Remember

A/N: I was recently informed that calling Hermione "Mione" is not canon, as it only occurred once when Ron had his mouth full. As I rather like that nickname, we shall imagine that they started calling Hermione that sometime during seventh year... Hermione, of course, was extremely irritated at first but secretly liked it. Also, if Hogwarts follows the normal British school calendar, their graduation would have taken place in late June, but for the sake of this story, I have pushed that time to the middle of May.

Chapter 2

Remember

--2:00-2:30pm, June 15, 1998--

"I have what?"

"I..." she looked up at Harry's enraged face. Then, for the first time, she looked down at her hands, gasping when she saw her right wrist. One end jutted out at an unnatural angle, so that her right hand was bent slightly outwards when she laid it flat on the bed. She idly wondered what sort of injury would have resulted in that.

She shook her head, her thoughts a great muddle once more. "I don't know. I really don't know."

One...

--2:30-3:00pm, June 15, 1998--

"Is this your idea of a joke, Ron? It can't be June 15th. We just graduated in the middle of May! They are expecting me at the Institute of Advanced Magical Studies in a week's time," Hermione said, coughing slightly.

"There was a Dark Mark. I saw it. I saw it."

Hermione was no longer shaking and was stiller than a statue. A single tear appeared in one eye as if by magic and rolled down her cheek. Thirty seconds before 3:00pm, she felt Ron gently wrest the parchment and quill from her hands. The last thing she remembered hearing was the faint scratching of the quill.

--11:30pm-12:00am, October 31, 1998--

The house at Spinner's End was burning.

Hermione approached the cobbled street at a stumbling run, slightly off-balance from clutching her right wrist in a death grip. There was a small knot of people gathered at the foot of the path leading to the house, a ragged cluster of men in blue jeans and women in flannel. The dancing orange flames reflected off their hollowed-out faces like jack-o'-lanterns.

"Looks like that crazy bugger finally blew himself up in one of his experiments."

"He started seeing a lady friend a few months back. Probably threw off his concentration somewhat."

There were chuckles all around.

With a great rush of air, the bricks and timbers of Spinner's End imploded, as if a giant fist had closed around the house and squeezed. Then from the very center of the rubble, a column of white light shot into the sky, bringing up great plumes of smoke around it. It burned like God's pillar of fire.

There were screams and gasps and several smaller flashes of light from the onlookers. Hermione saw a couple passing a camera between them and jabbering excitedly about The Sun and a fortune. Her retinas burned from the imprint of the house's fiery death.

"SEVERUS!"

The people whirled around as the scream rent the night sky. Several were knocked off their feet as a bushy-haired hurricane tore its way up the path towards the conflagration.

"Severus!" Hermione screamed again as her feet slapped against cobblestones that grew steadily warmer till the ground was unbearably hot. Tears sprang to her eyes and she coughed, choking on the super-heated dust in the air.

The flames surged again, blowing out the remains of the front door. Hermione was lifted several inches off the ground and deposited roughly on scorched grass.

She lifted her head in time to see an apparition in white float from the wreckage. Severus Snape was surrounded by a white sphere of magical energy. Flames crept around the edges of the barrier but never penetrated it. Hermione stared up at him, her mouth slightly open. A grain of soot was scratching the corner of her left eye. Severus spread his arms out wide and dipped his dark, sleek head in a bow.

The memory surged across the yawning canyon of blackness, a burning ember branded into the nothingness and clinging stubbornly to her consciousness. Her eyes narrowed, her teeth bared in a hiss.

The shield surrounding Snape flickered and disappeared. He turned and ran as if a snarling werewolf were at his heels. With a sweep of her robes, Hermione ran after him.

She followed him into the dark entrance of the abandoned steel mill.

"Lumos!" she shouted. A ray of white light pierced the darkness.

Snape would be able to see it. Hermione didn't care.

She followed him through winding corridors and massive rooms with dark, hanging shadows suspended from the ceilings. They moved deeper into the building and deeper underground.

Snape suddenly took a sharp turn, ducking out of sight. Hermione raced around the corner and shouldered her way through a door that was swinging shut.

Bright light assaulted her from all sides, and Hermione started to throw up her hands to cover her eyes. Through the spots dancing in her vision, she saw the jet of blue light flying towards her face.

Hermione hit the ground on her stomach, at the same time swinging her wand arm around and in front of her head and casting the Jelly-Legs jinx.

Her vision cleared and she was treated to the triumphant sight of Severus Snape falling on his arse.

He groaned as his head connected with the concrete wall behind him. His wand fell from his hand. Hermione had followed him into an empty storeroom. Several collapsed cardboard boxes leaned against the opposite wall and four overhead lamps bathed the concrete room with white light. The space was smaller than the Potions classroom.

Petrificus Tot...

"Expelliarmus!"

Snape's wand flew from the floor beside his thigh into her left hand. Hermione realized that Snape had not even spoken the hex and therefore that she must have just read his thoughts.

"Tell me it was an invention, Severus! The vision, the torture, all of it. Tell me Harry was wrong!"

There was nasty laughter, echoing in her head. Foolish little girl...

No, he was allowing his thoughts to be read.

"Comburo Cruris!" Hermione screamed.

Snape hissed through clenched teeth. His hands went around his right thigh, then immediately leapt away, as they added to the agonizing sensation of plunging his leg in boiling oil. She watched him twitch and shudder, his fingers curling and uncurling, and she felt something in her gut clench.

Severus went limp and took deep gasping breaths as the curse was lifted.

It appears that little Miss Perfect was up to some naughty reading in the Restricted Section...

"Viscus Premo!" she hissed.

Snape's chest appeared to ripple as it compressed in upon itself. His hands clawed at his throat as he struggled to draw enough breath to scream.

"That was the spell that Vincent Crabbe hit me with in Hogsmeade so that I would finally shut up," Hermione spat. "Why, Snape? Why did you have to become like them? I trusted you."

She released the spell, and Snape massaged his throat with trembling fingers. "A regrettable error," he drawled.

Hermione saw red. A flick of her wand sent a slicing hex that struck Snape's shoulder. He jerked back but made no sound.

"I can understand the torture, Snape...you Death Eaters are sadistic bastards...but why the act? Why toy with the heart of a sniveling schoolgirl? Not only does that seem below your sense of style; that requires commitment. Were you bored, perhaps? Dumbledore's death didn't shake us up enough, so you thought you would do better. I defended you to Harry, did you know? I told him that your loyalty was beyond doubt, and that without you, I had nothing."

The look on Snape's face was more pained than when he had been writhing under her curses. "You can't be serious," he said.

"Congratulations, Severus. You turned the brightest witch of her generation and the brains of the Golden Trio into a lovesick fool." Her wand trembled in her hand, its point hovering over the space between his eyes.

From his place on the floor, Snape massaged his chest with one hand, eyes glistening. "Well then, you finally have him at your mercy, Hermione. The bastard responsible for all your pain and misery... and then some. It must feel nice."

Moments passed. The tempo of her breathing slowed with each passing second of indecision. She looked at him huddled upon the floor like a crumpled black bird, and something in her chest gave a great thud.

She lowered her wand. "No. It doesn't," she said.

"Don't tell me you're afraid." Snape's voice was mocking.

"Shut up," Hermione growled. Her next spell forced his eyes up to her face. "Are sarcasm and indifference the only weapons that you have left? You really haven't changed at all, Severus. But you will answer my question... why?"

The corner of his lip curled up. "Why not, Miss Granger? You said it yourself. It brings about a most unparalleled thrill to see how thoroughly I can break such a spirit."

Hermione didn't know what reaction he expected of her, but she knew that it was certainly not to throw her head back and laugh.

"More lies, Severus, more brilliantly-executed pitiful lies!" She laughed at his dumbstruck face. "But I want the truth, Severus. You no longer have the right to lie. Not since you pretended that you never made love to me."

She watched as every semblance of disinterest fell from his form like cracking glass and his eyes went wider than she thought possible.

For the first time in her life, Hermione saw Severus Snape look afraid.

"I thought that you were a bastard at first, that you had liked what you had taken and had had enough. But you kept on treating me like... like I would break if I were handled too roughly. Then I thought that I had done something wrong, that you were protecting me from God knows what in your own twisted, stupid fashion. But I don't buy that you did it to hurt me, no matter how many other reasons I have to kill you. You never used that night against me; you never whispered in my ear and dropped images into my mind at the moment when distraction would have meant defeat. In fact, you never mentioned it again." Hot tears were dripping down her cheeks, and Hermione blinked furiously, raising her wand back to his face. Then she lifted her left hand, holding his wand, as well.

"How did you know...?" He paused, frozen in realization. His eyes slid down to a point above her feet. "Oh."

"Oh? 'Oh' is what you say when you forget to pick up the milk at the grocer's. How could a sneaky bastard like you ever be so unbelievably stupid? A man like you does not overlook a single detail. And, God forbid, that was hardly a minor detail. Why, Snape?"

His eyes had slid even lower and were now staring at a rough patch of stone upon the ground between them.

Severus Snape, Death Eater, killer of Albus Dumbledore, and nasty, greasy git with a heart of stone, would not meet her eyes.

She grew even angrier. "What could have possibly distracted that great Slytherin mind so? Were you that horrified, Snape? Was I so completely awful that all you could think about was..."

"Was how I needed you more than life itself, you stupid girl," Snape hissed. His eyes were fixed once again upon her face with an intensity that made her knees shake. "All I could think about was how I wanted nothing more than to make love to you again and again, forever, and to let Voldemort take the world if only I could keep you with me. And God forbid if that made me forget just about everything else."

Her knees gave way completely, and she fell to the floor in front of him. Both wands dropped from her fingers. "Then why, Severus? Why in God's name are you doing this? Why... are you making me do this?"

"It's what you wanted," he whispered. "It's what you always told me that you wanted. It was true... mostly. I showed you what I had done to you and you forgave me. Your silly Gryffindor heart forgave me for destroying your mind and your life. But maybe you would not forgive me breaking that silly heart."

"So you did this? Because you thought I would care about revenge more than... more than you? Of all the... Severus, you are the most stupid, brainless fool I have ever known."

He still would not look at her. "It... it didn't start out as real. I had every conversation, every touch, every gesture carefully planned so that you would respond as I wanted. But something ate away at me, little by little, it was like a vicious disease, and before I knew it, I had..." He closed his eyes. "Our night together wasn't supposed to happen. I wanted your heart, your trust; that was all. I never wanted you to feel like I had taken advantage... in that way."

"Are you sorry that it did?" she asked softly.

He looked at her hard. "Never," he whispered.

Somehow her arms had found their way around his neck, and he had gathered her into his lap, holding her close.

"I forgive you for that, as well," she said.

"I don't deserve it," Snape muttered.

"We never do, but it is given nonetheless, as was my silly Gryffindor heart." She felt his arms wrap more tightly around her. "It still is... if you will have it...and if you promise never to do something stupid like that again."

His hands buried themselves in her hair. "Hermione, I... tell me, did Lucius manage to get himself killed during all that excitement?"

"No," Hermione said.

Severus gave a great sigh and nodded. "I see."

"But I..."

The skin underneath the bracelet tingled, signaling that time was running out. Severus felt it too and released her.

Hermione removed the quill from behind her ear and wrote slowly, painstakingly, forcing herself to leave nothing out.

"I'm sorry that I cursed you," she muttered when she was finished.

"It was much less than I deserved."

"What happens now?"

"What time is it, Hermione?"

She lifted her left hand. The plastic face of her wristwatch was cracked, but it still worked. "One minute until midnight."

Severus' arms tightened around her so fiercely that she gasped. "What happens now is that I hold you with me," he muttered. "That I tell you that at midnight I will be dead, because that was the promise I made so that our plan could succeed." Snape tightened his grip as Hermione began to struggle. "I will not let you burden yourself with that knowledge, Hermione, for I have already burdened you with enough for several lifetimes. All you need to know is that I love you, Hermione. Let your heart remember even if your mind cannot. My soul will always belong to you. I love you."

With a shove, Snape pushed her bodily away from him. Hermione found herself on her feet, stumbling to remain standing.

As she whirled around to face him, Severus placed the tip of his wand beneath his chin.

Viscus Premo = "viscus" L. flesh, entrails + "premo" L. to squeeze

Next chapter: Minerva gives Hermione the means to put those meticulous study habits to good use. After the Final Battle, Harry shows Hermione something she really didn't want to see.