Disclaimer: Rest assured – if I were the owner of Harry Potter, I would not be writing fanfiction.
In Wondering
She sees him first.
He is standing near the back of the bookshop, submerged in the section on Magical Theory. She is closer towards the front of the store, absently flipping through the pages of A Catalogue of Common Household Charms (she really does need to find a better spell for cleaning pots and pans; scourgify just tends to wear the metal through, after being so often used) – but her eyes are no longer on the text.
How many times has she visited Diagon Alley, these past three years? And how many times has she wasted away the hours of her seemingly futile life, right here in Flourish and Blotts? Rarely, so rarely has she run into anyone she has recognized, anyone at all – and never, never has she come across someone from...before.
Yet here he is, as indisputably real as the shelves of books by which they are both surrounded. Inching along the aisle in his direction, she studies him. He looks much like he always has, she supposes – tall, lean, black-robed and glowering. His face, framed by its dark curtain of hair (not a single strand of grey; but then, she can't imagine a man such as himself going streaky), is still long and narrow in shape, with its angular jaw – but his cheeks, she notices, are less hollow than they used to be, back in the days when he still lived the double life of a spy. His skin, too, appears healthier, more flushed in color, not quite as sallow (there is still the same slightly hooked, slightly overlarge honker of a nose, but it seems somehow less prominent now that he has a bit more meat and pigment to him). The lines framing his pale, thin mouth, however, are deeper than they once were, and the crows' feet crinkling the corners of his eyes are new.
These eyes, at least, seem to be the same as ever: bright and black, hard, glaring. They flash in her direction now as he looks up from a book, feeling the weight of her gaze; and he gives a little flinch, plainly startled, no doubt as he realizes who has been watching him.
She wonders what he is seeing now, as he fixates upon her. A thin girl – loose robes with patched elbows, calloused fingers gripping a chipped wand by her side. Sharp cheekbones for her, too, and those weary creases around tired, pursed lips; a limp, frizzy tangle of brown hair, and sad brown eyes, probably a bit duller than they had been the last time he had seen her.
She has aged a great deal, in these years following the war. She knows that he has, too, even if she cannot see it.
He steps closer, still holding that book now forgotten in his hand, still staring at her. "Hermione Granger," he says quietly. His voice is rather flat.
She gives a slight nod. "Severus Snape." The name does not hesitate in leaving her lips. The war had long ago leveled the playing field for all of them, and what with everything (fighting and killing and dying, her mind whispers, lying and promising and swearing, traitors and loyalty, trusting and not trusting and never knowing, just hoping, just believing – ) that had gone by, they had become equals in that, at least. Now they are equals in more than that – they have to be, when no one else is left to fill in the ranks.
He says nothing else, and after a few moments, simply turns away, towards the checkout counter. Frozen in place, she watches as he waits for the clerk to rattle off a total – watches as he counts out twelve galleons, three sickles, and one little bronze knut – watches as he picks up the book, now crudely wrapped in butcher's paper, and heads for the door.
She moves forward to intercept him, stopping him with a hand on his arm. His face, when he turns slowly to look at her, is carefully guarded, but she can see the tiny flame of desperation in the black well of his eye. It had once been the case that no one could read a thing from his expression, not even those that knew him best – but it seems that he is out of practice, now: both without the war, and without anyone left to bother with knowing him best.
She regards him for a long moment. "Tea, perhaps?" she offers at last.
She knows how it will unfold: they will go off together and find a table in a small, obscure cafe, or maybe even in the Leaky Cauldron, and they will sit and eat their food, and neither one of them will speak a single word – and in doing this, they will say all that they have need to say. What is the point in winning a war when all you can remember is what you have lost? she will think, and he will understand this even when her lips remain shut. We are the only ones that remain, his eyes will then wordlessly agree, obliquely answering the question that she does not even have to ask.
Now, however, his head dips briefly in a curt nod, as she had known it would; because he must feel it too, the loneliness, the desertion, the despair. "That would be tolerable," he grinds out, starting again for the door, and she follows, her hand still on his arm.
They will go to eat, and they will pick at their meals, and they will get caught up in the memories of what used to be. They will wonder what it would have been like if things had wound up differently: if there had been no war – or if Voldemort had won – or if everyone else had survived.
They will wonder – bitterly, angrily, wretchedly – where the purpose in living has gone. And they will wonder – grievingly, painfully, helplessly – why, in order for Voldemort to be destroyed, all the others had to be destroyed, too.