Chapter Thirty

A/N: Everything you recognize belongs to JKR. I make no money. Thanks and hugs to my incredible beta, Shellsnapeluver.

She sat for a moment, completely immobilized. He had gone. Which was right, of course. But suddenly she felt a violent sort of hatred for the tent, for its familiar walls and smells. She hated the pink glow of the canvas as the sun rose through it; she hated that horrifically ugly chair with its musty velvet upholstery and idiotic lace doily. She hated the place where he had sat beside her, as he was no longer in it. For a moment, the cramped, uncomfortable space that she'd been sharing with Harry for so long had felt like home, and now that it was back to being itself, she hated it for what it could not be.

With regret, she vanished the table, packed her notes away and lay down in her bed, which now smelled of him in a way that she found maddening instead of comforting. She pressed her face into her pillow and breathed the scent of his hair and felt like hitting something.

When she heard crunching footsteps in the distance, she sat up and took a last look around the room to make sure that no evidence of Snape's visit had been left forgotten. Harry would come with the sword, she realized. They would be smashing the Horcrux tonight. But as she rose and started toward the tent flap, she heard a second set of footsteps. A second voice, quiet, but cheerful, and Harry was leading it right to the tent.

Ron. It was Ron. She'd left the wards down so that Harry could find his way back, and now Ron had found them as well. She had the sudden urge to replace the enchantments immediately, to make them see how it felt to be outside them, alone and afraid of never getting back.

"Hey, why can I see the tent?" Ron said as he and Harry stepped into the clearing.

"Dunno," Harry said. Then, he yelled, "Hermione?"

She exited the tent flap and stood there in front of it, hands on her hips. "Come back, have you?" she asked icily.

"Hermione! We've got the sword! And we smashed--"

"Couldn't have told me where you were going? Didn't think how I'd feel waking up and finding you gone?" There was a part of her that knew she was saying these things because it was what they would expect her to say. For all they knew, she'd been lying here, sleepless for hours, wondering where Harry had gone. But there was another part that was so tired, so angry, so goddamn lonely for him already, and it just shot out of her like some poison she had to be rid of.

"Oh, erm. Sorry about that. And, um, Ron's back, as you can see."

"Yes, I've noticed. So you saw Ron and just went running off into the woods?"

"No, Hermione, there was this Patronus--it just came from nowhere! And I knew, somehow, that I should follow it. So, I--"

"Whose Patronus?" she spat.

"I don't know. It was... it was a doe..." Harry had gone slightly starry-eyed.

"You followed an unknown Patronus into the woods?"

"Well, yeah. Like I said, I just knew it was meant for me. And it was good, Hermione; you could tell it was good. You know? Like the person who cast it was friendly, was trying to help."

So, his Patronus was a doe. There was no time to think of that now, so she filed it away for later contemplation. But it was impossible for her not to smile a bit inside at Harry describing Snape as friendly.

"So a 'friendly' Patronus came, and you decided it would be fine to just leave here without letting me know or asking me to help you find your way back. So, tell me, what happened after you'd made those brilliant decisions?"

Harry's enthusiasm was starting to wane. He looked to Ron for help. Ron opened his mouth, but Hermione raised her wand. "I'm not ready to deal with you yet, so just keep quiet!" Ron shut his mouth with a snap.

"Go on," she ordered Harry.

"Well, the Patronus--and I swear, you would have followed it too, Hermione. It was... well, lovely isn't quite the word I mean." But Hermione raised her wand again, and Harry hurried to continue. "The doe went into the woods... and I--don't be mad; it turned out well--well, she went to a pool, this frozen pool--and I looked in, and it was there!"

"The sword of Gryffindor was in an iced pool, what, a mile from our tent?"

"Give or take, yeah. And I saw it in there, so I cracked the ice and--"

"Dove in like a total nutter without even taking the Horcrux off," Ron finished.

"You did what? Without a Warming Charm or--"

"And then Ron saved me. And got the sword." Harry looked at Ron, who smiled back gratefully.

Hermione was silent. She turned to Ron at last. "How did you find us?" she hissed.

"I've been looking for you for ages, and then tonight I saw the doe, and I thought it was Harry doing it--"

"Forget the doe. How did you know to come to the Forest of Dean, Ron?"

"The Deluminator."

"Pardon?" she said sharply.

"It was the Deluminator. I heard your voice in it. And then I knew where to go, and--Hermione, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know it's no excuse, but the Horcrux--"

False anger was melting into real as she stared at the full, healthy, familiar face in front of her. "The Horcrux!" she shrieked. "The Horcrux! How dare you come here and complain about the Horcrux? Who's been living with it since you've been gone, Ronald? Do you think Harry and I have been enjoying the time we've spent with that bloody thing? In fact--" She whirled on Harry and stuck her hand out. "Give it to me."

"What?"

"The Horcrux--give it to me."

"I can't... Hermione..."

"You can't? Harry, I'm serious, I'm going to stab that thing right here, and I deserve to do it. I deserve to do it because I stayed. You think there aren't things at home that I miss? You think I didn't leave anything behind, Ron? I stayed. So give me that thing and let me pretend that it's you I'm stabbing."

"Hermione, you can't."

"Why not?"

"Because Ron already destroyed it."

"Ron destroyed it?" Her voice was reaching an untenable pitch.

"If you're going to go on screaming at me, I'd put the enchantments back on, because right now, I'm sure they can hear you at Hogwarts," Ron said, beginning to look angry himself.

Hermione's wand jabbed the air as she shot the protective spells in a high arc around the tent, glaring fiercely at Ron all the while. She turned back to Harry.

"And it worked? It's dead?"

Harry held out the broken locket, and Hermione took it. It lay open and benign in her palm. Both its glass windows--eyes, her mind insisted--were cracked and blank. It was dead. A huge, hitching sob burst from her chest.

Ron stepped toward her, but she shoved him away. She peered at Harry, who was looking frightened and embarrassed and was still clutching the sword of Gryffindor tightly in his left hand.

"It's dead, and we have the sword?" Her voice was quiet and trembling.

"This is what I've been trying to tell you," Harry said.

She looked back and forth between their faces. They were so pleased with themselves, and in time, she knew she would be pleased, too, but now she could only think of the man who had made this possible, who had defied everyone who had ever sought to control him to come here tonight and give them this hope.

"Then I'm going to bed," she said. "But before I do, I want to tell you something, Ronald Weasley. There are people out there who would do anything, risk anything, to help us. People who would die before they left us."

And with that, she turned and flung herself onto her bunk.

***

When Snape arrived back at Hogwarts, he went directly to the dungeons. He had not lived there for many months, and yet he still considered them his home. He was not yet ready to go upstairs for his debriefing. He wanted time to think things through before he was faced with Dumbledore. He wanted to relive his time with her in his mind, if only for a few moments.

The door to his old chambers still responded to his touch, and when he entered, it was difficult at first to see what had changed. His desk was still in its old place, his mother's rug beneath it. He proceeded into the living room. The bookshelves there had been decimated, and the hearth lay dormant, but the couch still sat before it, and he sank onto it and let his head rest against the firm back.

The room seemed to hold him in its thrall. It seemed to him that, here, he was still himself, and that when he left it, he would be impossibly diminished. He closed his eyes.

When he woke, his hand flew to his wand instinctively. Where was he? Had he been sleeping?

Pain brought it all back. The Forest of Dean, Hermione, and then his chambers, yes... The ring was burning. He flicked his wand at a lamp and removed it.

Three down. Four to go.

So the sword had worked. He was vaguely glad, but it seemed he could not muster the strength to feel much of anything. Three down. Four to go. He tried to picture Hermione in her bunk, sending him these words beneath her bedclothes. How had she meant them? Were they words of comfort, of strength? Was she counting down to some unimaginable time in the future when the war would be over?

He could not imagine what that world would be like. There had never been a moment of his life when the world had not seemed to be waiting for Voldemort. Waiting for him to rise, waiting for him to fall, waiting for him to return, to seize and plunder and vanquish. Waiting. If Voldemort were dead, if he were truly dead, what would happen? Would he get up in the morning and return to these rooms? Would he teach Potions to children? What would be the point of anything?

Three down. Four to go. Had she meant the words bitterly? Was the countdown, for her, now about Potter, about the moment when he would fall? Snape's head hurt. For a moment, in that dirty little tent, he had felt he was doing something meaningful. After all this time, something that would help. As he'd looked at her notes and volunteered what he knew, he had felt calm and strong. Powerful. But now it seemed that he was rushing down the same blind tunnel that he'd been careening down for years, toward an ending he could neither see nor believe in. He was somehow rendering himself obsolete, erasing himself.

It was not the sacrifice that troubled him. He had understood for a long time the value of his life. The day that he had agreed to turn spy for Dumbledore, he had known, had understood, that he would die doing it. And that had been all right, hadn't it? He would pay, and then he would die, and the pain would end, and that seemed like reward enough for services rendered. No, he was not troubled by dying. It was something else, something that he could not name that plagued his mind. It was this countdown, this sense that the end was approaching, and that he felt no relief.

He stood. What was he doing down here in this empty room, staring into a nonexistent fire, sleeping, for Merlin's sake? He had a job to do. He crossed back into the office and out into the corridor. But as he shut the door, he put a more complex ward on it. It troubled his mind to think that someone else could enter there, though he could not explain why. The room seemed to tug at his mind like something almost forgotten.

As he made his way down the empty corridor toward the staircases, he saw Minerva coming toward him. He wanted to turn swiftly down the next hallway, but he was too close to her. She would know he had seen her, and he had no wish to appear as if he were running from her.

"Minerva," he said as she approached.

"Headmaster," she retorted with a dismissive nod.

"You have business in the dungeons?"

"I could ask the same of you."

"I am the headmaster, Minerva. This school is my business."

She glared at him. "Indeed."

He began to walk away, but she called him back sharply. "Snape!"

He spun on his heel, feeling the familiar lift and swish of his robes as they settled around him.

"Why did you do it?"

"I would think that would be perfectly obvious."

Her face contorted. "We trusted you."

"And I trusted you," he said with a malicious little smile. "People can be so disappointing."

He turned and strode away, but not before catching a glimpse of McGonagall, mute with rage, two spots of color burning high on her cheeks.

As he entered the stairwell to the Headmaster's office, he did not climb the stairs, but allowed them to carry him up, taking the few extra moments to calm his breathing. What had he been doing today? He'd allowed McGonagall to get under his skin and had hinted without restraint at that which he knew he must not reveal. He had allowed Hermione to strip him of all his defenses, all his masks, all his protection, and then he'd returned to the castle and fallen asleep in a strange room. He was cracking. He was cracking, and he needed to shove these strange and insidious feelings of discomfort back down into some unexamined place in his gut. He opened the door.

"You're late. Were you successful?" Dumbledore asked as soon as he had entered the room.

"I was," Snape replied evenly. "Potter retrieved the sword."

"And does he know you gave it?"

"No. Potter remains blissfully ignorant of the source of his aid, as do all your loyal servants, Dumbledore." Now he was baiting Dumbledore. He had to get out of this room.

"I take it you have seen Hermione?"

"Whatever gave you that impression?" Snape asked coldly.

"Because you have the manner of a man who has seen the gates of heaven slammed shut in his face. I am glad it was not Riddle you returned to tonight."

"Tread carefully, Dumbledore," Snape growled. "I have tolerated--"

"You have tolerated much more than most men could bear, Severus, and you have done it with grace. Now is not the time to fall to pieces."

Snape looked at Dumbledore, sitting as he always did in that godforsaken chair, his blue eyes calm and steady. He would try. Goddammit, he would try.

"No. No, surely not. There is much left to be done."

***

In the morning, Ron, clearly angling to get back on her good side, volunteered to go looking for food. He seemed a bit nervous about leaving the circle of enchantments, and Hermione only raised an eyebrow when he asked if she would really let him back in, but Harry assured him that he would be waiting near the tent flap. When he had gone, Harry said, "Do you have to be so hard on him?"

"Hard on him? Harry, he--"

"I know. I was here the whole time, Hermione. Believe me, I remember."

"Then why are you so willing--"

"Because, listen, sit. Because of what happened out there."

"Because he saved your life? Harry, please don't take this the wrong way, because I'm awfully glad you didn't drown in some ice covered pool, but--"

"Shut up."

"What?"

"Shut up and listen to me, Hermione. You may not agree with me, but you're going to hear what I have to say."

Hermione looked at him, wide-eyed. She and Harry had been so careful over the last several weeks never to be sharp with one another, because to do so felt too dangerous, as if at any moment they could splinter apart as well and find themselves totally alone. But Ron's return seemed to have broken that pact, and as surprised as she was, it felt good to be with Harry again, instead of some polite boy who tried to stay out of her way.

She sat down in the ugly velvet chair and watched as Harry paced before her.

"Go ahead."

"We both knew that Ron was more affected by that Horcrux than we were."

Several arguments sprang to her mind, but as soon as she opened her mouth, Harry shot her a look that silenced her.

"And I think I know why, though I can't explain all of it."

"Oh?"

"Something's different about you."

"What?" Was he going to blame this on her somehow?

"Hermione, I've known for a long time that there's something you're not telling me."

Panic gripped her. Her cheeks felt hot, but her chest felt cold and fluttery. "Harry--"

"No. It doesn't matter. You don't have to deny it, and I don't expect you to tell me what it is. But I know that there's something out there that's grounding you, that's keeping you fighting--"

"Harry, I--"

"Stop. I'm not saying that you don't care about the war. I know you want to see our world free of him. I know that. You wouldn't be here with me if you didn't. But there's something else. Something at the end that you want, and you keep going even when it's impossible because you are determined to get there. I see it in your eyes. I saw it when we were in Godric's Hollow with Nagini--death just was not an option. You were so brave."

Hermione felt so many things at once that it was impossible to speak. She wanted to sing, to scream, to fly across the room and hug the life out of her friend.

"And I know it because I have that, too."

"Oh, Harry."

"I have that in Ginny. I'm going to get back to her, Hermione. I'm going to. And when I'm scared, and when I hate it all and I wish that we could just go home or go into hiding for real and give this all up, then I close my eyes and I see her face, just looking at me like she did the day of Dumbledore's funeral, like she just knew what I was going to do, and she knew... she knew me."

Hermione nodded. Would he get back to Ginny? Would he? She made a silent vow to Ginny that she would see to it, that she would make sure he did.

"I don't know what it is for you, but for me, it's Ginny. And the Horcrux knew it. That Horcrux... it made me think terrible things. You know what I mean. Terrible things. Things that made me want to die, to kill her, to kill myself... I thought--"

"I know what you thought," she said and her voice was choked and strained.

"Yes. But when I took that thing off, the truth came back, you know? As soon as it was gone, I knew it had been fake... because that feeling--it doesn't just go away, does it? You can't break it; you can't mutilate it. It's always there. And lies don't touch it."

"It was like that for me, too," she said quietly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I knew it was. You'd take it off and that haunted look would just go away. But for Ron it isn't like that--for him it doesn't end. I don't know why, exactly, but I think... I think it's because he doesn't have whatever we have."

"What do you mean? He's got his whole family... and us... and Lavender. It's not like--"

"Ron's not as articulate as you are, Hermione, but he's not dumb, and he knew--he knew somehow that something was different for you and me. Whatever he's got with Lavender... I don't think it's the same. And I guess, because he could see that we were somehow... stronger, or more whole than he was, he thought it was us."

"I don't understand."

"He thought it was us. That we were in love."

"What?" Her voice was sharp across the stillness.

Harry gave her a bemused half-smile. "I know. But you can see that, right? How he would think that? And because he didn't have anything true to replace it, anything to carry in his heart... it just took him."

"But that's just ridiculous."

"I know, but think about it. He could see that the Horcrux wasn't affecting us as badly, and the more it hurt him, the more horrible he became, so we started sticking together more, comforting each other, you know. And it started to tell him that we didn't need him, that we hated him, that we wished he would leave... he started to see things that weren't there, he started to imagine these... these sounds at night..." He blushed, but went on. "But you know how that thing was; it stole the truth and warped it, until all he could see were the lies. And it's hard out here, Hermione. It's so hard. And if you and Ron were together, I don't know how I could stand it, to be so alone..."

How perverse, how wrong to feel lucky. To feel lucky to be rotting in a tent, nearly killed every time you tried to venture out. To feel lucky to be married to a condemned man, a hated man, whom you could not see. But lucky was what she felt for a moment, and she tried to imagine what it might be like to try to do this without Snape burning away inside her chest and found she could not do it.

"He thought... he thought we were going to leave him. It's why he wouldn't leave the tent, wouldn't help with anything. He was sure that if he did, we'd go--together--and leave him there..."

"No," she whispered.

"Yeah."

Harry ceased pacing and sat down on the ground in front of her chair. He looked at her seriously. "When I opened the locket, just before he stabbed it, Riddle tried to fight."

"What--?"

"These horrible... things... came out of the locket. They looked like you and me. And they laughed at him together... they said we were glad he was gone, that we were happier without him... they said..." He didn't finish. "Well, I know what that would have done to me. Sometimes... you guys are the only family that I have, and when I think about what it would have been like if we hadn't--"

Hermione dove out of the chair and took Harry by the arms. "I get it," she said. "Okay. I get it. Stop."

She looked at Harry, at his dear, earnest face, and she saw how badly he needed her to accept this, to take Ron back, to be three again. "Okay," she said again.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening. When they heard Ron's crunching footsteps approaching, Harry rose, but she pushed past him and went to the flap. She stuck her hand through the wards, and Ron seized it, and she pulled him back inside the circle.