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Chapter 3: Pursuit
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Hermione waited on the hill, feet growing cold. The grass was still damp from morning dew, the mists rising from the valley below tinged pink in the early morning light.
She compulsively touched the leather satchel at her side once more. The additional Boomslang skin had not been easy to acquire; her habitual supplier had gone silent in the last few months.
She maintained a web of contacts that she used to procure potions ingredients; of course, she didn't know any of their real names. Nor did they know who she truly was. She left Muggle money in a specified location, and the next day Lacewing flies or Knotgrass or Fluxweed would appear, tucked carefully inside a box or an envelope.
The neighbors must think she was buying drugs. Better that than the truth: she was the other that many of them so feared.
The ritual of brewing Polyjuice Potion was one of the few things that still tethered her to magic. It was the one potion that she would risk brewing, hidden away in the darkest corner of her cottage.
She lived an otherwise fully Muggle existence. It was safer that way. Simpler.
Hermione started as he emerged from the pines, wreathed in the light from the rising sun, reaching to draw down the hood of his heavy overcoat.
She was surprised to see that he wore no disguise.
"Good morning, Professor."
"I am no longer anyone's professor, Granger," Snape replied, more weary than biting.
It was a situation with no script. She felt like a small child or a recluse, so unaccustomed to meaningful social interactions she hardly knew how to behave. It had been so long since she had spoken with someone who knew who she was, so long since she had engaged in any sort of conversation beyond everyday prattle.
It seemed like an eternity later when he prompted, "The Boomslang skin, if you please."
"Yes, of course." She realized she had been staring at him.
Hermione handed him the neatly packaged Boomslang skin, he held something out in his other hand as he took it: Muggle money, fastidiously folded.
"Oh no, sir. Please, just take it. I don't need the money."
His lips pressed together tightly, and she realized that she had said precisely the wrong thing. She forged on, "It's only, I haven't met anyone from our world in so long. Nearly five years."
Silence met her pronouncement.
Snape lowered his hand in surprise; black, flat eyes scanning her face. Although she had altered her appearance for the journey to the Hermitage, no spell could disguise her bone-deep exhaustion.
"I thought you were dead," she said, voice raw, "After the first time, at the cathedral, I thought I was going mad."
Snape opened his mouth as if to say something, and then shut it abruptly, eyes hardening as he scanned the clearing. Then his eyes snapped to hers and she knew, suddenly. They were being watched.
He pulled up his hood and took her hand, starting down the forest path without a word.
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Hermione followed, still pulled along by his hand, struggling to keep up with his long, purposeful strides, resisting the impulse to glance behind her.
They made their way through the silent forest, bright morning light filtering through the pines, moss soft underfoot, her heart hammering out an erratic rhythm in her chest. When they reached the road, Snape stopped long enough for her to catch her breath.
"My home isn't far," he spoke softly without looking at her, lips barely moving, his gaze still fixed across the road.
Without waiting for her response, Snape led them over the road, through a copse of trees, and into a small, tidy neighborhood. Only when they reached the second house on the left did he let go of her hand, deftly pulling out the key to unlock the front door.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see the man who was following them, stopped and contemplating them from his position in the middle of the road, 100 metres away. She stared resolutely at Snape's long, pale fingers as they fit the key in the door, refusing to turn her head and meet their pursuer's gaze.
Then the door shuddered open and they were inside.
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She was unsurprised to find that Snape's house was sparsely furnished and oddly empty; all of her temporary homes in the last five years had been the same.
"It doesn't seem that he overheard anything damning," Snape said as he turned to her after carefully locking the front door, "Otherwise he would have been undoubtedly more aggressive in his pursuit."
His mouth was set in a grim line.
Hermione could see the man through the window. He was still standing in the same place, now watching the house with wary eyes.
"He knows," she whispered with sudden surety, panic flaring in her chest.
"Come away from the window," Snape said tersely.
She forced herself to walk calmly, normally as she followed Snape into the kitchen, fighting the rising fear; a wholly different type of fear than the constant fear she had experienced over the last five years. That was a slow, gnawing, ache; this was a hot fire that threatened to burst through her bones and take control of her completely.
She took a seat at the table as he began opening cupboards, the fear vibrating and pulsing under her skin, ready to snap.
"Drink this," Snape said shortly as he put a pewter mug down on the table.
When Hermione eyed it suspiciously, he clarified, "It's only tea, Granger."
The utter banality of Snape offering her tea in a situation like this was so jarring that she almost laughed.
"I've never been found out before," she remarked to herself with something close to surprise, "I've always moved on before they could become too suspicious."
He lowered himself into the seat across from her, the hard planes of his face lit by the mid-morning light that filtered through the foggy kitchen window.
"I have," he said plainly, bringing the cup of tea to his thin lips, "Twice."
"What did you do?"
He considered her for a moment, dark eyes unreadable, then he answered, "I left, obviously."
Hermione contemplated this information as she sipped her tea in silence and he rose from his seat to pace the room. She had lived in Dunkeld for almost a year; it had almost started to feel safe.
"Our unwelcome friend has retreated," Snape observed from the window, "Doubtless to gather reinforcements."
He turned to her, his profile backlit, his face shrouded and inscrutable, "Do you have anything you need to fetch from your home or shall we leave directly?"
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