Chapter Thirty-Six

A/N: All fully italicized text, as well as anything else you recognize, belongs to JKR. Great big thanks to Shellsnapeluver, RedOrchid and OpalJade, without whom I would be utterly lost. And thank you to Elise_Wanderer, whose emails back in March were the inspiration for this chapter. This one's for you.

When he reentered the Hogwarts grounds, the sun was barely a sliver above the horizon. He had not yet entered the castle when the Mark burned. Had there been some evidence of his presence at the Manor? Something that would cause the Dark Lord to request him specifically? For it was a personal summons that smouldered in his forearm, and he paused in turning to bury his thoughts beneath a thick blanket of blackness in his mind. Then he hurried toward the gates once more, on his way to the Apparition point.

But there was no need. Voldemort stood at the gates, his silken robes alive in the slight breeze.

"Severus," he said. "I require entry."

"My Lord," Snape said with a slight bow. He drew his wand and began to undo the enchantments. "You could have breached them, you know," he murmured. "I have put up nothing that would truly deflect you."

The Dark Lord chuckled thinly. "There is nothing you could put up that would bar me if I chose to enter by force. However, we are friends, are we not, Severus? And friends knock when they enter each other's... houses."

"Indeed, my Lord. And I value your friendship above all things."

"I have business," Voldemort said, brushing past him and turning down the southern path. "Leave me. I will summon you before long, I think."

"Very well, my Lord. May we meet again soon."

Snape turned back toward the castle, climbing the steps toward the main entrance. When he looked back, Voldemort was gone. But he had been headed toward the lake, toward the tomb. Toward the wand.

When Snape entered the Headmaster's office, Dumbledore was waiting in his portrait, not bothering to feign sleep.

"Dumbledore," Snape began, though he did not look at the portrait as he spoke. Somehow to look at the old wizard would be to imagine that face disturbed in its rest...

"Severus," Dumbledore said, his voice quietly accusing. "Do I need to remind you that you are the Headmaster of this school? That you have duties..."

Snape whirled on the portrait, all sorrow forgotten. "You find my performance lacking?"

"More than two dozen students have disappeared from classes since the Christmas holidays, and you have made no mention of it. Imagine my surprise at discovering them holed up in the Room of Requirement, living like prisoners of war. If I had not discovered a portrait of my sister in the castle and gone to see her... Some of them are wounded, Snape. Some have been tortured. They have fled this school for the safety of the room, and you have done nothing, said nothing. Is this because you have not noticed, or because you are not being informed? You have not been summoned in several weeks, and yet you are consistently absent from this office. Detention requests have been flooding in, and you are doing nothing. Is it any wonder that the Carrows have taken discipline into their own hands? How long before they report to Voldemort that his Headmaster seems to have lost interest in running his school?"

Snape bristled. "Which job are you criticizing, Albus? My obligations to the Dark Lord or my obligations to you?"

"Both."

"I see."

"Where are you going, Severus? What are you planning?"

"What plans could I possibly have? You have effectively ended my life. I am, at this point, simply trying to keep from being killed for as long as possible."

"I fail to see how that does any good unless you are playing your part. There is more to this war than three children in a tent."

Snape stared steadily at the portrait. There was a slight twitch in his jaw, but he said nothing.

"And have you even thought about how you intend to inform Harry of his duty?"

"Dumbledore, do you imagine that I--"

"Have you? Because the time approaches, Severus. Even I can see the signs, the strain. You must prepare. You cannot hide from what is coming. You must behave as if nothing has changed."

Behave as if nothing had changed. Voldemort had come to Hogwarts to desecrate Dumbledore's tomb, and the old man told him to behave as if nothing had changed. Inwardly, he sighed. He supposed that nothing really had.

"The Dark Lord is on the grounds tonight. I think we both know why he has come," he said wearily and turned back toward his bedroom door.

"Severus!" Dumbledore said, but Snape shut the door behind him.

Fury welled up in his gut, though whether at himself or Dumbledore, he did not know. The old wizard was right, of course. He had neglected his duties to the school. He had not appeared in the Great Hall for a meal since the day that Minerva had demanded his presence in her office, had not held a staff meeting, had somehow been unaware that students were going missing. Children had been hurt, and he was supposed to have been watching.

But he was angry all the same. What right did the world have to ask this of him? He could not do everything, be everywhere. How had he come to owe so much to so many? He sat down upon the bed.

He had to rest. Fatigue sang through his blood, and he felt he did not have the will to keep his eyes open, let alone deal with the piles of paper upon his desk. Detention requests could wait another two hours. Then, perhaps, a visit to the Carrows to remind them who was in charge at this school.

But even as he dozed, the real task loomed, dark and foreboding in his mind, behind his eyelids. Somehow, he would have to find a way to reveal the truth to Potter, to show him what lay at the end of the journey, the final step that had been planned for him since he was only a year old. Somehow, he would have to find a way to tell Lily's son that he would have to die.

***

Hermione stood in an odd and bedraggled looking queue in the upstairs hallway of Shell Cottage, her hair drying into a fluffy cloud around her head. It had been the first shower she had taken since they'd left Grimmauld Place, and every stinging drop had felt like heaven. Hermione had washed her hair and then washed it again, despite the unmanageable mess it would become, just for the pleasure of feeling the shampoo piling up in her hands and running down her body. Cleansing Charms had sufficed during their many months in the tent, and though Hermione knew logically that she had been clean enough, there had still been something deeply satisfying about standing under water so hot that it turned her skin pink on contact, something marvelous about seeing the dirt run off her body and down the drain.

But showering was the only domestic pleasure that she rediscovered that morning. As the members of their motley household had woken, there had been nothing but confusion and short tempers in the cottage. Meals were cooked and served in shifts. Fleur, Luna and Hermione took turns nursing Griphook. Harry and Ron retreated into the yard to avoid getting in the way of the bustle. The situation was simply untenable. Shell Cottage was not big enough to house seven refugees of war and one newly married couple.

It was clear that Bill was slightly frightened of them. He never said as much; in fact, he was gracious to a fault and denied them nothing that they requested, never asking what they were doing or how they had ended up landing in his front yard, bearing with them an injured goblin and a dead house-elf. But the fear in his eyes was clear, particularly when his young wife was in the room. It must have been easy to pretend it wasn't happening, here by the sea, in a whitewashed cottage with a tidy little garden out front. They had brought the war into Bill's home.

Bill had arranged for Mr Ollivander, Luna and Dean to be moved to his aunt Muriel's house, to join the rest of the Weasleys in hiding, to ease the strain on the cottage. But before he could be moved, Mr Ollivander saw them, one by one, to take measurements for new wands. It seemed they all felt as helpless as Hermione had without her wand. Bill had supplied a charmed measuring tape, and Mr Ollivander set up in the tiny room that had been his during his stay at Shell Cottage. It must have originally been slated as a sewing room or a nursery, as the walls and ceiling seemed far too close for comfort, and Hermione was reminded vaguely of Ollivander's shop, of how he dominated the place.

"My dear, I will make this is as quick and painless as possible," Mr Ollivander said as she entered the room. His grey eyes never left hers, and Hermione tittered politely. He smiled at her, but she could see the fatigue in his face. Luna, Dean and Ron had preceded her.

"Mr Ollivander, I can't thank you enough. This is really--"

"This is what I do. This is all I know how to do to help," he said. "Hands?"

She held out her hands, and a magical measuring tape zipped from his fingers to measure her from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round her head.

He took her wand hand in his own while the measuring tape continued to travel around her body, recording her arm span. He felt her fingers, her palm, her wrist. Then he reached for her other hand.

She hesitated. "Mr Ollivander, I'm just curious. I know you remember my wand--"

"Vine wood and dragon heartstring," he said promptly. "Eleven inches. Pliable. Excellent for Transfiguration."

"Yes, that's it," she agreed. "So, sir, why do you need--"

"Because people change, Miss Granger. You are not the girl you were when you first set foot in my shop seven years ago. If I'm going to make a wand tailored particularly to you--and let me assure you, I do this extremely rarely--then I want it to be a wand that suits your needs today."

She looked at him steadily. "All right."

"You..." he said gently, "you are traveling with Harry Potter. You will be with him until the very end, if I am not mistaken."

She nodded.

"I want you to have the best wand I can make you, Miss Granger."

Hermione bit her lip and held out her left hand. Ollivander took it in his own and felt each of her fingers. His eyes flicked toward hers as he felt her ring finger, but he went on taking his measurements.

"I think I have everything I need."

"Mr Ollivander," she said, frightened.

"I am grateful to whoever sent help to get us out of that place. I thought I would die there," Ollivander said suddenly. "Good luck and God speed, Miss Granger. Please send in Mr Potter."

Harry was gone a long time. When he emerged from Ollivander's room, he called Ron and Hermione together into the room he and Ron were sharing and cast the Muffliato Charm over them.

"You-Know-Who has the Elder Wand," he said.

Hermione took a deep breath through her nose. Ron turned pale.

"I saw it very early this morning, after I spoke with Griphook. He went to Hogwarts. Snape let him in."

Hermione kept her face immobile. "Did you ask Mr Ollivander? Did he say--" she began.

"He said that there's no way to be sure."

"But, Harry--" Ron said.

"He said he thinks that it will not work against its master. That's just going to have to be good enough."

"But you knew where the wand was!" Ron said. "Why--why didn't we go and get it? If you had the wand and the mastery--"

"Even if I could have beaten him there, I wouldn't have done it. Last night, while I dug Dobby's grave, I thought... that is, it seems to me... we're doing what Dumbledore would have wanted. We go after the Horcruxes. That's what he sent us to do. The wand... we did the best we could."

Hermione took Harry's hand. He did not know the danger; he did not know what she did... what he would be asked to do. But it seemed to her that he sensed it. Perhaps it was the prophecy that made him so silent and somber now. For neither can live while the other survives.

"But we still have no idea where the rest of the Horcruxes might be!" Ron said.

"Yes, we do," Harry replied, and Hermione nodded.

"What?" Ron asked.

"Bellatrix Lestrange's vault. You heard her, Ron. She was petrified that we might have been in there. You-Know-Who must have asked her to keep something for him."

"But we can't get into a Gringotts vault--"

Hermione released Harry's hand and withdrew the key from her pocket. She held it up in front of her. "Do you still have her wand, Ron?"

"Yeah, but I--"

"Then we have her wand, her hair, her key. There's a chance that we--"

"How--how did you...?" Ron asked, amazed.

"In Malfoy Manor. When she was... questioning me. Just as you came in, actually. I the confusion, I snatched it. She--"

Harry held up his hand.

"I spoke to Griphook last night," he interrupted. "In exchange for the sword of Gryffindor... he'll help us break into Gringotts."

There was silence for a moment.

"But without the sword, we can't destroy the Horcrux even if we find it," Ron protested.

"We'll just have to wing it," Harry said. "Maybe we can destroy it in the vault and then give him the sword."

"Harry," Hermione said slowly. "I've been thinking about your scar. You've said before that you feel his emotions, see what he sees..."

"Hermione, don't start this again. I can't help it!"

"Listen to me! Harry, when you share his mind... do you hear his thoughts?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes? How often?"

"It's been... clearer recently. He's been very excited."

"Then, if we were to raise some kind of alarm as we left Gringotts... if he were to suspect what we were doing..."

Ron leaned forward. He grabbed at Hermione's arm excitedly. "Wait--are you saying... that if he suspected, if he thought about it... he could lead us right to the final Horcrux?"

She nodded. The three of them stood there in a kind of shocked silence. Wherever it was, they would have a frighteningly limited amount of time to get there before he reached it himself.

"It's going to happen very fast now," Harry said. "Once we've been to Gringotts, it's all going to happen very fast."

Ron's hand snuck into Hermione's, and she reached for Harry's.

"When do you want to leave?" she asked. It seemed to her that all three of them knew that once they left, they would not be coming back.

"When our wands come," Harry said finally. "We'll leave as soon as we have our wands."

***

Snape took the Pensieve from the cabinet in the Headmaster's office, hefted it into his arms and carried it into his bedroom. He would be damned if he did this in front of Dumbledore.

It seemed to him that once things began to unravel, they would unravel very quickly. If Voldemort still believed him loyal, he would keep him alive for as long as possible so as to enjoy his services. He would not kill him until he felt sure he needed the full power of the wand. This seemed to coincide neatly with Dumbledore's orders. If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort stops sending that snake forth to do his bidding... When all but the last of the Horcruxes were destroyed, he was to tell Potter. He thought of Dumbledore's words again, It would have been a race--who would reach you first, Harry or the Dark Lord?

He looked at the Pensieve as he set it down heavily on a trunk at the foot of his bed. It was the only way he could think of to ensure that the message would be delivered in the event that the Dark Lord reached him before they did.

And truly, could there be any other way, even if he were to encounter Potter first? Would Potter believe, even from Hermione, that Dumbledore had slated him to die unless he heard the old wizard for himself? Certainly, Potter would not believe it from Snape's own mouth. And the boy would need strength, too. Would it fortify him to see his mother, to know what a fine witch she had been? If he could see how it had all happened, and how hard so many had worked, how hard Hermione had worked, to try to ensure his victory--would he, perhaps, face death a bit more bravely?

And then, of course, there was Hermione herself. She had told him, that night in the tent, that someday she would want to hear everything about his life before they married. A bitter chuckled escaped his lips. This was hardly the someday she had imagined, he thought, though he could not begin to picture what it was she might have hoped for. The pre-dawn hours of some post-war morning? Soft sheets and tangled limbs? Whispers in the dark? He did not think her so deluded. And yet he owed her this; an explanation of what had come before; a reason, if not an excuse, for who he had been and what he had done. A goodbye. He owed her, at the very least, a goodbye.

Snape lifted his wand. The beginning. There was no choice but to go back to the beginning, and he touched his wand to his temple and pulled away a long, silvery thread and dropped it into the waiting Pensieve.

Lily as a child, as he had known her before Hogwarts. It hurt him to remove her from his mind. He knew that he could and would plunge his face into the swirling silver before this was done, that she would be restored to him, but it would never seem the same to him as his original memory of her had done. He felt as if he were slicing away parts of himself. But maybe that was right. Maybe he was cutting away dead tissue, parts of his heart that had been starved for blood for longer than Harry Potter had been alive.

She had been the first and only person that his childhood self had ever dared to call a friend. He raised his wand again and drew away a memory of the two of them discussing Hogwarts, and he knew how he looked in that memory without even bothering to review it in the basin. He had been an odd child, even by wizarding standards. He had been awkward and ill-clothed, and though his father's relatives--this had been before Hogwarts, when he had still had some contact with them--liked to say that he would grow into his nose, it was becoming clearer at ten that he never would. He had moved, then, with an odd mixture of apology and arrogance, inherited, he supposed, from a mother who had a fierce pride in her magic and a deep fear of her husband. But he chose this memory because it had been so cherished by his ten-year-old self. He remembered thinking as he had lain there beside her under the canopy of leaves that she did not look at him like other people did--over his shoulder, as if they could not bear to meet his eyes. She looked at him anxiously, hopefully, reverently. To her, he was someone.

Then the train. He wondered if he should keep this one back, for it might not do to offend the boy. And yet he wanted him to see--wanted him to know--how it had happened, what had sprung up between himself and James Potter immediately upon being placed in the same room. He did not want Potter's pity--to be compared unfavorably against his father's new robes and plump, well-fed cheeks--but he wanted him to see the rivalry that had existed from the very start. To see what Snape had known then--instantly--though his young self could not have articulated it. He had lost her there in that compartment. He had lost her before he had even known how to fight for her.

Then their sorting, and the hope that had died in him when she had sorted into Gryffindor. Had he needed a confirmation that she had chosen, the hat had provided it. She had chosen people that he could not understand, chosen a blood-deep rivalry that could not be overcome, though he would spend the next five years pretending that it was not so. And so he swiped a few memories from the next several years, though he could not explain precisely why. To show that he would have never given up on her, even when everything and everyone around them showed that it was impossible? To show that there was something, there must have been something that she saw of value in him?

And then their O.W.L.s. This memory was but a copy, the real one having been removed so many times. He had tried--years after, after he had gone to Voldemort and left again, after Potter had begun at Hogwarts--tried to take it out for good. He had thought that perhaps if he did not remember this one terrible thing, the moment at which all possibility had shattered at his feet, destroyed by his own hand, if he could simply forget that he had forged his own path toward ruin and destruction, then he could live without the crushing self-hatred he endured when the day drew to a close and quiet descended on the castle. But he could never leave it out for long. In the end, he always had to know why he had done it, why he had stood before a madman and pledged his allegiance.

He told himself through the years that he had done it to prove to her how much better, how much more powerful, he could have been than Potter, as if it had somehow been her choice that sent him there. But that was not true; it had never been true. He had done it because he had felt, when school ended and she married, the same way as he had that day on the grounds as the filthy word had slipped from his lips, that same crushing anger, that same fucking helplessness, that she would not love him, and he could not make her. And he refused to be helpless, and he refused to be weak. He had seen what love and weakness could do. And so he chose its opposite. But it was too late.

It was too late to unlove her. He had known her friendship, known her good and simple heart, and it was too late to unwant what he could never have had in the first place. And when he delivered the prophecy, when he realized what he had done, the only thought in his head was, No. No. This could not be allowed to happen. He had known already that he had destroyed his own life, thrown it away on some crazed teenager's fantasy of love, and he could not go on if his stupidity took her life, too.

So he had gone to Dumbledore. Dumbledore, the only man powerful enough, good enough, Snape's younger self had thought, to stop it. He had no wish to include this memory, to unman himself as completely as he had on the hill before Potter's eyes, but there was no choice. If Potter was to believe, he would have to see it, and reluctantly, Snape pulled the silvered memory from his temple and dropped it in with the others.

But she had died anyway. She had died because of what he had done, died because he had betrayed his only friend. There was a tiny part of him, a small, mostly unexamined part, that wondered if he had not joined the Dark Lord to make her angry. As if to say, Look at me, Lily Potter. Look what you made me do. You could have saved me, but now I will be this. And it was that part of him that haunted the first hours that followed her death. Was it possible that he could have been so reckless, so petty, as to destroy them both in a fit of temper? Had he killed the only person who had ever shown him kindness because he had been jealous? For that had always been like him, hadn't it, to smash the toy he could not play with? Self-loathing washed over him, as heavy and strong as it had been that night.

The grief--there were no words for it. It was impossible to describe, to catch in a single memory. Voldemort had fallen, but that was not enough. Nothing would be enough until he himself were dead in penance. If Dumbledore had not summoned him that night... had not given him a way forward... something to do to try, however impossibly, to make up for what he had done... he was certain he would not have survived the night. He dropped the memory into the bowl.

Was he doing it again? he wondered. Would this hurt Hermione? Would his last act in the world be to destroy his wife, to break her heart as cleanly as his had been broken? He thought of her again as she had been the night in the tent, how calmly she had spoken of his Patronus.

There was no memory of it, no way to tell Hermione that his Patronus had changed the night Lily had died, the night he sat in Dumbledore's office and felt the weight of what he had done settle around his heart. Dumbledore had made him a deal, and he had taken it. The Patronus came, he supposed, as a reminder of his betrayal and his pledge to guard Potter. Always. No matter what.

Which he had done. Had done, though Potter infuriated him, made Snape feel, as he looked on him, like the child in the train compartment all over again, somehow intrinsically broken and unworthy. He drew several memories of Potter's first years at Hogwarts from his mind... Quirrell... those horrible months in which the outline of the Mark began to reappear on his forearm... No, he had never faltered.

But now he was reaching the meat of the narrative he had been crafting, and he hesitated. He raised his wand to pull from his mind the night that Dumbledore had returned to Hogwarts with the cursed hand. He could stop it; he could stop the memory after Dumbledore had asked Snape to kill him. He did not have to reveal what else he had been asked. They could keep this secret--forever, if that was what she wanted.

But he found he did not want to keep this secret, and if he knew his wife, she would take steps to exonerate him even after his death. She took her vow seriously; he remembered, with mingled pain and affection, that she had stolen their marriage records, that she had wanted them, she said, for his trial. His trial. Did she really believe that there would be a trial? That he could bear one if there were? He had been on trial for seventeen years. He lifted the memory from his mind.

Then their wedding. Now, tears threatened him, and how could that be? How could it be that he could sit here and relive the betrayal and murder of his childhood friend, his love, without breaking down, and yet the memory of a rather hostile exchange between himself and Hermione could find him on the edge of tears? There were things here... things he wished he could take back. And she... oh, he nearly laughed, despite the sorrow that gripped his heart in its jaws... she had said, I assure you that I have no more interest in your body than I have in the giant squid.

Hermione. He wanted Potter to see what she had undertaken, how pure that bravery was right from the very beginning. He wanted him to know how she had hesitated when Dumbledore had asked her to keep a secret from him, wanted Potter to hear her say that if she had known the marriage was to save him, and not Snape as she had been told, that she would have done it anyway. If only there was some way to tell her that he would do it all again, that he would take back his arguments and his barbs. If only he could take her hands and marry her properly, tell her that there was no other partner... that there had never been anything like her.

He raised his wand again. There were plans to relay, information that must be given to Potter--Hermione's parents, the idea of decoys planted on Mundungus Fletcher, the accident with George Weasley's ear. Nothing she wouldn't be familiar with, though Potter would likely find it all quite overwhelming. He smirked slightly. For the slightest second, he imagined what it would be like to face Potter after he had seen these memories. What a perverse pleasure he would take in watching the boy struggle to assimilate all this into his world view.

But any amusement that he might have felt was quickly squashed by the knowledge that next would be Dumbledore's revelation. He went over the memory slowly in his mind: the eerie, flickering darkness of the Headmaster's office after school hours when all else was quiet; the way Dumbledore had paced and lectured, his face pinched and tightened; and his words that, even in a memory, could still hold Snape breathless with horror.

Tell him that on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort's soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsing building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die.

So the boy... the boy must die? He had said.

And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential.

Snape would show him nothing else of Dumbledore. There would be no hint of the Elder Wand here, of all that had been revealed of Dumbledore's plans. Potter would need strength, not confusion, in his final moments, and Snape would not be the one to shatter the boy's image of the former Headmaster. Hermione could tell him after... if he lived. If she saw fit.

Hermione. With enormous regret, he drew his wand a final time and lifted from his mind the memory of sitting beside her in the tent, their hands interlaced as they went over her notes concerning the Horcruxes. That particular memory... he had hoped to die with that still inviolate in his mind. That was supposed to be for him alone. But if he had--if he had to choose a single thing, a single note on which to end his life, he would choose this. His face followed the silvery thread as it dropped into the bowl. He was unwilling to be without this memory for more than a few moments.

Snape traveled through the mire of his own memories. He watched, as if in death, his life as it played out before his eyes, and it seemed to him that there was a sort of horrible beauty to what he saw. It had been a life poorly lived, but it had been his, and in whatever strange and twisted ways he had allowed, he had loved and been loved.

As the final memory wound to a close, as he saw himself lean down and take Hermione's face in his hands, he saw the welcome in her eyes as he approached, saw her mouth lean in toward his. He took a step toward himself and watched their faces as their lips joined, saw her arms threading around his neck.

When the Snape in the memory broke away, he said, "Do you remember when I told you not to repeat our plans back to me? That things said aloud are harder to hide?"

And his beautiful, war-beaten wife had looked back at him with tears in her eyes and nodded.

Snape watched as he Disapparated from the tent, and then he felt himself rising, lifting out of the Pensieve and into his bedroom once more.

It was the only goodbye he knew how to give her.

***

Harry, Ron and Hermione had been planning for most of the day. Griphook had agreed to draw them a map of the underground tunnels and vaults. He would be accompanying them into Gringotts under the Invisibility Cloak to help them circumvent security. After that, it would simply be a race against the Polyjuice Potion.

She lay down on her bed. The room was empty; Luna was gone. How long had it been since she had had a room to herself? Not since the summer before her sixth year, nearly two years ago, now. Since then, there had always been someone--Lavender and Parvati, or Harry and Ron--and Hermione felt strangely lonely. She turned onto her side and looked at the empty bed where Luna should have been. She was with the Weasleys now, Hermione knew. She was safe, and she was with friends. That was what she wanted for Luna, of course, but she couldn't help but wish that she were here; Luna, with her squeaky voice and her odd pronouncements. Luna, who had seen Snape and could answer all her questions. How had he found them?

And as if she had called him into being by thinking about him, Hermione felt her ring burn. She removed it, suddenly glad to be alone.

The words inside were strange, but they called to something nearly forgotten in her. Say it.

Say it? Say what?

An image began to rise in her mind. Snape, flushed and damp, his hair falling around her face, his eyes wide.

Say it.

"Severus," she whispered.

At the sudden heat in her hand, Hermione removed the ring once more.

I am coming.

She hurried out of bed and slipped Harry's Invisibility Cloak from her bag, which had lain, forgotten, in the chair all day. Quickly, she wrapped herself in the cloak and tiptoed down the hallway, down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the night.

She ran across the hard ground toward the edge of the property line, feeling the tickle and bite of the grass and stones beneath her bare feet. When she crossed outside the bounds of the Fidelius Charm, her skin began to tingle.

"Severus," she whispered again, but he did not answer, so she thrust her arm outside the Invisibility Cloak and felt the smooth warm pressure of his hand as it slid into hers. He led her to the rocky cliff that overlooked the ocean, picking his way across the stones, never letting go of her hand. Finally, he seemed to have reached his destination and sat, and she joined him, letting the cloak slip from her shoulders and pool around her on the ground.

He did not speak, but she sensed his mood. There was a quiet sort of pain in him tonight, and as she sat beside him and dangled her legs over the edge, she knew that he had come to look at infinity with her.

The sat in silence, watching the waves crash relentlessly against the stones below. When she had been a child, before she had known magic, there had seemed to her to be magic in the sea, in its constant life and blithe disregard for the mortals who came to gaze on it. To the sea, their wars and struggles were but a single moment in the endless procession of time. Here, it did not matter who she had tried to be, or what would become of her, and there was comfort in that, though she could not say why.

She leaned her head against her husband's shoulder and felt the mingled warmth between them in the chilly air. The time was coming now, and she could not stop it anymore than she could stop the tide.