Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

***

Albus beat her soundly in chess twice, and by the end of the second round, she was feeling pleasantly numb and distanced from all the previous drama. Her eyelids felt heavy and sore, but the tears had since dried.

"Checkmate."

Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled, and Hermione knocked over her king.

"Are you thinking of a third round, or will you let me give him a good thrashing, m'gel?"

Hermione looked up to see the face of Moody. She got up from the chair, and Moody laboriously eased himself into it. Hermione sat off to the side, head propped up in hands. Moody gave her a sidelong glance as she set up his pieces.

"You've got a storm cloud on your face, gel."

Hermione shrugged. "Moody?"

"Hmm?"

"I've noticed there are no Death Eaters here, except for the Malfoys. Why is that? I thought the Underworld wasn't split up into heaven and hell."

"It's not."

Moody jumped his knight around the board, taking out a white pawn. He carefully placed it to the side, never taking his eyes off the game.

"They aren't here for the plain and simple fact that the death they imagine is not this. They feel they deserve a different end. It's nothing inferior or superior to the Elysian Fields, it's just different. Different souls call for different resting places."

Hermione looked thoughtful, taking a moment to respond.

"The Malfoys?"

Moody sneaked her a gnarled smile before ruthlessly taking Dumbledore's bishop.

"Still curious about them?"

"Yes, they almost seem like they don't want to be here. They just shut everything out."

Moody laughed as his errant knight pounced on Dumbledore's queen.

"They are here because when Draco passes, he will come here."

That moved something in Hermione, and she fell into a contemplative silence. The chess game progressed steadily onward in front of her, and Moody soon made short work of the white pieces on the board.

"You should really be asking how Severus got down here, gel."

She looked up at him questioningly, and he gave her a knowing look, eyebrows raised.

"He had less reason than the Malfoys to think he belonged here, but he managed to find his way."

Moody moved his knight and casually looked up at Dumbledore.

"Checkmate."

***

Hermione's eyelids had grown too heavy for her to keep them open much longer. She walked away from the chess game until she found another lush clearing in the field. She lay down on the gray grass, her head spinning for a moment, and fell asleep.

She was still the only one to sleep in the world of the dead.

She didn't know how much time had passed when she slipped into consciousness again. She woke with sleep grit in her eyes and the sour taste of dried spit in her mouth. Her head wasn't throbbing anymore, but it still felt muddy. She allowed herself plenty of time to open her eyes and sit up. She rubbed the grit from her eyes, wistfully banishing all notions of drinking river water, gamely swallowing in an attempt to ease her dry throat.

"There's still one thing I can't remember."

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked behind her to see Severus sitting several feet away. He looked leery of her, wanting to maintain their distance, so she stayed put. He must have been watching her sleep again.

"What can't you remember?"

It struck her that despite what had happened, and all the angst she had caused, he was still drawn to her and still found it difficult not to come near. There was such a disparaging distance, though, from his curious hands wanting her warmth to the physical barrier he maintained now that it made her chest constrict and feel heavy.

"I did something toward the end. Something ... big, something I don't think I got over, and it made it difficult for me to see things through to the very last. It continually escapes me."

"What do you remember?"

"Sitting in the Headmaster's office, but in the Headmaster's chair. It confuses me."

She grew quiet, and he lifted up an eyebrow.

"If you have any idea, you best come clean about it."

"The Headmaster was killed."

Snape blinked slowly.

"Who?"

"You did it."

His face dropped. The sudden hopelessness that overcame him frightened her.

"Severus, it was all planned. Dumbledore wanted you to kill him...he was going to die from a curse anyway. He asked you to do it."

Severus had lowered his head so that all she could see was a curtain of his black hair. He remained very, very still.

"Severus?"

"By my hand. Dead by my hand."

He started laughing. The sound was guttural and full of such sourness and bitterness that Hermione felt her mouth pucker. He shook with this terrible, overwhelmed laughter and then abruptly stopped. Hermione regarded him warily, disturbed.

"And another plan of his, just brilliant."

"Severus, it's okay. He was going to die anyway, it was all thought out first..."

"No, no, Hermione; it's damning."

He looked up, strands of his coal black hair obscuring his face. His voice sounded hollow, his eyes looked on the verge of fresh anger.

"He may have used me, but he was probably the most essential person in my life after Lily died. He gave me a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth. I had hoped that by doing as he asked me, I may have found some semblance of happiness again."

Severus leaned forward, mouth twitching.

"But I killed him. I killed that. And it's worse that I did it because he asked me. That just shows I had no will to refuse him, to do something for myself and my sanity."

Severus then sighed, suddenly deflating. Any anger or rage he had could not be sustained, as he had no strength or energy left for them. Instead he emanated a perpetual sadness and resignation.

"I should have died years earlier than I did."

Hermione swallowed hard. "Don't say that."

He looked up at her with hollow eyes, almost as if surprised to see her there.

"Perhaps even in the womb."

Fingers tugging through blades of grass, he stood up and looked up at the sky. He walked away from her, torn grass falling to the ground as they escaped his fingertips.

His skin was gray, his face was gray, and the breath he exhaled was gray.

"Severus, wait."

Hermione struggled to her feet and was stopped by the gaze of dead eyes.

"You need me to be angry about my life. I don't know why."

"Not your life, but your death."

He shrugged, unmoved.

"Regardless, I'm too tired to indulge you any further."

She let him walk away from her undisturbed.

***

If it could be said that before Hermione arrived Severus had been stripped of any warring passion, then it could also be said that after learning of the manner of Dumbledore's death, he had been stripped of all mild, gentle humour as well.

He fell into a state of quiet depression that had a note of finality to it. Whenever Hermione saw him, he was sitting by himself, eyes unfocused. He had become so gray that he could have passed for a shade in the Field of Asphodel. He allowed no one to come near and spoke to no one. He never looked up at her when she watched him.

He no longer hungered for her warmth.

When she asked Moody what she could do to have Severus come around again, he gave her an incredulous look.

"How in Merlin's pants am I supposed to know?"

When she tried walking right up to him, he just got up and walked another way. The Fields swallowed him up in their malleable pockets of space and time, and she did not see him until he would decide to re-materialise much later.

Even the Elysian sky began to turn grayer.

***

"The Weasleys' joke shop?"

"Famous. It makes ridiculous amounts of money. Lee Jordan decided to partner with George, and they run it together."

Hermione sat with Sirius by the gray riverbank. She was idly weaving blankets of grass together. He was chewing on the ends of some blades, still in pursuit of phantom taste.

"What are some of the best-sellers?"

"The Skiving Snackboxes of course. Getting business from Hogwarts alone pays their expenses twice over, but they've even expanded to other countries in Europe."

Sirius nodded, proud.

"I knew they'd do well."

Sirius was the only person left Hermione felt comfortable being around. She answered his questions tirelessly, glad for friendly company and the knowledge that at least one person hadn't sunk into desolation after she mentioned something about their life. If anything, Sirius thrived on all the dirty details.

"So what're the rest of them doing? Ginny?"

"She's playing for the Wimbourne Wasps. Keeper, I think, but she's moving up to Chaser soon."

Sirius had a wolfish grin on his face, nodding in appreciation.

"Quidditch girl, fantastic. And what about Ron? You haven't talked about him once."

Hermione saw Severus walk past in the distance out of the corner of her eye. She fell quiet.

"Hermione?"

"There's nothing really to say."

Sirius looked at her a little worriedly, wondering if he had said anything that upset her. She gave him a wry smile and plopped the woven grass crown on his head. It fell over his eyes and he smiled, lifting it off his face so he could see again.

She was nowhere in sight.

***

Lucius surveyed the scene through half-open eyes. He was leaning back on the rock, propped up by an arm with Narcissa curled up against him. They were like two regal cats sleeping in the sun.

"She's back again."

Narcissa didn't look up, feeling the hum of Lucius' voice with an ear against his ribcage.

"Not surprising."

Hermione knelt by the riverbank and collected cool gray water in her cupped hands. She walked reverently over to the Malfoys and held out the water in offering. Lucius regarded her in an unbearably long, tense moment before lowering his eyes, conceding to drink. Hermione thought the experience was rather like bowing to a hippogriff in the hopes that it wouldn't attack you.

Lucius' bottom lip followed the curve of her thumb, and the water disappeared into his mouth with the slightest of ebbs. The remaining half was offered to Narcissa, and she was similarly as dainty and graceful as he had been. Narcissa sat up, leaning into Lucius, and offered Hermione the space she had created.

Hermione sat down and fiddled with her robes, unnerved by their majestic stares.

"I came to ask about Severus."

"What about him?"

Hermione looked up at Lucius, who had spoken, then to Narcissa, and then back down at her lap.

"What can I do about him? What should I do?"

The Malfoys looked at each other, obviously not expecting the question. Narcissa looked at Hermione with a questioning, arched brow.

"You don't do anything."

"Do nothing? There's nothing I can do?"

Lucius snorted a little impatiently.

"Of course not. That doesn't even warrant questioning."

"So he'll stay this way forever?"

The Malfoys looked a little affronted at the panicked tone in her voice. Her excitability was disturbing their tranquil scene.

"Things always end a certain way, you'll understand what I mean soon enough. There's nothing for you to do, this is how it's always been."

They looked like they were quite through with talking. Hermione got up from the rock, rolling their cryptic words in her mind. She hoped whatever the 'certain way' things ended down here was, was far divorced from the events that had precipitated them.

"Well then who do you think it is?"

Remus trotted quickly alongside Tonks, serious for an answer, but still in a playful mood. She shrugged bashfully, hitting him on the nose with a leafy tree branch, making him yelp.

"Oh I don't know ... Sirius?"

"Sirius?"

Remus snatched the leafy branch from her, wrinkling his nose and playfully swatting her with it. She giggled, and he tossed a comradely arm around her shoulder.

"Well, I still say it was me."

"Oh please."

Tonks snorted, saw the look on his face, and started laughing again. Remus didn't look at all offended, and they amicably kept up their banter walking side by side.

Hermione had to remember to breathe.