, as if he were puzzled by his protégé's lack of understanding. 'Cornelius was discredited, Severus. He's living retired at this time; he doesn't go out in public, and he's certainly not a leading light in wizarding society, much less wizarding government.'

Severus dropped the parchment on Dumbledore's desk. 'You're making a mistake, discounting Fudge's influence,' he argued. 'Umbridge worshipped him...save for her personal prejudices against ... particular students, she upheld Fudge's authority and his policies with the passion of a zealot. She wants her revenge on us, but she doesn't have the personal magnetism to create adherents on her own...Fudge has to be behind it.'

He saw the moment when his reasoning struck a chord with the headmaster, for the formerly sombre blue eyes began to blaze with fire.

'Ah,' Dumbledore murmured. 'Obviously.' It was apparent that a new plan was already beginning to form in that brilliant mind. Fawkes sang a note of triumph, filling the hearts of his human auditors with Light. 'It all makes sense now...that's the missing piece of the puzzle.'

He came around his desk and enveloped Severus' hand in his own. 'Thank you,' he said with great sincerity. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, there are some matters requiring my attention.'

Dumbledore turned away to don his traveling cloak. 'Off to the Ministry,' he announced briskly. 'I imagine we'll be able to send for our friends to come home by tomorrow at the latest.'

And taking a pinch of Floo powder from the box on the mantel, the headmaster stepped into the fireplace and cried, 'The Ministry of Magic!'

Severus watched him go with no feeling of vindication or victory. So what if Hermione was able to leave Forest Haven? She still wouldn't come back to him...not for longer than it took for her to pack her trunk and leave Hogwarts for good.

---

A knock on her door stirred Hermione from her glum reflections, and for a wild instant, she believed Severus had thought better of his departure and returned to her. But the voice that called a quiet 'Hermione?' was her best friend's, not her husband's.

'Come in, Harry,' she replied, and the door opened, Harry's dear face peering around its edge.

'All right, Hermione?' Harry asked, coming into the room. He plopped down on the floor beside her as if they were in the Gryffindor common room, puzzling out the latest question of how to defeat Voldemort. His shoulder pressed against hers, and he took her hand in a comforting grip.

Hermione accepted his presence gratefully, leaning her head against his.

'Bad NEWT results?' he asked cautiously.

Hermione handed him her report, and he gave her hand a squeeze. 'Yeah, I didn't reckon that was the problem.'

She sighed but did not speak. It was too raw, this open wound where her heart had been, and she couldn't bear to speak of it now. So she leant on Harry, his hand anchoring her in time and space, and she allowed hot, miserable tears to fall onto their clasped hands, as the shadows on the wall lengthened from afternoon into evening.

---

Severus followed the winding staircase down from the headmaster's office, and as the gargoyle moved aside to allow him to exit, he came face to face with Minerva McGonagall.

She let out a small shriek. 'Severus! I didn't know you were here! I was just returning these ledgers to the headmaster's office.'

He raised an eyebrow. 'I thought you were in hiding, Minerva, with the other teachers.'

McGonagall's lips thinned. 'We spent two days on some godforsaken island, bored out of our minds, and then the headmaster said it was safe for us to return to the castle...that he could protect us here perfectly well.' She straightened her tartan trimmed hat. 'How have you been, Severus? And how is Hermione?'

Now Severus sneered at her; he had no intention of speaking of Hermione. 'Is Tima here, as well?' he demanded.

McGonagall moved past him toward the staircase and began her ascent. 'Professor Vector is in her office,' she said, much in the tone she might have used with a less than bright first year. 'The replacements for her desk and bookshelves have been delivered...you know her office was destroyed in the battle...and she's organising her things.'

Severus turned on his heel and marched off to Vector's office. If there was one person in the world to whom he could speak about the state of his life, it was Tima.

He found her shelving books, her arms raised, wand outstretched, directing the heavy Arithmancy texts onto the handsome new wooden bookcase behind her matching desk. The pieces were made of a dark wood...he thought it was black walnut...and he knew a moment's envy for her refurbished office. But no, she'd lost everything in the fire resulting from the skirmish that took place here. He wouldn't wish to give up his book collection or his files, accumulated over the years of his teaching career, just in order to obtain new furniture.

'Do you require assistance?' he asked, and when she turned to him with a happy smile, he felt the veriest sliver of his misery dissipate.

'Welcome back!' she cried, coming forward with hands outstretched to him. 'Did the headmaster call for you? Is everything settled, then?'

He clasped her hands in a strong grip. 'He didn't call for me; I just came...and no, everything is not resolved, but perhaps we will have a successful resolution by this time tomorrow.'

His old friend looked him over with a shrewd eye. 'I think we should have a cuppa,' she declared, and tucking her arm through his, she led him to her living quarters and put on the kettle.

Over the comfort of a hot cup of tea made just as he liked it, Severus was able to vent some small degree of his concerns, giving Tima a broad sketch of the last several days.

Her eyes softened when he spoke of the renewal of his love affair with his bride, then hardened to flinty disapproval as he described the letter from the Salem Witches' Institute.

'The most ironic part of it all is that she wasn't accepted,' he said. 'She failed to provide the requisite number of teachers' recommendations...I cannot believe Hermione would be so disordered in her planning. It's quite unlike her.'

And Tima's teaspoon dropped with a rattle onto her saucer, her lips formed into an 'O' of horror. 'Oh, no.'

She placed her cup and saucer on the table and wrung her hands. 'Severus, I've done something terrible.'

He abandoned his half-drunk tea. 'What are you on about?' he demanded.

'Hermione gave me a form to complete for her application just before Easter...right about the time you went missing,' Septima began. 'I put it aside, intending to come back to it, but you were gone, and then the battle took place, and the papers were destroyed along with everything else in my office.' She closed her eyes in dismay. 'I forgot all about it, Severus. I never sent her recommendation letter.'

Severus couldn't believe his ears. Vector forget a student's recommendation? Such a thing was unheard of

'Why would you put it aside?' he demanded angrily. 'Why didn't you complete it immediately?'

At his accusatory tone, her chin rose. 'Don't rail at me!' she cried. 'I was going to discuss it with you, of course!'

He stood, his fists clenched at his sides. 'Why would you need to discuss it with me?'

She stood and squared up to him. 'Because she's your wife! You hadn't mentioned anything to me about Hermione going away to university. I wanted to make sure you knew about it!'

'I'm her husband, not her keeper!' Severus shouted. 'It's your job to complete a student's recommendation letter based on your knowledge of that student's character and academic record! Discussing it with any member of the student's family is a ... a breach of confidentiality!'

He could see that his friend wanted to shout back at him, but the truth of his words prevented her from doing so. She placed a hand over her eyes and drew an audible breath.

'You're completely right, of course,' she said, unable to meet his eyes. 'There's no excuse for it...none at all. I'm so sorry, Severus.'

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from her eyes. 'That's all fine and good, but it does not fix the problem,' he informed her, dragging her to the hearth and slapping the box of Floo powder into her palm. 'You're going to make this fiasco right for Hermione. Who do you know at the Salem Witches' Institute?'

---

When the shadows in the attic room darkened to indistinct murk, Harry lit the oil lamp and coaxed Hermione up from the floor. He went away for a few minutes, returning with a damp face flannel, and Hermione wiped her tear-streaked face with it. Ginny came in a bit later with a tray from dinner, and Hermione thanked her for it.

'You should go down with Ginny and eat your supper,' she told Harry. 'I'm fine, now. I'll just eat a bit and go to bed; crying always gives me a headache.'

Ginny pulled a phial from her jeans pocket and put it on Hermione's tray. 'Mum sent up a headache potion, too,' she said. Harry took Ginny's hand and began to lead her to the door, but she shook him off and squatted down before Hermione, brown eyes to brown eyes.

'Professor Snape loves you, Hermione,' she said staunchly. 'Everyone could see that, after last night...the way he danced with you. He loves you. It'll be all right...you'll see.'

Hermione managed a wan half-smile. 'Thanks, Gin,' she said. And she took up her fork, pretending to take a bite of the shepherd's pie.

When the door closed behind her friends, Hermione put the tray aside and lay down on the bed, too empty to cry and too weary to sleep. Severus was the love of her life...she had discovered that on her honeymoon, only to have the knowledge taken away by the Lethe Elixir. Now she remembered everything, never mind that he insisted it was impossible. That must have been the old witches' tale he spoke of: That the only way to recover one's memory after swallowing the Elixir was to fall in love with the giver of the potion. What did that say about the nature of the mixture with the black seal on its stopper? And how could he refute her love, knowing what he knew about their time together in the Hogsmeade cottage? Did he have such a low opinion of her? Or of himself?

She rolled to one side, remembering the subtle but definite change in his manner after she had swallowed the Lethe Elixir.

He relaxed. He believed that I would never remember what happened after I took the potion, so he put away the mask he wears every minute of every day to shield himself from the eyes of the world and allowed me to see him as he really is. I fell in love with the real Severus Snape, and for some reason, he doesn't believe that's possible.

She had never believed such a thing was possible, either, but here was an irrefutable truth: she valued her husband more highly than she valued her continued education. She had to convince him of her love, because she would never survive losing him. Gaining admittance to Salem and losing the love of her life as a consequence of that was not an equal trade.

With a new resolution, she carried the oil lamp to the writing desk in the corner of the room and took up a quill.

The Story of Our Love, she penned at the top of the page and immediately beneath, A Memoir. Then she dipped the quill in ink and began to write.

Tags: tqor posting

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A/N: This week's song is a heartbreaker that always followed Lie and Last Dance, the songs from the last two chapters. It's called Wherever You Go by Sleeperstar. One line says, "If I'm honest with myself, I knew that we never had a chance", but the one that always kills me is him asking, "If you're running away, do you want me to chase you?" Poor Severus. You can hear the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdGM4JUxpKA